From violin to banging beats at STORY & SOUND night

The evening opens with violin music. In the middle of the gathered audience, Vlada Nabutovska climbs onto a platform and gives a preview of her performance later that night. The beautiful piece captures everyone’s attention. The room holds its breath. ‘Oh, so beautiful!’ someone sighs as the song comes to an end. This is already an evening that touches people. The tone has been set.

The Listening Salon

Programme maker Renée from the Ruimtekoers team introduces the performances. The first person she welcomes to the stage is Reinier Göritzlehner. He is the initiator of De Luistersalon, where people meet by listening attentively to each other’s music and stories. ‘In a world where so much shit is going on, I want to build a community with De Luistersalon. Let’s share the music that is close to our hearts and see what happens!’

Today, Reinier has brought Vincent along. He performs a live version of Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes by Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, a South African male choir. ‘If Paul Simon hadn’t travelled to South Africa, this music simply wouldn’t have existed,’ explains Vincent, who is also a musician himself and uses his story to illustrate the importance of encounters between people. ‘Discovering new things, learning from each other—that’s just amazing!’

Local talent

Time now for local talent from near and far. First up is Rosa from Zuiderstroom, who sings a few self-written songs. The room grows quiet as everyone listens to the song Zo lief. After her show-stopping performance, Rosa hands out cards with various personal messages to members of the audience. One of them reads: Keep becoming, don’t rush arriving.

‘That’s exactly what I believe!’ says the recipient of this message, surprised.

After Rosa, it is Ali Diab’s turn. Accompanied by piano, he recites an ode to love in Arabic, which he wrote during the Wintertuin Creative Writing Workshop. The Dutch translation is shown on a screen. People listen and read along, fingers intertwine, and somewhere a tear rolls down a cheek: this poem truly reaches people.

With an incredible violin performance and a moving personal story about war, hope, and resilience, Ukrainian Vlada closes the series. ‘It’s all touching the heart so beautifully,’ someone at the back of the room sums up.

Any stranger

The people in the audience have completely surrendered themselves to everything happening on stage throughout the evening. Just like the performers, they form a diverse group. Two women are celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary, three friends have known each other since their student days, there is someone who arrived from Gaza two weeks ago, and some people come on their own to take a look, like Okeke, who has been living in the Netherlands for six months and is eager to meet new people. ‘But I’m a bit shy,’ he admits.

His neighbour doesn’t let that stop her. ‘Any stranger can be your friend,’ she says. And so it is.

Tropical temperatures

There’s a good chance that the entire room will soon be friends, because as soon as Senegalese Omar Ka and his Fula Band start playing their super-swinging mix of Fulani folk, Dakar beats, Afro-reggae, and desert blues, everyone is dancing with everyone else in no time. After the moving opening song, the room erupts and the temperature rises to tropical levels. It is impossible to stand still.

‘I’m dancing for the first time in my life,’ a man calls out in amazement. Vincent watches the dancing floor, rising and falling like waves, with a big smile: ‘We need to show this more often. It’s so wonderful: everyone is dancing together and being together. It’s actually possible!’

Music wins

Before DJ Arjan’s banging beats take over from Omar Ka’s spectacular show, the Fula Band spontaneously starts a mini jam session with a man standing in front of the stage, completely absorbed in the music. ‘Hey, that’s Yilmaz,’ says Vincent. ‘He doesn’t speak a word of Dutch, but he sings beautifully in Turkish.’

When Omar gets the microphone back, he also manages to get the rest of the audience singing along. ‘You try, it’s liberating!’ One of the two women celebrating their anniversary briefly stops dancing and singing to share what she thinks of the evening. ‘People who don’t know each other dancing together, amazing! It just goes to show: music wins!’