Writing a blog that makes sense in one way or another during the Amsterdam Fringe Festival. Let’s call it a challenge. Luckily I am wearing a hat that keeps my brain from falling out, or else I would be scratching bits off the sidewalk as I run from venue to venue. Yesterday I found myself at the end of the day, somewhere 3 am in the morning, with a beer in the Fringe Afterzone wondering what I was doing there and how the hell I ended up there when I promised myself this would be the night I would sleep over three hours. But promises concerning health or sleep should actually not be attempted during a festival at all…
As the Amsterdam Fringe is half way through I can’t help but notice that the quality of the productions is rising with every year. Proof to me that the model is working and that Amsterdam hasn’t lost its funky, edgy and liberal spirit yet. Amsterdam has been a refuge for alternative thinkers since the sixteenth century. Hundreds of scientists, religious leaders, philosophers and artists came from all points of the compass to this easy-going, open port city. Here they were given the best possible opportunity to compose and disseminate their beliefs and their works of art. It has not always had an untroubled history, as recent developments prove, but Amsterdam, a city with a long multicultural tradition, should be unshakably convinced that artistic freedom and sincere respect for all kinds of beliefs and ideas must always be an absolute priority. The Amsterdam Fringe Festival takes as its starting point the historical and present-day position of the city of Amsterdam as a haven for freedom of expression, and the Amsterdam Fringe is intended as an international contribution to promoting performance as a cultural expression of this conviction.
The Amsterdam Fringe Festival specializes in productions that straddle (and sometimes go beyond) the polished edges of the annual National Theatre Festival, and was initiated five years ago as a reaction to the official theater selection. The open application of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival is inspired by the conviction that the Netherlands was in need of an open and uncensored festival that opens up to a broad audience and appeals to artists from around the world. It’s a festival that is ‘owned’ by the performers and the audience and focuses on the direct dialogue between them without the interference of a curator or a jury. Or, to paraphrase John Stewart of the Daily Show in the mids of the Barack Obama inclusive marketing campaign: ‘There’s something weird going on in the streets of Amsterdam – It’s called eye-contact’.
The aim of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival is to match artists with an adventurous attitude with an equally demanding public and inform them about new developments in the world of theatre. It is aimed at the general public, artists and the professionals in the performance arts, in the conviction that the performance arts, open and uncensored, are important vehicles for a dynamic culture. The Fringe spirit is borderless in the sense that it does not coincide with the borders of a nation, establishment or genre. There are over 75 Fringe Festivals around the world that are not only in name, but also connected by a similar philosophy: the firm belief that creative encounters, cross-pollination and stimulation of artistic innovation is of vital importance to a dynamic, future-orientated and open society. An environment that includes the public and invites them to join the participating artists on this no hold barred adventure.
