I was in Amsterdam last weekend which fortunately coincided with the annual UITmarkt, a wide-ranging annual festival of arts (dance, music, comedy, theatre, opera, you name it - even Puppetry of the Penis is, er, performing) previewing the coming season in Holland. Stages are erected all over the area around Museumplein and Leidesplein and building like Het Muziektheatre are used also. And it's all free!In the dance section was Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Scapino Ballet Rotterdam (previewing Out of China and Tsjaikovski P.I., both by Ed Wubbe), Wayne Eagling's Het Nationale Ballet (doing Rudi van Dantzig's Romeo & Julia, pdd from In Light and Shadow by Krzysztof Pastor, DonQ pdd and Hans van Manen's Symphonieen der Nederlanden), and many others, mostly in a contemporary vein.
I was all ready to go to Het Nationale Ballet on the main stage on Saturday evening, but the heavens opened mid-afternoon and I'm afraid the wind and rain were too much to brave - in a mad 100 yard dash from my hotel to the American Bar I got completely soaked. I was forced to stay for the evening, drowning my sorrows with various cocktails (well ok, it could have been worse). The rain eased by 9.30-ish but the show was at 8.30 and thus a great opportunity had passed me by. But it was really wet, honest!
On Sunday I was able to see NDT2 doing Simple Things by Hans van Manen which is a 16 minute piece to various music and was performed on their recent UK tour. I was even lucky enough to grab a seat in the middle of the sixth row, two seats away from a seat reserved for the 'Director' who I'm guessing was Gerald Tibbs. Whoever it was, he wasn't the most relaxed member of the audience and didn't seem overly happy - in stark contrast to the audience who gave the four dancers, 2 men and two women, a standing ovation. It was such a happy performance and such a pleasure to see this modern european dance style performed in situ by a company steeped in that style.
I can highly commend this festival as it takes place over the August bank holiday weekend, is in a beautiful city, and the weather is likely to be good. It is very much a dutch festival for dutch people and as such there is little information in English anywhere, including the website, http://www.uitmarkt.nl. It is worth making an effort, though, as the rewards are ample. I mean, stand-up comedy in Dutch is quite amusing even if you don't speak a word!
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