Location performances Middelburg Theater after the Dam – We are The City of Middelburg

Location performances Middelburg Theater after Dam Square

On Saturday, May 4, 2024 at 9:00 PM, Theater Na de Dam will once again present more than 100 performances about the Second World War throughout the Netherlands. In Zeeland, the Youth Theater School Zeeland is participating for the ninth time. This time with Wait for me played by young people in and around the in and around the Etty Hillesum House and Gharib, a performance by the theater makers Marcos Valster Da Costa Ferreira & Mahfoud Mokaddem in the Zeeuws Archief.

Wait for me

Theater maker Roos Zwigtman will work with fourteen young people in the week leading up to Remembrance Day. They talk to elderly people who experienced WWII. We are entering into an intensive collaboration with the Etty Hillesum House for this. Etty Hillesum was born in Middelburg. This Jewish woman was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943. Her diaries have been published and translated worldwide. “One is at home in every place on this earth, when one carries everything within oneself.” In this performance we look for the connection between her ideas and the stories of the elderly people we speak to.

Youth projects

The youth projects are an essential part of Theater Na de Dam. Together with theater makers, young people delve into the history of their city during the Second World War. They speak to elderly people from the neighborhood about their memories of that time and reflect on that history and its commemoration. This research is the basis for location performances throughout the Netherlands, but all kinds of alternative forms have also been devised. In recent weeks, elderly and young people have spoken to each other about the experiences of the elderly during the Second World War. With these conversations as inspiration, valuable art expressions are being created by young people in many places in the country before May 4. By reflecting on the historical period of the Second World War and the victims of that time, you, as it were, bounce your questions and thoughts against the wall of history. Precisely because performances in the context of Theater Na de Dam are about ‘then’, they gain meaning for the ‘now’, which helps with distance. The audience inevitably includes current events in their experience through their imagination.

GHARIB

‘Be in the world as a stranger or a traveler’ While in our youth we were mainly occupied with other wars, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, we felt little connection with the Second World War. While classmates received stories from their grandparents, we had to make do with what we were taught at school. It seemed to be mainly a European war with the rest of the world missing from this narrative. Now that we have children of our own, we think it is important to connect more with the country where we live and the history that goes with it.

This led us to the French Military Cemetery in Kapelle in Zeeland. Moroccan prisoners of war and French colonial forces are buried here. What were these Moroccans doing in the Netherlands? Why did they fight for the freedom of Europe under colonial authority? And why didn’t we ever learn about this at school?

Concept, text & game: Marcos Valster Da Costa Ferreira & Mahfoud Mokaddem

Date: Saturday May 4, 2024

Time: 9:00 PM

Admission: free, reservations for the performances: [email protected]

Gathering at the Zeeland Archives The audience is split into two groups and will see both performances Performance locations Etty Hillesum Huis in Middelburg (Molenwater 77) and Zeeland Archives (Hofplein 16)