The Holland Festival has been creating space for young thinkers, dreamers, and doers for many years. Through workshops, encounters, and tailor-made programmes, young people, students, and emerging professionals are introduced to performing arts from around the world. They meet artists, attend performances, and engage in conversations with one another about major contemporary themes. The Holland Festival’s youth programmes offer opportunities for creative development, the discovery of new perspectives, and the cultivation of an individual voice.
HF Lab x DEGASTEN
In HF Lab, fifteen young participants worked from March onwards on creating their own performance, guided by theatre makers and musicians Christopher van der Meer and Antonia Keersmaekers (DEGASTEN), and in co-creation with cellist Amber Docters van Leeuwen. The creative process began with a Deep Listening workshop led by guest tutor Dario Calderone and included several festival performance visits, including Where To From and Passing Remark.
The participants met associate artist Hildur Guðnadóttir twice and engaged with her in conversations about inspiration, artistic processes, and the importance of having the courage to share ideas. On 27 and 28 June, they presented their performance JÖRĐ four times in the small hall of Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Meer info.
To feel something, you must be grounded — connected to your surroundings and to the world around you. This is the starting point of JÖRĐ, the Icelandic word for “ground” or “earth”. Through physical theatre in which dance, text, and music flow seamlessly into one another — in true Holland Festival tradition — the young makers explored what connection can mean.
The journey began with a sense of wonder at the ground that gives us our identity and led, via a circular dance of attraction and rejection, to a yoga class experienced by one of the participants as so overwhelming and confusing that she hides beneath her mat. With complete commitment, the performers moved through a wide range of emotions, at times amplified by stomping feet or deep sighs. In the final moments, they ended up in one large tangle, piled on top of the yoga “dropout”. The ground beneath your feet is made up of the people around you.
HF Lab workshops
Listening as an active practice that can deepen your emotions, broaden your perspective, and spark creativity was at the heart of the HF Lab workshops organised at schools and youth organisations across various districts of Amsterdam, including Gerrit van der Veen College, Hyperion Lyceum, IMC Weekendschool, and Visio Onderwijs Amsterdam.
Students were able to immediately put their newly acquired knowledge into practice during Holland Festival performances. The guest tutors were Maaike van der Linde, Dario Calderone, Niels Vermeulen, and Anat Spiegel.
HF Lab production- and contentteam
Behind the scenes, young people were also given the opportunity to gain practical experience within the Holland Festival. Students from ROC Pact and Mediacollege Amsterdam formed part of the HF Lab production team and were responsible for the sound design and technical aspects of the youth performance JÖRĐ. They worked closely with the makers and performers throughout the process.
In addition, media production students created content about the Holland Festival. Commissioned by the festival, they explored how performing arts, the history of the festival, and the people working behind the scenes could be translated into creative and accessible formats for a young audience.
HF x CvA: On-site & Listening Diaries
Together with the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (CvA), the Holland Festival once again offered two talent development programmes: On-site and Listening Diaries.
Through On-site, CvA students were given a unique behind-the-scenes look at the festival. Through meetings with the Holland Festival team, masterclasses, conversations with artists, and performance visits, they were introduced to both the artistic and organisational sides of the festival.
Within Listening Diaries, nine students from the composition, pop, AEMA, and live electronics programmes presented new work inspired by the music and working methods of Hildur Guðnadóttir. The students translated their own memories, daily routines, personal stories, and fascinations into unique sonic worlds. The result was an intimate yet collective listening experience. During the immersive session, attended by Guðnadóttir, their work came to life through surround sound, live performance, and spoken word.
Writers Residency
The Writers Residency, a programme developed in collaboration with University of Amsterdam, was also centred around listening and exploring new perspectives. The project provides a platform for emerging voices and challenges a new generation of writers to develop a language for analysing, describing, and reviewing hybrid art forms for which an established vocabulary does not yet exist.
The participating students of Theatre Studies and European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, together with one DAS alumnus, wrote their first reflections within 24 hours of attending a performance. In a somatic workshop led by Natalia Amelia Saied, they explored how to engage with experiences that have not yet taken shape in words, but are nonetheless deeply felt. They also entered into conversation with Simon van den Berg, editor-in-chief of Theaterkrant, about the practice of arts criticism.
Read the pieces created during the Writers Residency
Practical experience
In addition to its artistic programmes — and the practical experience offered through the youth programme HF Lab — the Holland Festival also provides young people and students with opportunities to gain hands-on experience within the festival organisation itself. Through internships, young people are introduced to the wide range of professional roles involved in producing a festival.
Two students from Visio Onderwijs Amsterdam completed a short internship and advised the organisation on accessibility for young people with visual impairments. The festival also once again welcomed an education intern, who was part of the festival team from February through June.