Documents of and responses to workshops and programs at Rozentheater
From February-May 2010, I'll be having a look at what goes on at Rozentheater. On this page you'll find a series of observations, impressions and documents of those experiences.
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Rozentuinfestival, 12th-23rd April 2010
See Rozentuinfestival
On the first night of the festival, I met Naomi and Adam. As my Irish friend would say, they were “really good craic” (pronounced 'crack', but meaning that they were great fun and made everything enjoyable). They made an impression not only as talented and charismatic performers, but also as super people.
Notably, they dramatically offered me my first official Dutch lesson: “Kom, we gaan samen een biertje zuipen. Jij betaalt,” which basically means: Come, lets go have a drink; you pay.” Repeat Rozentuinfestival participants, Naomi and Adam along with Erik, Nino and Max had volunteered to play a guest set this night for another school. Their hiphop group PLeaSe will be back a few times over the two weeks of the festival.
See Rozentuinfestival for more on the festival.
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25th February – Niet Normaal Exhibition
I walked into Beurs Van Berlage expecting to join a group of high school students on a ‘normal’ tour of an exhibition. I envisioned following the group around, making some photos of them with the exhibit, and trying to communicate from time to time with an apologetic English. When I found Bettie, she said “great, you’re here!” and led me quickly down some steps to a sort of staff/prep room. “Put this on” she said, handing me a white lab coat with Niet Normaal researcher branded on the back. She quickly introduced me to Angelique who was similarly dressed, but also equipped with a mask and other items to protect her from the “normal” world outside. Within 2 minutes I had joined the group of clown-guides and was parading outside where the group of high school students was waiting at the entrance of the building. The students mocked us, but in a good natured way and immediately indicated a willingness to participate. We divided into groups and I marched off with Angelique, six teenagers and their teacher (a great teacher from what I could tell, willing to become one of the group, allowing the students to govern there own experience along with Angelique while being fully present with them). In those first two minutes after throwing on the lab coat, I had decided that I would be the speechless assistant only able to communicate with the group non-verbally--both appropriate and practical seeing as I couldn’t understand any of the words being used anyhow... The students accepted me and allowed me to tag along with them; they responded eagerly in the affirmative when I gesticulated my request to make picture of them along the way.
They were an insightful and thoughtful bunch: they were honest about their responses to Angelique’s pedagogical but not didactic questions, not trying to say what they thought they should say but also ready to be convinced of another point of view. One young woman talked about what she wouldn’t do but what she could understand someone else doing. There was one unique young man in the group though, who boldly (and a bit rebelliously) resisted the notions of discarding a narrow view of normalcy. This could have been interpreted as defiant behaviour but I thought instead that he might have been trying to make a point about what the word normal even means. That it means the norm or what society encourages and so no, if someone was unusual they weren’t normal. I didn’t think though that he was trying to say that what wasn’t normal shouldn’t be accepted or embraced. I think he pushed the boundaries of the discussion and made it more real.
On a few occasions, members of the groups were asked to align themselves by categorizing people or behaviours as normal or not normal: one interesting moment was when the majority of people had stood on the not normal side but changed their minds when asked: what if that person is happier behaving like that? then is it normal?
I am always wary about exhibitions that group together the work of or about marginalized groups (for example, as a feminist, I am not sure how I feel about exhibitions of say photographs ‘by women photographers’--I’m not sure what to think of those curatorial choices...). I didn’t spend enough time in Niet Normaal to really have a sense of how it worked or didn’t work as an exhibition or if I found the curatorial vision inspiring or problematic. What I did get from the experience was that it was a really worth while place of dialogue. Thanks to Angelique, the exhibition and the students’ own curiosity and sense of inquiry, the group was talking and thinking. You cant ask much more of an educational art program than that.
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5th February – Rozentheater school workshop
In February I sat-in on a workshop given by two Rozentheater facilitators: Laura and Maaike. This was the last of a workshop series for groups of teenagers from different schools around Amsterdam. In a 2-3 hour period each group devises, rehearses, videos and watches that video of, a story. It was an incredibly quick process that never would have worked had the students not shown such immediate engagement and willingness. I couldn’t get all the nuances of why this was but I sensed it had a lot to do with the respect that Laura and Maaike showed the group, the positive expectations they conveyed and the adrenaline that came along with the pacing of the project. It was explained that the recording of their scenes would be screened along with the projects of the groups from other schools and that an award would be given for the best project at a later event.
I’m not sure how much this possibility of a future prize motivated their work. It seemed to me that they were very much in the moment: participating, enjoying themselves and not too worried about the results. That said, they did love the material results in which they could see themselves. But it wasn’t possessing the object that they cared about but rather the experience of seeing themselves and just knowing that document existed. The obvious example of this was watching the video of the performance right after they had performed it, but another part of the session made this even clearer... I had been making photos all throughout the workshop. Laura had introduced me, explained that I couldn’t speak Dutch and asked everyone if they minded me making some documents. In general the students ignored me and when about what they went about, but towards the end of the workshop there was a time when everyone went up to a costume room to put on whatever each person decided was appropriate for the video (some choices more ‘appropriate’ or fitting the scenario than others). As the students ran about the small space in a frenzy, trying to try on as much of they could before going back downstairs, one of them, the one who had been labeled very clearly by his teacher as a trouble maker (I didn’t need to understand dutch to understand that) approached me to make a photo of him. I did immediately but then asked him to step into the light and make a proper portrait. He looked at the small screen on my camera afterwards, smiled, gave me the thumbs up and went back to what he was doing. After there were others who followed suit, also wanting their pictures taken, taking pleasure in looking briefly at the results.
The groups of students represented different levels of education as it was explained to me... It seems that these distinctions between schooling classifications sit at the forefront of peoples minds when they talk and think about education in the Netherlands. During the workshop I sat next to one of the teachers present. Spreek het Engels? I asked. He quickly explained to me that his group of students, who were mostly as young as 13 or 14, were in the 'lowest level' of education and that they would all end up working in kitchens or cafés. This was the first thing he said to me after affirming that he--like all of his students despite their 'academic inferiority'--could speak English. He said it to me as if to say: 'you can only imagine the trouble I put up with'. The next thing he told me was that they all had A.D.D. He scolded that first student who had asked me to take his picture for being disruptive to which Maaike responded, No, he’s fine, he’s participating... Unfortunately, that teacher taught me that “shut-up and listen” is universal in any language... It also seemed universal to me that the teachers ready to reprimand are the ones who invest the least; while his colleague stayed after the students had left to debrief the workshop with Maaike and Laura, this teacher left early, before the students watched their video.
Maaike worked with one group of students on creating lighting and sound for the story while the other group staged the story with Laura. Laura had a quite directorial method but she took her cues from what the students were expressing and extrapolated the blocking from their suggestions and objections. This was my first Dutch emersion experience. I had only been in Amsterdam for a few weeks and I hadn’t yet been in an environment where the conversation hadn’t shifted to English the minute I entered it. It so interesting in so many ways and quite the crash course. It made me wonder about the dramaturgical interest of not speaking the language while shaping and editing staged performance. What could I and couldn’t I understand in gesture? When were the bodies telling other stories?
