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What we do

What we do

Holland Festival is the largest international performing arts festival of the Netherlands and one of the oldest festivals of Europe. The festival was established in 1947 and will celebrate its 77-year anniversary in 2024. It takes places every year, In June, in and around Amsterdam, at various locations, both indoors and outdoors, both large-scale and intimate, both online and offline.

Artistic renewal, innovation and experimentation are the core values of Holland Festival. The festival presents groundbreaking shows by creators from all over the world and new developments in the performing arts. These shows aren't available anywhere else in the Netherlands: from theatre, dance, music, musical theatre and opera to multidisciplinary forms, and crossovers with visual art, digital art, photography and film. Since the establishment of the festival in 1947, its guiding principles have been: artistic renewal, innovation and experimentation. The festival thus manages to engage a large, new and inquisitive audience. In addition, it collaborates with many partners in and outside Amsterdam, organises talks, debates, masterclasses, exhibitions and presentations, meet-and-greets with the artists, tours of the front and backstage surroundings, online streaming - all providing in-depth, in-breadth and contextual food for thought, as well as entertainment (or partying/fun).

Artist-driven
Holland Festival is artist-driven. It places the creators centrally and presents performing arts to make you see, feel or experience other perspectives. Through the participation of many (inter)national artists, the festival takes you on an adventure, it surprises you and encourages you to think. The festival has worked with associate artists since 2019. They present their work and explore ways of giving the programme greater depth and of creating a sustainable connection between the artists and the city.

Associate artists
Since 2019, the festival has been working with associate artists. They show their own work and explore opportunities for in-depth programming and a long-lasting connection between the artists and the city. In addition to their work, the festival highlights themes significant to them, as well as artists related to them. The associate artist for the 77th edition of the Holland Festival is the Brazilian theatre director, filmmaker and writer Christiane Jatahy (Rio de Janeiro, 1968). Previous associate artists include ANOHNI in 2023, Angélique Kidjo and Nicolas Stemann in 2022, Gisèle Vienne and Ryuichi Sakamoto in 2021, Bill T. Jones in 2020 and Faustin Linyekula and William Kentridge in 2019.

Emily Ansenk, director of Holland Festival: '2023 will be the Holland Festival’s fifth year of collaborating with one or two associate artists on part of the festival programme. Each year, this collaboration brings interesting new themes and perspectives to the festival. Christiane Jatahy is a major theatre director and filmmaker whose recurring subject is Brazilian society in all its complexity. In her work, she acts not as an objective observer, but rather scrutinizes existing mechanisms with her keen, critical eye. She is attentive to marginalised groups and their stories, which deserve to be seen and heard. Hers is a unique visual language, where – using the camera –she constantly plays with the role of the audience, with reality and fiction, both visually and physically. With her knowledge of Brazil’s cultural context and her experience working with European theatres and classic texts, she will present not only her own new and existing work at the Holland Festival, but also introduce new perspectives and new artists, thinkers and musicians to the Netherlands.