Het Waterhuis (The Waterhouse)

The group works with local artists, musicians, dancers, and actors in countries including Guinea, South Africa, and Uganda. Het Waterhuis combines talent, technical skills, video, music, and dance in its theatre productions. It performs at theatres, schools, and community centres. The group regularly sails abroad and develops productions with foreign local theatre companies. The productions that originate from such cooperation are performed on-site (in Africa) and afterwards in the Netherlands and Belgium.

In its work, the group focuses on body language, music, motion, and imagery. This strategy stems from organisers' conviction that everyone should be able to understand theatre. "Language is only one of the many ways to communicate something. Our performances are readily accessible because our imagery goes beyond the limits of culture." The effort to support intercultural communication was evident in 'De Kruik' ('The Jar', 1999), a production about cultural understanding that came about in the Rif Mountains of Morocco.

Many of the group's performances - and the process of preparing for them - focus on real-life experience. For example, in 2004 the group performed 'Landing Gear' in Guinea and Rotterdam. This musical theatrical performance is about two children from Guinea who were discovered dead in the landing gear of an aeroplane in Belgium in 1999. In preparation for the performance, Het Waterhuis travelled to Guinea to meet with the families of these boys. Together with two Guinea percussionists, the actors of Het Waterhuis tell the story of the stowaways Yaguine and Fodé.

As in ‘The Landing Gear', Het Waterhuis' music theatre production ‘Streetwise' is based on an occurrence in 1998. A Western camera team was making a journalistic report about an orphanage in Durban; after one week of filming the equipment was stolen by a gang of street children. Some time later, a video was delivered to the orphanage that included real-life images of how children try to survive in a large city like Durban. 'Vuka! Vuka!' (Wake up!) is a mixture of modern multimedia theatre, music, and mythical stories from Zulu culture that explores issues that street children face. For this production, which toured for 4 weeks in South Africa in 2005, Het Waterhuis set up the tents of their outdoor theatre. In 2006, the South African cast and crew of 'Vuka Vuka!' travelled to the Netherlands; the play was shown on the Oerolfestival and in the city of Rotterdam.

The group performs plays in settings where the issues are most salient to the community. ‘De meisjes van Aboke' (Aboke Girls, 2001), a stage play about child soldiers, was developed and performed in refugee camps in Uganda. ‘Freebirds' (2002), an open air music theatre production about HIV/AIDS among adolescents, was created and shown in townships in South Africa.

In its 2007 South Africa tour of 'KRUIK SA', a street theatre show dealing with HIV/AIDS, Het Waterhuis supplemented the performance with voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) and the roll out of medicines. Performed for 2 months at 31 locations, each showing of the play was followed by 50 VCT sessions, which were carried out by local medical centre staff.

HIV/AIDS, Conflict, Children, and Youth.

As of August 2007, organisers indicate that the coming years will include continued work in South Africa, especially at the Windybrowtheater in Hillbrow (Johannesburg). Het Waterhuis in Rotterdam will grow towards a bigger structure starting in 2009, with links to Morocco, South Africa, and Suriname.