Free to be Free

Theatre route

Free to be Free is Sites of Memory's latest site-specific performance about freedom and resistance. After successful performances in Amersfoort, Deventer, and Utrecht, the performance will be on view in Amsterdam between 25 and 29 June. The audience will be taken on a theatrical route, starting at the Waalse Kerk and ending at the Bushuis (University of Amsterdam).

We can learn a lot from the freedom fighters of the past and certainly from the people who are fighting for freedom today. How was freedom fought for then and now? What forms of revolt and resistance are known? Through dance, theater, poetry and music, stories come to life, about freedom and resistance in the past, present and future.

Free to be Free was developed especially for the Memorial Year, which commemorates 150 years of abolition of slavery in the Netherlands and its (former) colonies. The effects of this past are still felt by many. Many people have to deal with institutional racism and reparations are not yet a reality.

As long as racism and exclusion resulting from colonial thinking and the slavery past are not structurally addressed, Sites of Memory asks the question: freedom for whom?