cabaret talent?
admin/ “View allposts by admin”)
25-year-old Tim Fransen wins the Leids Cabaret Festival in 2014.Image LeidenCabaret Festival
During the Christmas weekend, the remarkable news came out that the LeidsCabaret Festival of 2023 will be canceled due to a lack of quality among theparticipants. In an explanation on the website, the organization wrote thatthe decision was made ‘with pain in our hearts’, but that this year there wasa lack of suitable participants with ‘potential’ for a professional future. Itwas written about the causes: ‘We don’t want to blame corona for everything.The zeitgeist is also changing.’ The message raised the necessary questions:is there currently too little cabaret talent in the Netherlands? Or are thereperhaps too many festivals?
Helga Voets, director of Bunker Theaterzaken, the agency that organizes thefestival, looks back on the decision she made with co-organizer Geert Vriend.Voets: ‘We looked at all applications with all the love in the world, justlike in previous years. But most of them were still too young to participatein a national cabaret festival.’ In its history, ‘Leids’ has produced greatcabaret names, but Voets emphasizes that not everyone has to become a newMicha Wertheim or Tim Fransen. ‘We want participants to feel safe, they haveto try things out and have fun. You never know how careers will develop afterthe festival.’
But due to the nature of the festival, the connection with a professionalfuture does play a role. Voets: ‘The LCF is the only cabaret festivalorganized by a cabaret agency. We are busy all year round with cabaret andguiding professional comedians. We know what it takes to conquer a place onthe Dutch stages and to keep you going. Our approach has therefore alwaysbeen: we don’t see the festival as an end in itself, but in the context of theentire theater field.’
‘Leids’ has three rounds: a first selection in December, in which potentialparticipants submit a video audition themselves. This is followed in Januaryby a round with short performances in a Leiden grand café. This in turn leadsto two preliminary rounds, the semi-final and the final in the LeidseSchouwburg, at the beginning of February. Already at the round with the videoauditions, it was decided not to continue this year. Voets: ‘After we hadlooked at the first 38 registrations – normally we end up around 50 – severaltimes, we came to the astonishing conclusion that the festival is anenvironment for these people that they are not ready for yet.’
It is unique, because never before has the festival been canceled due to thelack of suitable candidates. Firstly, Voets sees an effect of the coronacrisis and the theaters that were closed for a long time: ‘That is the primaryexplanation of what is going on. People haven’t been able to test theirmaterial for two years and thus muster up the courage to participate in afestival.’ With their remark that ‘the zeitgeist is changing’, the organizersare referring to various developments within the theater world and society.Voets: ‘This is too big a subject for now. We’re going to take a little moretime to think about the relevance and future of a festival like ours. Areality check in these changing times.’
The Netherlands has four major annual cabaret festivals: Cameretten, theGroninger Studenten Cabaret Festival, the Leids Cabaret Festival and theAmsterdams Kleinkunst Festival. All four of these festivals also have afinalist tour, with the three finalists visiting theaters throughout thecountry. Since last year, a talent show has been added to television: in I ‘mgoing broke! a talent trajectory was completed by BNNVara that has manysimilarities with a cabaret festival, but now with cameras. Also the threefinalists of _I ‘m going broke! _go on a finalist tour, starting January 12.
Until 2021, the Leids Cabaret Festival was organized in collaboration withBNNVara, but due to the announcement of I ‘m going broke! that collaborationwas broken by Bunker Theaterzaken. Voets: ‘Apart from the substantiveobjections, which we immediately made known to them when the program was stillbeing developed, we had serious objections to the timing. In all the coronamisery, in which all cabaret festivals had to survive with art and flying, howcan you compete with these festivals from a public broadcaster – and our long-standing partner?’
However, Voets does not believe that I ‘m going broke! contributed to thecancellation of her festival. ‘It is rather the other way around: the TVprogram confirmed our idea that it works better for young talent to ‘grow up’without cameras. Not to make a TV out of it. I don’t know if we fish in thesame pond. What we do know is that all three finalists of _I ‘m going broke!_were previously finalists or won prizes at the Leids Cabaret Festival.BNNVara has now discovered the same talent twice. So we see it as a repetitionrather than something new.’
Do the other cabaret festivals also have to contend with too few suitableregistrations? Director Daniël van Veen of the Amsterdams Kleinkunst Festivaldoes not recognize this: ‘I was surprised by the news that there is a lack oftalent. At the Amsterdams Kleinkunst Festival we had a record number of 66registrations this year, while we receive around 35 registrations in otheryears. There are many people from vocational training, such as the King’sTheater Academy in Den Bosch. The level is very high. Perhaps a factor is thatpeople choose us because we have a longer development path. If you registerwith the AKF, your program doesn’t have to be finished yet, you can stilldevelop it completely during the try-outs, masterclasses and coaching that weoffer.’
They also look in at Camerette, despite a critical review de Volkskrant ,satisfied back at the festival last November. Artistic director Eveline Mol:’We thought the level was very high this year. At Cameretten we had just asmany registrations this fall as usual. With the semi-finalists who dropped outjust before the final, we could even have put together a final.’
Nor is Helga Voets of the opinion that there is too little cabaret talent: ‘Werun a cabaret agency packed with talent. So I certainly don’t think there istoo little cabaret talent, otherwise I would have had to run another company.But it would also be strange if you discovered twelve super talents in theNetherlands every year. So if a festival is canceled for once, a man is notimmediately overboard.’