In the international student house Witte Wilma, the public was the plaything of Tamar Blom’s mime act in which three half-naked men start by banging their heads against the living room wall. Next, they steal through the space, searching, their gaze blank. They come ever closer to the people dotted about the room. Uncomfortably close, assuming odd poses and with the occasional awkward touch.
Nervous giggling is audible. Someone starts to laugh when the mime artist suddenly stands next to him. Someone else stiffens and a third person returns the artist’s gaze unflinchingly. Relieved, amazed, but also at a loss to know exactly what has happened here, the visitors leave the living room. On their way to the next production.
SOLD OUT
Anyone looking for a little less intensity, can go and see Belgium’s Maud Vanhauwaert. Disarmingly and with great humour, the finalist of the Leiden Cabaret Festival 2013 talks about her school years, and she recites a poem in a Dutch accent. After all, that Flemish ‘seems to send you to sleep’. The living room of Bolus 9 in Bowlespark, where she is performing, is strewn with mattresses. In the kitchen, the residents are selling pastries, beer and soft drinks. Run by Studium Generale, the event sold out more quickly than in previous years. Ticket-holders could count on exclusive performances by, among others, guitar virtuoso The Flamenco Thief, ska band ROLF de Band and a one-man theatre show called BoNudget, who created a special show for RoomService.