Press Release
Amsterdam, June 6 2024
The 77th edition of the Holland Festival opened tonight in the presence of Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrix.
In the opening speech, festival director Emily Ansenk said that ‘the world's most urgent groundbreaking performing arts come together in June in Amsterdam. It can be here in all its multiformity. When you are 77 years old, and have lived through all sorts of eras, developments and governments, you are flexible and constantly changing. We move with the times, leading the way and at the same time rowing against the current:
avant-garde, cutting edge, groundbreaking, distinctive, never mainstream.'
The three works for the opening performance Rite of Spring, performed in the Gashouder, embody these words.
Greek visual artist and director Evangelia Kranioti uses Stravinky's masterpiece Le Sacre du printemps as the basis for her film, which she made for the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in 2023. Kranioti's film is a symbolic reflection on the extremes of Western civilisation in which, to Stravinsky's rousing rhythms, she fuses beauty and destruction into an intense experience.
Associate artist of this edition, Brazilian theatre and film maker Christiane Jatahy, used footage from her extensive film archive to create a new film inspired by American composer Caroline Shaw's composition Music In Common Time.
As an epilogue, Frank Ticheli's Earth Song was performed by Cappella Amsterdam conducted by Daniel Reuss. The compositions were performed by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karina Canellakis, and Cappella Amsterdam.
Other works by associate artist Christiane Jatahy, in the Holland Festival are:
Depois do silêncio, from 7 to 9 June at Frascati.
Crossings, on 15 and 19 June in Nelson Mandela Park and Noorderpark, respectively.
Hamlet - In the Folds of Time, from 21 to 23 June at ITA.
There will be a meeting with Jatahy on 8 June in de Balie, and an artist talk with two theatre-makers also from Brazil, Janaina Leite (Stabat Mater) and Carolina Bianchi on 23 June in Felix Meritis.
The Holland Festival takes place from 6 to 29 June at 21 venues in Amsterdam. The full programme can be found at www.hollandfestival.nl