32d Noorderzon Festival celebrates connection during its first full blown edition in three years

The main international programme of the 32^d edition of Noorderzon has been well received by both press and public. The NRC wrote: “With so much quality one can only conclude that Noorderzon 2022 is going to be an excellent edition” and the Volkskrant spoke about “Promising shows at the opening of the Noorderzon festival”. While compiling our festival line-up, an unintentional common thread through our programming became apparent: the quest for what it means to be a human being and how we as such relate to each other as well as to our environment. How can we reconnect with each other, reinvent ourselves and move forward together? In many performances this theme proved to emerge in different ways, proving that these questions have become even more relevant than ever in these post-corona times. Bruno Beltrão / Grupo de Rua from Brazil brought an explosive dance performance to Groningen as a resistance movement against the Bolsonaro regime, while Jeremy Nedd & Impilo Mapantsula also posed the same questions regarding suppression and exclusion via his dance performance. Silke Huysmans & Hannes Dereere and Back to Back Theatre confronted visitors in surprising ways with the maybe not so bright future of deep sea mining and artificial intelligence. Other performances exploring our role and our relations in this new world we’re living in were those offered by Out Innerspace Dance Theatre, Igor Cardellini & Tomas Gonzalez and Gosia Wdowik.

In different genre-defying ways many makers explored how we reminisce past times, a world that once was or isn’t the same anymore. Oligor y Microscopía managed to do this with his stunning melancholic object theatre show, Mariano Pensotti / Grupo de Rua by spectacularly visualising two different moments in life at the same, Wichaya Artamat / For What Theatre with a Thai depiction of normal lives in turbulent times and Antoine Defoort / L’Amicale with a funny, smart performance about ‘alive’ ideas and how to transfer these to somebody who’s been gone for the last two years. Dag Taeldeman & Andrew Van Ostade made visitors express their ‘knaldrang’ (Dutch for ‘intense need to party’) in an ecstatic dance ritual and Compagnie MPTA, Soon Circus Company and Compagnie 32 Novembre dazzled with their contemporary circus art, leaving their audience behind in joint amazement. Oscar nominee and filmmaker Sam Green let his visitors – after our past two years of silence due to corona – emerge in the world of sound as did the artist Rita Barbosa, who shed some light on the role of sound as well as its influence on our perception.

Besides the arts programme Noorderzon’s second festival pillar – the &Society-programme – explored various thrilling, unexpected, resonating and widely supported themes – often in much discussed and exciting ways. This year, visitors were tempted to learn how to taste things better by omnivore and culinary journalist Joël Broekaert. With director Martin Koolhoven they reflected on famous scenes from cinematic history and learnt what music does to your brain through neuro-musicologist Artur C. Jaschke. GRAS presented three discussions without the help of moderator about hope for our environment and with their Denken door Kunst (thinking through art) performance Arts in Society/RUG went on a quest as to how we view contemporary societal issues due to as well as through art. Studium Generale Groningen let Ad Vingerhoets (the ‘professor tears’) teach his its visitors how to get in touch with their emotions and theatre maker Veerle van Overloop told us about her special collaboration with young people in secured youth care facilities.

The literary and poetic Former Literaturia programme evolved entirely around great stories. There were no reading sessions, no interviews about yet another new book release, just merely passionate evenings full of surprises. Visitors set out for a “marathon” dash from the South Pole (with Adwin de Kluyver), to the Wadden area (with Saskia Boelsums), enjoying the Beatles as background music (with Constant Meijers). They read letters with Peter Buwalda and Peter Middendorp, had a peek in the kitchen of the cartoonists Aimée de Jongh and Marloes Dekkers, listened to Annemarie Peeters and sang along loudly with opera singer Francis van Broekhuizen.

