On Friday November 11 Romana Vrede, Ira Kip and I launched PaarsPaars (PurplePurple), the space where Blackity Black thinkers reflect, share and cultivate conversations about Black art in the Netherlands. We started with an open letter to our kinfolk: A note about the need for Black reviewers. During the #BPTUnpacks event at Bijlmer Parktheater on Friday December 2, we’ll gather to discusssss. We’ll unpack a variety of Dutch theatre reviews and (re)imagine the kind of conversations the work of Afro-Dutch theatre makers, choreographers and playwrights truly deserves. Please note: The presentations and conversations during this event will be in Dutch.

#BPTUnpacks event info
Date and location: Friday December 2, Bijlmer Parktheater (Amsterdam).
Time: Doors open at 19.10h, we start at 19.30h sharp-sharp.
Presentations by: Ernestine Comvalius, Emilie van Heydoorn, Ira Kip, Richard Kofi and yours truly.
For our panel we’ll be joined by: José Montoya.
Tickets: Click this link to buy tickets for #BPTUnpacks on Friday December 2 .

Excerpts from our note:
‘From Eurocentric expectations and a less than minimal knowledge of Black arts to the use of terms like “gorilla” to describe Black performers… In its current form, the world of Dutch reviews has nothing to offer creators like us. It’s horrendous to witness how, time and time again, various art editors try to suffocate this work that is so important to us by squeezing it into the narrowest forms of whiteness. Horrendous and beyond boring. (…) We need reviews and reflections that inspire Afro-Dutch makers to further strengthen, deepen and broaden their artistic signatures. We long for art criticism and other forms of reflections that don’t just fit our imagination, involvement and expertise, but that also emerge from them. (…) Our imagination, our joy, our rest, our worries, our commitment, our knowledge, our curiosity, our history, our now, our future, our spectacles and our everydayness deserve more in depth conversations. Our future makers deserve an archive in which they see us and themselves reflected in pieces that are written by us. We can’t trust anybody else with this responsibility. To remix Toni Morrison: “We are our own best thing.”’

Instah fam, be sure to follow @paarsispaars for all your updates. The note will soon be translated in English. Click here for the full version (in Dutch).