NETHERLANDS: Robodock, a festival recycling industiral waste into art forms, is a cultural self-defence, says its founder

Record ID: 402040

  • Title: NETHERLANDS: Robodock, a festival recycling industiral waste into art forms, is a cultural self-defence, says its founder
  • Date: 23rd September 2006
  • Summary: "MATRIX-LIKE" STRUCTURE WITH PERFORMERS
  • Embargoed: 8th October 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Netherlands
  • Country: Netherlands
  • Topics: Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA84UGHIHXHPZ8T7K8GDAMVS6CR
  • Story Text: The ninth edition of Robodock opened its doors on Wednesday (September 20, 2006) evening at the former shipyard. The Festival recycles industrial waist into art forms, such as theatre, video, installations and performances, with light, sound and smell. It's a cultural self-defence, proclaims Robodock's founder and art director Maik ter Veer.
    "Robodock is kind of everything. It very much comes from Amsterdam underground, you know, the squat movement. We are working already for fifteen years and very slowly we are getting more professional and more known in the world, but the whole culture beneath is all the arts combined."
    The first seven editions of Robodock were held illegally, in squatted buildings around the city. Only this year has Robodock become legal, as the city authorities gave organisers the ADeM Foundation the abandoned shipyard in the north of Amsterdam.
    The theme of this festival edition is Alchemy. In cooperation with artists, technology students and theatre makers the festival is styled by re-using scrap and other industrial left-overs. Nowadays Robodock has an important international workshop-function, as most of the performances are especially made for Robodock, and need a few months to be built on the spot.
    The festival features unpredictable combinations of different disciplines and bizarre theatrical applications, of which fire and steel are important elements. No disciplines are excluded: theatre, plastic arts, music, dance, film, multimedia, acrobatics, technical experiments, and deejays are involved.
    An enthusiastic visitor Natan, who came with his whole family, summarised the experience of Robodock to Reuters: "It's a need for someone to express himself creatively and if you live in the surrounding of industrial waste, you take your surrounding and do something with it. For me this is much more interesting than going to museum, because this is what is happening today. This is alive. This is from right now, and I want to be a part of it."
    Robodock lasts until dawn on Sunday (September 24).
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