Issue: Arts and culture

This issue contains 4 sections.

Oerol: from Terschelling to Manhattan

Press release | 12-06-2009

Last Friday, Minister for European Affairs Frans Timmermans literally rolled out the green carpet for the artists of Oerol 2009, officially opening the ten-day festival. From 12 to 21 June, there will be hundreds of performances, concerts and street theatre acts all over the Frisian island of Terschelling.

‘The writers and performers here present a counterfeit version of the world. They offer us a reality that is more intense and honest than the one we see before us, while urging us to give voice to our own imagination and optimism,’ the minister said.

With his presence, Mr Timmermans, whose mandate also includes international cultural policy, underscored the international character of the festival. ‘In three months Oerol will be taking over another island,’ he announced. In September, Oerol and De Parade (‘a mobile theatre event’) will form an essential part of celebrations surrounding 400 years of Dutch-American relations. The minister is looking forward to the New isLand festival, which will take place between 10 and 20 September on Governors Island in New York. ‘We’ll show the world what happens when the Netherlands unleashes its imagination.’