Oerol 2011

The Pepper’s having been getting back to there hippy Denmark roots over the past couple of days. We have taken up residency at the Nature camp in Hoorn, Terschelling. Terschelling is an island off the North coast of the Netherlands. Each year a 10 day performance festival is held in late June called the Oereol Festival.

The island gets so packed out with arts enthusiasts that your only option is to camp. Luckily with a bit of old experience my parents and I managed to cope camping in pretty wet and windy conditions. We entertain ourselves in the Dutch way, attempting to milk three cups of tea out of one bag… saving napkins from the odd café visit for our toilet visits at the nature cam

p.

Camping aside I was most impressed to arrive at the main festival site to find a paddock full of bikes. In Australia you would find a never-ending sea of cars parked in paddocks surrounding a festival. Instead in Terschelling you get lost in the sea of bikes.

Our choices for performances were narrowed down a bit with our lack of Dutch. I have attempted visiting the theatre in Utrecht, seeing a play in Dutch and was absolutely bored shitless, so I wasn’t about to try that one again.

So first show we saw was Propaganda, by an Australian group called Acrobat. It was nice to experience a bit of Australian humour in a circus context. These guys managed to successfully intertwine a serious anti-capitalist message into their show with a dash of humour and with some very impressive circus tricks. I was really impressed with the final scene when both the couple performing in the show changed my impression on a fixed wheel bike. Prior to the show I thought they were the dumbest invention out. However, this acrobatic couple managed pull off some very impressive tricks as the bike circled around the tent.

At the end of the performance the predominantly Dutch audience gave the family circus group a standing ovation… I developed a little sense of patriotism at this moment proud that this group had managed to crack it big time in Europe.

The second show we watched was a interactive audio play. We were mainly attracted to experience Domini Public, by Roger Bernat because this style of show is the next production pending for my sister Zoe. So we thought we would do a little of audience research for her. The play required each audience having a headset, we were asked a number of questions in a public square in West Terschelling, answering the questions required us to move around the space, taking on different poses. Through the sequence of questions the audience were identified as different characters in the show, allowing each audience member to assume a role in the show. Over the course of the hour long show the plot was revealed. However, the lack of theatrical train in the audience meant we did a fairly terrible job and at rein acting the massacre scene that evolved.

Nevertheless a pretty worthwhile show to attend.

We went to one other show called the Peking Opera, which I won’t bore you with the details. It was like going to a Denmark Pantomime. It was an absolutely terrible show that I wouldn’t recommend.