As I’m preparing to write a round-up of my time at the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, I trace my newest addition to my laptop-lid sticker collection that I gleaned from the very same event…
A human face peeks out from the caresses of pinkish tentacles. Upon closer inspection, the face melts into the Octopus form; two seemingly disparate species finding self within the other. This tentacular image, developed by resident designer Lisa van Kleef with help from AI, is framed with the Fringe’s tagline for this year: Dare To Merge.
After 18 years of running this internationally acclaimed festival for emerging creators, it tracks that the Fringe team have a nuanced ability to identify and develop unifying themes that feel pertinent to the time. The concept of daring, or desiring, to merge suggests a curiosity for radical intimacy. A proximity that goes beyond bodies moving alongside each other. Rather bodies moving as one;
body to body;
body with stage;
body inside mattress;
body becoming sound;
getting especially cosy with the ‘other’.
This year I navigated my way through an ambitious six dance performances, paying witness to various manifestations of merging that traversed the scope of the word – from closeness, to intimacy, from cosy to uncomfortable, and everything in between. By the end of this marathon, I felt embraced by Amsterdam’s scene of intrepid new makers, concluding that there’s really nothing quite as gezellig* as the Fringe.
*an untranslatable Dutch word that captures the feeling of cosiness
Friday 6 September
We Play So Hard It Hurts by Fernando Troya
Fernando Troya cruises the stage, his eyes consuming everything upon which they fall. They lick the stage floor and linger over a pile of mattresses. Finally, they turn to the audience with a sultry gaze. Troya’s exterior is tough; his hips are swung forward and there’s a slight swagger to his walk that reminds me of a movie mobster. I’m overcome by his wholly embodied character, and I’m only just scrambling into the theatre! Eventually, as if his appetite can no longer resist, he plunges inside the mattresses. Arms flail out, as do tops, trousers, boxers, until out slips a new Troya – naked, exposed, and poised to begin his intimate solo.