Image Hannah Bults
In the middle of a circle, a woman dances with her eyes closed. She jumps to the driving rhythm of about twenty djembes, makes wide arm movements, sometimes she lets out a euphoric scream. The drum sound goes on and on, and the woman, who is well past fifty, seems to be entering a high state of consciousness. Not that anyone is surprised or surprised: radical self-expression is the norm at the Landjuweel festival.
This edition of Landjuweel is a special one: art colony Ruigoord exists fifty years. And, it was announced in March, Ruigoord may continue to exist for the next 25 years. There will even be more studios and in the next 10 years festivals may also be organized near the village that is sandwiched between port and industry.
Embrace the unexpected
Landjuweel is the annual highlight of the festivities on the former island. Hundreds of artists and volunteers spend about six months transforming the village into a maze where art and nature merge seamlessly for four days. A bar in a tree house, an intimate stage hidden in the reeds, a mini-theatre in a garden of one of the studios: the site is as chaotic as the program booklet, and that seems to be exactly the intention. Get lost, marvel and embrace the unexpected.
“This program comes about organically,” says Ruben Lodeizen. He has a studio on Ruigoord and takes care of the creative interpretation of Landjuweel. “Our community of artists is huge, everyone contributes ideas. If that fits even slightly with the principles of Landjuweel, then it is possible.” And so someone built a ‘chip restaurant’, where children can take a handful of chips, with a choice of three flavours. And in the “cosmic willow portal” someone is singing arias – or something similar. Walk a little further and you will come across a woman playing the recorder on a rug, dozens of people are peacefully sitting around it.
Klankhealing
The audience is exuberant, but uniformly dressed. The outfits seem to be an AI-generated mishmash of the aesthetics of Ibiza, Burning Man, the pop festival in Kralingen and a full moon party on a Thai beach. At least, that applies to the people who wear clothes at all: in the open-air spa everyone happily hops around in Adam and Eve costume. A little further on, a breathing session is about to begin, in a yurt people are doing sound healing. For those who come out, the chai tea is ready.
Landjuwel is about more than just a party. There is a tent where people talk about climate change and racism, and where films are shown about the struggles of indigenous peoples whose survival is threatened. Artists, musicians and activists have come over from Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, among others, and they parade across the site in parades, making music.
Round dance
There is also plenty to do for children, remarkably many with flowers in their hair: absurdist theater performances, acrobats who perform breakneck tricks and a tent for music and dance. Jesse de Bruyne proudly watches as his 4-year-old daughter enters the stage without hesitation and performs a confident round dance. “I think it’s important to bring her to this festival,” he says. “To show her that such places still exist in Amsterdam, places where you can be completely yourself, and where freedom is celebrated.”
In the ‘frayed edge’, the stage where a DJ plays psychedelic goa trance, it is about six hours of dancing. Here too many closed eyes, bare feet and arms that swing back and forth. Evening falls slowly on Ruigoord, the party will continue until well into the morning. A man with a painted face and a top hat is rolling a joint under a tree, a didgeridoo sounds in the distance.
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2023-07-29 19:13:40
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