Culture next to the dirty dishes

The intimate student room festival Room Service took place on a dreary autumn evening last week. A review by student editor Marte van der Veen.

The festival has drawn performers to Wageningen since the 2000nds. This year, ten student living rooms and bedrooms, the public library and the church were transformed into small stages. A seat may be the bed the room owner will occupy tomorrow, or you may see a pile of dirty dishes in the background. It doesn’t get more intimate than this. The concept is a popular one, and the programme is fully booked before the start of the event.

Each year had a new and unique programme. ‘This is my eighth time here, and the programme is still surprising and original’, a visitor comments. This year, the acts range from a small choir that created a breathtaking soundscape on breath to a spoken word pair that integrated signing and spoken language to an acrobat performing with his robot. The audience is eager to be surprised. This is where you get to see new artists. The setting provides the performers with a challenge. Dance trio Serióós has performed their dance-theatre act for over a year, including on large stages. Performer Fiona Dekkers: ‘We shortened the piece and made it interactive. Although it is a constant, adjusting the piece to the setting is a great challenge.’

The small spaces where the performances take place limit the number of tickets that are available. That makes it hard to visit the same performance with friends. Seasoned visitors know that being early is key. However, the way the event is set up also invites one to take a solo adventure through Wageningen and perhaps meet new people.

You will not feel alone, as the Wageningen cultural bubble -those visiting events of this kind- is small. The limited range of cultural events, compared to larger cities, also plays a part. This causes students to really look forward to these evenings in the dark Dutch winter when cultural needs and creative energies merge.