Enschede Arts Festival seeks internationals

Do you have a one-minute song in your heart, need a haircut, or have a collection in boxes that you’re dying to show off? Look no further. Enschede’s Arts Festival GrensWerk 2011 needs you.

Image trying to locate 149 people, each from a different country. Once you find them, you then need to convince them to write lyrics and/or music for a one-minute song. That’s exactly what Louke Wijntje and Hanneke Faber, Project Managers of the Hello Earth project, hope to accomplish.

‘According to the Enschede municipality, 149 nationalities reside in the city,’ explained Wijntje. ‘We want to weave together their 149 one-minute songs into a performance on 2 October. People interested can either create and/or perform their own music, or we can pass their lyrics onto a team of professional composers and musicians.’

‘This idea reflects the snappiness of communication,’ said Faber. ‘We are inviting people to write a song that reflects their own culture or asks the Dutch a question, like: Why do I only get one cookie with my cup of coffee?’ Internationals who are interested should write no more than 16 lines of text, in either Dutch or English, and send their song to community@grenswerk.nl or phone 053-2600053. Composers and musicians are also sought.

Hello Earth is just one of three community art projects that are part of the Arts Festival GrensWerk 2011 in Enschede from 24 September to 2 October. The festival’s title ‘It’s a big planet, but a small world’ also reflects the event’s ambitious outreach to all local nationalities, including the more exotic ones with only a single representative: Cape Verde, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Niger and the Seychelles Islands (to name just a few!)

Besides ‘One Minutes,’ the week-long cultural experience allows you to participate first-hand in a number of different projects, including:

Haircuts by children

Having a bad hair day? Why not get a unique haircut in a salon run exclusively by ten-year-old children? If you are brave enough to sit under the scissors, you will need a prior appointment, but the haircut is free. If you are afraid of losing an ear like the famous Dutch painter Van Gogh, don’t worry. There is adult supervision. But buyer beware, there is no direct interference as Haircuts by Children is about responsibility, emancipation and empowerment.

Horde of collectors

Do you own a wacky, exclusive, or extensive collection or a collection with an extraordinary history or story? This may be your chance to reveal not only your collection, but who you really are buried underneath all that stuff. Contact verzamelen@grenswerk.nl or phone 053-2600053.

Open Source programme

Feel stimulated by the Arts Festival’s title ‘It’s a big planet, but a small world’? You are invited to contribute to the programme at the Festival Pavilion in the centre of Enschede. You can organize a complete day, display art, perform music, or create an inspirational meeting. E-mail opensource@grenswerk.nl to explain your ideas for contributing to GrensWerk 2011.

Besides these participatory events, the week-long cultural exploration will provide multiple concerts, performances, and exhibitions, organized together with the twelve cultural partners of Enschede. Several events are free, and many will take place in a unique festival pavilion, whose design will invoke its novel setting. Perhaps the highlight of the event will be the Dutch première theatre performance of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Based on the best-selling novel by Haruki Murakami, a celebrated Japanese writer, the play combines music, puppetry, dance, video, and audio to create a hypnotic theatre of dreams. It will be performed in English.

‘We’re really proud of booking this play,’ said Wijntje. ‘It is coming to Enschede directly from the Edinburgh International Festival and has received great New York reviews.’

For more information about the Arts Festival GrensWerk 2011, go to Grenswerk or check out its Facebook account Grenswerk Facebook.

Catherine Ann Lombard

Allowing kids to cut our hair evokes faith, courage and the understanding that children are also world citizens. Photo: John Lauener