Every year Plein Theater makes a performance for Theater Na de Dam Jong

On the evening of National Remembrance Day on May 4, theater makers and artists throughout the Netherlands are committed to giving this day extra meaning and commemorating it together. As a theater in Amsterdam Oud-Oost, in the middle of a neighborhood full of Jewish history, we think it is important to join the collective of Theater Na de Dam Jong and commemorate and celebrate  together with the neighborhood and the city every year.

Our theater house often creates theater projects that resonate with historical and current themes of the world around us. In our vision, the theater maker par excellence has a central role as a facilitator of empathy and broadening perspectives in our society and as a driving force of social reflection.

The performances we have been making with Theater Na de Dam since 2012 delve into the memory and commemoration of the Second World War and the Holocaust, in order to learn lessons for our current lives. Unfortunately, we need these important experiences more than necessary these days of increasing violence, polarization and hatred.

We are as well concerned about the various escalations around the world, such as for the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with Israel, which affect mutual relations in our own city.

It is very important for all of us to keep humanity in mind, so that when it seems that we are standing right opposed to another, we continue to see the human in the other and in ourselves, and on the other hand, against the tendency to engage in processes of not daring or wanting to see dehumanization. That is the lesson of then and now.

This year, youngsters from Amsterdam East, led by theater maker Anemone Oostvriesland, will once again delve into the stories of the Oosterparkbuurt from the Second World War. Among others, they will talk to Marjan Berk (91), who was a child herself during the war.

The source of inspiration for creating the new performance is the Abayomi. An amulet-like doll that West African enslaved women made for their child. With the Abayomi they taught their children about their own life force, joy and playfulness, with the message: don't let that be taken from you, no matter what.
 

When everything around you is destroyed, people disappear, death and sadness reign, nothing is certain anymore. Where do you get delight from? How can you maintain your own life energy, joy and playfulness in times of oppression and violence? Where do you get the strength to continue, to stay standing?

The youngsters Arif Oemar, Anne Jet Zoer, Lily Bruijn, Jael van Asten, Louisa de Jeu, Elin Hartman, Chloe Longuet, Sieuwe Koppenberg and Lucas van Bemmel investigate how that was like for children and youngsters during the Second World War. This research forms the basis for the theatrical performance Abayomi, which will play on May 4 at 9:00 PM and May 5 at 4:00 PM in and around the Plein Theater.

We invite you to reflect on the period and victims of that time, and inevitably include current events in our thoughts.

Theater Na de Dam: Abayomi

Saturday May 4 21:00 [tickets]

Sunday May 5 16:00 [tickets]