A number of changes and improvements have been implemented in the Noorderplantsoen festival area during this first full blown edition after corona, in order to ensure a smoother visitor flow as well as an improved visitor experience of the theatre and music performances. In the northern part of the Noorderplantsoen festival area the Pollux mirror tent, the Apollo open air stage were located as well as – along the central pond – the Paradijsvogel and De Raaf terraces as well as the Podium De Raaf. In the southern part a special kids area was created called De Kleine Beer, next to the Vliegende Vis and Kameleon performance locations, the Callisto music stage and the Castor mirror tent. Since 2021 Noorderzon has parted from the Romeo Tent, the Dok and the containers along the Leliesingel. The Dok has been relocated to the field near the music dome and renamed the Apollo, while the container programming has been concentrated at the new Vliegende Vis and Kameleon stages. The new Castor mirror tent resides at the former Romeo Tent site. This new layout provided an improved visitor spread thus offering visitors a greater sense of safety so soon after the pandemic. In addition, the new Apollo music stage as well as the Vliegende Vis and Kameleon stages proved to allow their audiences to enjoy their performances and concerts more intimately and attentively. Like every year a lot of performances also were given at locations in Groningen city centre: Downtown.

From NNT’s alpha men to Margje Wittermans’ female resistance fighters, to Tjerk Ridder’s donkey trip to Paris up to Joost Oomen’s end of the sun. A great number of local and various other short performances were also presented at Noorderzon 2022. A large portion of these were given at the new Vliegende Vis and Kameleon locations in the Noorderplantsoen. Other installations and activities were freely admissible such as Snackgelok by Tryater, the remarkable light installation Lily by WERC (in the pond) as well as the images projected on the fountain by several talented artists of the Aqua Luma 2.0. Tomm Velthuis – in collaboration with Kunstpunt ­– offered a short colour experience and Bram Esser and Wabbesch Wabbesch invited their visitors to a group discussion. During the first days of the festival Young Academy Groningen (RUG) presented their daily flash lectures about all kinds of topics and Spraaklab (RUG) conducted a speech study amongst visitors.

Each day Noorderzon presented several (freely admissible) concerts in 2022 as part of its divers music programme, scattered over three different stages in the Noorderplantsoen: the small Podium De Raaf stage, the Callisto stage and the large Apollo open air stage. Over 186 hours of music were offered in an eleven day period by over 100 acts. Among this year’s highlights were the concerts given by the Japanese Minyo Crusaders, the Australian Donny Benét and the The Hague (NL) Prins S. en de Geit at the Apollo. Though the new site and set-up of our festival’s largest open air stage were cause for and subject of many a discussion during the first festival days, Apollo soon proved to be a hit in the eyes of both the public as well as the artists due to its improved stage qualities. At its busiest, the Apollo also managed to accommodate over 2000 visitors.

Especially for our youngest festival visitors De Kleine Beer was held in the Noorderplantsoen from 19 to 28 August: a well-attended mini-festival for 4 to 12-year-olds. Offering lots and lots of performances, things to do and playing to enjoy at one of the most fun places one could be in the Noorderplantsoen. Here both young and old were able to enjoy among others Geert Hautekiet’s Automata Carrousel and various kid’s performances including Theater Pannenkoek, Maskermeiden and Profound Play / Jasmin Hasler as well as other activities.

Hard cups, coffee ground collecting, wheelchair accessibility, sustainable merchandise, ticket donating and food for thought: for years now Noorderzon has been strongly committed to public awareness and sustainability and this year’s edition was no exception. This is also reflected in the fact that for years now our festival has been awarded the Green Key Gold eco-label. Together with our partners, the Noorderzon organisation is constantly working on innovations and facilities which improve sustainability and accessibility in all forms. During the festival visitors did visibly – and sometimes invisibly – come across many of these. In the eyes of Noordezon, sustainability also includes the social domain. For this reason several groups of refugees were invited to enjoy performances or to get to know people as crew members. Over 300 people purchased an extra ticket via the Give an Encore system for those who don’t have the financial means to buy one themselves. 250 families were able to visit the children’s programme via the Food Bank. The Noorderzon Foundation has always been fully committed to providing a widely accessible and fun festival for all, which is why the festival area is freely accessible, why a large part of our programme is offered for free and why admission fees are kept as low as possible: from 2 up to 18 euros.