De Revolutie van de Rinsema's

Swirling, poetic music theatre with exuberant march music and unsettling jazz about inequality and the power of art. The sand quarry in Nij Beets, with its house-high sand hills, forms a breathtaking backdrop.

The peat regions of Fryslân in 1920. One of the poorest and most overlooked areas of the Netherlands. Yet something remarkable happens here. Shoemakers and brothers Evert and Thijs Rinsema are in the grip of Dadaism, a bold and joyful art form that dares everything and questions everything. It’s a time when a warm meal isn’t a given, women have to fight to be heard, and the threat of war casts a shadow over daily life. That’s exactly why one of Europe’s most radical art forms takes root right there.

Villagers get swept up and international artists travel to Fryslân: for a while, the peat meadow area becomes the world centre of abstract art. Yet over time, Thijs and Evert fade into obscurity. Did their work stop mattering, or is something else going on?

“De revolutie van de Rinsema’s is an exuberant production, with a fine balance
of intimate scenes and sparkling ensemble numbers. What’s more, the singing is excellent,
composer Radek Fedyk’s music is theatrical, jazzy and melancholic and – importantly – nowhere do the makers try to impress the audience with cheap effects or overacting, something
site-specific theatre can sometimes suffer from.”
– Volkskrant ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

“De revolutie van de Rinsema’s is swirling, swinging, poetic music theatre.“
– Theaterkrant

“Through the dynamic performance of the actors, their heartfelt enthusiasm and, above all, their conviction, ‘De revolutie van de Rinsema’s’ also mirrors our own time, in which art is being squeezed. And this while ‘everyone is art, and all art is being’. At the end of the evening, that line echoes there in Nij Beets, a quiet message carried into the morning.”
– Friesch Dagblad

let yourself be swept away

De revolutie van de Rinsema’s is swirling, poetic music theatre in which fantasy and reality blend together. This production by Orkater and De Lawei, in collaboration with Arcadia, ran from 29 May to 12 July at a sand quarry in Nij Beets. The production, about inequality and the power of art, was praised by both press and public and drew more than 11,000 visitors to Nij Beets.

“We’re incredibly happy and grateful for so much interest. The fact that we get to share this special and relatively unknown story from our region, about the Rinsema brothers, with so many people right here, makes me especially proud.” -Elly van der Groot, director of Schouwburg De Lawei

“A while ago I was asked to open an exhibition at Museum Dr8888. That’s where I came across the remarkable life story of Thijs Rinsema and his brother Evert, two shoemakers who, in the early last century, got an entire village fired up about the avant-garde art of modernism and Dadaism in no time at all. A remarkable, inspiring, true story.” -Geert Lageveen, writer and director

The production De revolutie van de Rinsema’s is in collaboration with Orkater and De Lawei