Noorderzon magazine 2016

the buzz You have in your hands our programme; it took the necessary sweat and tears (blood was scarce) to arrive at choices in the past months. So many choices. Choices between so many more intriguing, touching, beautiful, innovative, funny, compelling, polarising, appalling affairs. We scoured the globe, passing sadly deserted petrol stations in the night, we read and wrote thousands of emails and proposals, conducted like numbers of telephone and Skype conversations, had thousands of proposals pass through our heads and hands.

And of course there was no way to avoid undergoing today’s turbulent times: we saw new times emerge and old times resurface in new guise. The middle, the right and the left all seem to have disappeared. What appeared to be a good idea yesterday, could be poor thinking tomorrow. Some traverse the globe, while others lack freedom to travel. The gulf between rich and poor has yet to be closed. Hotspots galore, across the world, seem to have become a fact of life. Listening to each other – sometimes understanding the things left unspoken – seems more difficult than ever.

We see this reality, but particularly the quest for reflection and answers, strongly manifest in all those programme proposals that presented themselves and which therefore belong in our programme. Makers relate to their direct environment and allow us to share the experience. Unique experiences enriching life, that sometimes grip you by the shoulders and give you a good shaking.

Is there anything worth celebrating? Certainly. Besides the daily complexity that we all tend to lose ourselves to, knowing no simple solution, disheartening as it is, there is something to celebrate: the buzz. There is nothing better, nothing more comforting about humans than their buzz. Ambling through the Noorderplantsoen, just before a show or shortly after its ending, that’s when you hear it. The inescapable buzz that people produce. People engaged in outright exchange, busily conversing. People talking, and more importantly: people listening.

The buzz is the encouraging sound of people seeking connection. So celebrate this interest in one another. Celebrate your interest in the world surrounding you. And allow our programme and festival to inspire you in doing so.

Femke Eerland - General manager Noorderzon