Category Archives: Bijlmer Parktheater
GembertheeSessies and BPTUnpacks: The Color Purple – upcoming events
For February and March I’m organizing and hosting three events at Bijlmer Parktheater:
1. BPTUnpacks The Color Purple (Fri. February 23), a gathering centering Alice Walker’s legendary novel and its two film adaptations. Panelists: Romana Vrede (pictured here), Shirley Ahura, Ayra Kip and Simone Lagrand.
2. GembertheeSessies with Adrian Van Wyk (Thu. February 29), which will be a ginger spices conversation about film and the tracks of these imagined subway lines between Cape Town and Bijlmer.
3. GembertheeSessies with Kelechi Okafor (Sat. March 30), a sisterly reunion in celebration of Okafor’s debut collection of short stories ‘Edge of Here’.
Both GembertheeSessies are in collaboration with my favourite spot to drink ginger tea: poetry and cocktailbar Labyrinth. For all three events the lovely Bijlmer Bookstore will be present with a pop-up store. Below, you’ll find more info about each programs:
Friday February 23: BPTUnpacks The Color Purple
It’s been a while since our former Bijlmer Parktheater-colleague Saundra Williams organized one of our legendary programs: Black Magic Woman. It is in the spirit of that memory and with a longing for that vibe that program maker Simone Zeefuik would like to discuss a classic: The Color Purple. On Friday February 23 our downstairs studio will transformed into a cozy living room where we’ll discuss Alice Walker’s novels and its two film adaptations.
For a proper unpacking of this film -its main themes, the cinematography, the soundtrack and the ways in which both films are in conversation with each other- Zeefuik will be joined by four panelists:
– Shirley Ahura (London),
– Romana Vrede (Rotterdam),
– Simone Lagrand (Paris) and
– Ayra Kip (Amsterdam, Bijlmer-raised). It will be an evening full of Shug & Celie, quotes, memes and quiz questions. The winner of our ‘Blues women in film’ quiz will stroll out the door with a prize package put together by our panel.
Tickets for BPTUnpacks: The Color Purple can be bought via this page on the Bijlmer Parktheater-website.
Thursday February 29: GembertheeSessies with Adrian Van Wyk (Kaapstad/Cape Town)
For this year’s first edition of the GembertheeSessies (GingerteSessions) we’re connecting Bijlmer to Cape Town. We’ll do this through the works and research of writer, director, producer, curator and cultural worker Adrian Van Wyk. Simone Zeefuik interviews Adrian about his creative processes and his current research projects through which he links decolonial activism in the Netherlands and South Africa. The session opens with the screening of the short documentary What The Soil Remembers. Van Wyk is the producer and researcher of this short film directed by José Cardoso.
Adrian Van Wyk is a filmmaker/creative producer and cultural historian from Cape Town, South Africa. He completed a MA in History at Stellenbosch University. His dissertation, titled “From Jamaica to the Cape Flats: Reflecting on the manifestations of a Cape Town Hip Hop Culture”, unpacked the diasporic movements of Hip Hop culture onto the Cape Flats. In 2023, a documentary short film that Adrian produced and researched titled What the Soil Remembers enjoyed its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) where it was also awarded the Ammodo Tiger Short Award.
Tickets for the GembertheeSessies with Adrian Van Wyk can be bought via this page on the Bijlmer Parktheater-website.
Saturday March 30: GembertheeSessies with Kelechi Okafor
The awe-mazing, London based Kelechi Okafor will talk about her stunning debut collection of short stories: Edge of Here. With her book Okafor combines the ancient and the ultramodern to explore tales of contemporary Black womanhood, asking questions about the way we live now and offering a glimpse into our near future.
For her bio this Marvel from London writes: “Ke-leh-chee. That is how my name is pronounced. Now that is out of the way, hello! I am Kelechi Okafor and I’m a lover of words. I act, I direct and I write. I tweet and I dissect bits about society one podcast episode at a time. When I am not doing all of the above, I teach pole dance and twerk at my studio Kelechnekoff Fitness in Peckham. Society teaches us that we must fall into categories somehow. All I know is that I’m just a Baby Girl.”
Tickets for the GembertheeSessies with Kelechi Okafor can be bought via this page on the Bijlmer Parktheater-website.
Both GembertheeSessies are in collaboration with our beloved, much needed Bijlmer Bookstore and my favourite spot to drink ginger tea: poetry and cocktailbar Labyrinth. For all three events the Bijlmer Bookstore will be present with a pop-up store.
Event: #BPTUnpacks – Black sculptures and statues in public spaces, September 7.
“I’m in need of our visibility to not depend on our physical presence. And, I long for a visibility that’s centered around a recognition that actually brings us joy. Or at least a soothing, a relief that doesn’t require or remind us of a wrecking.” – Simone Zeefuik in Operatic Stillness, the first part of her twofold piece about Thomas J Price’s sculpture Moments Contained.
Paris, London, Rotterdam and Amsterdam all have rather significant numbers of Black residents. But, what would be left of this Black presence if none of the Black folks are physically outside? For our September 7-edition of #BPTUnpacks we’ll focus on sculptures and statues that represent Black people ánd are made by Black artists. Through their presentations and a panel conversation, five speakers will discuss some of their favourite works and imagine what they’d like to see.
Date and time: Thursday September 7, 19.30h.
Location: Bijlmer Parktheater (address: Anton de Komplein 240, 1102 DR Amsterdam).
Tickets: Please use this link to buy your tickets in advance. Tickets: 13 euro in total.
Line up
We’ll start our program with UK based digital sculptor, writer, researcher and curator Rayvenn D’Clark (London) who’ll talk about the craft of sculpting and her current practice. Aruna Vermeulen (Rotterdam), Simone Lagrand (Paris), Sarah Ozo-Irabor (Books&Rhymes, London) and Simone Zeefuik (Bijlmer) will discuss the importance of sculptures and statues depicting both everydayness and legacies in their respective cities. Lashaaawn (Amsterdam) and Ernestine Comvalius (Bijlmer) will imagine the kind of sculptures and/or statues they’d like to see. After their individual presentations, they’ll join each other in a conversation about craft and Blackity Black (re)imaginations.
The need for Afro-Dutch reviewers: PaarsPaars and upcoming event
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).
laZeefuik 
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