The day you start appreciating and anticipating autumn, is the day you move to Amsterdam. Since as soon as your Facebook timeline starts to fill up with the first bunch of events, you know the best is about to come… Amsterdam Dance Event is a well awaited week of the biggest club festival in the world, but also all the music world community – the legends, the new-comers, the outcasts (subgenres) – all coming together to showcase the state-of-art electronic dance music.
During ADE not only the night is bubbling, daytime events have a lot of artists showcasing their work, films, installations and performances connected to club culture, which often blow your mind just as much. Next to that there are the conferences which defines the conversations in the industry for the rest of the year. For this episode, we have selected special open daytime events of the festival, that are not parties. Mark it up and share it with your friends, cause these are not to be missed.
Dutch National Opera & ADE present: Before Present | Noorderlicht | Tickets
19,20 October 21:00 – 21:45
Thursday and Friday will be hosting a very special collaboration between Dutch National Opera and Amsterdam Dance Event. The Electronic Dance Opera ‘Before Present‘ aims to combine the best of both worlds: contemporary opera and electronic dance music. The theme to be observed is ‘an examination of and reflection on our current times and state, as seen from the future’.
The performers ask the question of ‘what happens when the relevance of our present existence is reduced to historical novelty?’. A group of Dutch National Opera talent singers, a live percussion along with a DJ-producer Sjamsoedin (Nobody Beats The Drum) remixing the compositions by a contemporary composer Anat Spiegel.
It will take place at Noorderlicht, a part of the the post-industrial NDSM Shipyard site facing the riverside. To my eye, as a venue is relatively small for this kind of performance. However that also means, there will be not a lot of the lucky ones to witness it.
Late Night Culture Talks | De School | Free
21 October 14:00 – 17:00
After the main talks at ADE conference are over, you are invited back to school, to learn and discuss with the mayor about the culture. Just that it’s not a regular school, not a regular mayor, nor a regular culture.
The topics of the free entry conference hosted by De School will span from mental and physical health; and diversity and sexuality in club culture to the collaboration with local authorities.
The later of the topics is particularly interesting. Especially after the two very different sequence of events that went down in regards to London and Berlin club culture. Thus it is very interesting to observe, discuss and evaluate where does Amsterdam’s stand in regards of supporting city’s night culture, it’s diversity, threat of gentrification and the changing landscape of the city’s habitat. The speaker’s list will include German Club Commissioner, Amsterdam’s Night Mayor, representative of London’s Dance Tunnel and more.
Street Art & Culture-Jamming Tour | Felix Meritis | Tickets
19,20,21,22 October 15:00 – 17:00
Now that is something for the curiosity of both locals and city guests. A 2,5 hour tour to discover Amsterdam’s most prolific urban artwork in public spaces museums and galleries. The tour is organized every day of the festival.
Amsterdam has a lot to offer when it comes to the diversity of many art forms and styles from stioc classic art, ballet, modern art to the a more recent of the visual art forms, the urban art. The guides of the collective that calls themselves Urban Art NOW are proficient subculture experts that live and breathe street art and tell the inside stories like nobody else. They will reveal the best work by world-renowned street artists around Amsterdam; explore famous locations of counterculture activism, trendsetting galleries as well as upbeat nightlife spots.
Detroit Techno Renaissance Art Exhibition| De Plaatsmakerij | Door Sale
20 October at 16:00–0:00
Selectors and fans of Detroit techno and futurism should raise their heads up for this one! It is unambitious to say this event showcases the real unapologetic underground Techno Culture and History. As not only it is organised in a basement of an old financial institute, but also hosts a very special guest.
He is perceived as Detroit’s Number One Ambassador of Art for World Renowned Techno Music Artists. He has been serving the techno music community since 1989 and he is dedicated to (Detroit) Techno Visual Art. His artwork is present on almost all classic records by Detroit Techno record labels, Underground Resistance, Kevin Saunderson, Rick Wade, Orlando Voorn, Carl Craig, Derrick May, Drexciya, Juan Atkins and so on. His name is Abdul Qadim Haqq also known as Haqq, also known as the Ancient.
Haqq will exhibit a selection of his very best and most iconic pieces, prints and custom artworks from the last 25 years Techno art or the Detroit Renaissance if you will… Moreover, he will be doing a live painting session paired with the sounds of Detroit’s DJ/Producer/Live-artist whom’s name is yet undisclosed.
The (re)degeneration of Heaven and Earth | Bijbels Museum | Door Sale
20 October 21:00 – 22:30
Ok, now this is another reason why to love Amsterdam – it’s extremely obscure museums, which happen to somehow make sense eventually. Such as a museum dedicated entirely to the role of cats in culture and art history, or a museum of everything that is fluorescent, not to forget a Museum of Bags and Purses, or the rather ordinary of the list the Sex Museum… But one that could just as much be crowned among the obscurities is the Biblical Museum.
ADE Comedy & Music | Comedy Cafe | Tickets
To be able to joke about something is important to know that area well. It is interesting that until now the collaborations between comedy and the dance scene has not been thoroughly explored. Therefore it is curious how well have the comedians noticed the insights of a culture that has so many subcategories and will be able to retell it so the full audience reconnects with it. The programme promises jokes about ‘the dance scene, but also about life and interests will be brought by the best comedians’. In any case, it is indeed an interesting combo.
