Archive 1983

With 108 performances, the 1983 Holland Festival was richly filled. It began immediately with a scandal: the four-part series Attacks from the Extremes (Aanvallen van Uitersten) presented by Moniek Toebosch. On the very first evening, broadcast live on VPRO, half of the Radio Orchestra walked out, provoked by the deafening music of Glenn Branca.

Elsewhere in the festival were the then newly emerging Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker with Rosas Danst Rosas, numerous productions by Heiner Müller such as two different versions of Philoktet, as well as a comic opera about two rival kings, Der Schuhu und die fliegende Prinzessin by composer Udo Zimmermann. There was also an evening in which the music of Orlando di Lasso was performed alongside that of John Cage.

Japanese art in all its diversity took centre stage, from nō theatre to the then little-known butoh, and from traditional Japanese music for koto and shamisen to the more familiar music of Tōru Takemitsu.