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Otemba

Confronting the Past
  • Sat 22 Nov ’25
    20:15
    de Doelen
    Jurriaanse Zaal
    tickets

  • €3 or €1,5 service costs excluded per per ticket. Read more about the service charge here.

In Otemba, the 17th-century Japanese-Dutch Cornelia van Nijenroode steps out of her portrait frame in the Rijksmuseum and into the 21st century. She engages in a nocturnal conversation with Indonesian conservator Kirana Diah about wildness and decolonisation. Though their worlds seem far apart, they reveal deep-rooted and confronting parallels. 

This Dutch-Japanese-Indonesian music theatre production interweaves history and contemporary issues into a timeless blend of music, language, and movement. Otemba examines how history is rewritten, how our perspectives are shaped, and how cultural legacies clash and intertwine. A magical encounter between past and present, East and West, painting and reality. 

A production of: Theater Adhoc, New European Ensemble, Holland Festival

with support from Marinus Plantema Foundation, Performing Arts Fund, Isaac Alfred Ailion Foundation, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Berg & van Dalen Foundation

concert themes and series:

credits

OTEMBA music theatre in collaboration with New European Ensemble 
Jan van den Berg artistic direction & staging |  Misato Mochizuki composition |  Janine Brogt libretto & dramaturgy | Ryoko Aoki noh singer/performer | Bernadeta Astari soprano | Artificial Intelligence a scanning robot | Gé Wegman lighting design | Stichting Theater Adhoc production