Margreet: Eme is still working me throughout November, he has prepared his transfer very well. And we turn out to have the same humour, so that handover is a party. We already bent over money flows and finances; both Eme and I are very fond of figures and excel sheets. I also talk to many people within VU Amsterdam and, of course, get to know Team Griffioen. From 1 December, I have scheduled introductory meetings with all Griffioen staff and working students. Busy times, as it goes with a new workplace.
Eme: The budgets and cash flows of a theatre and course centre within a university are no mean feat. Griffioen has no business purpose, but it is a business organisation. It is not just about administration but the thinking behind it: what is logical and feasible and how are we going to do it? With Griffioen, but also as part of VU Amsterdam. That is often a big financial puzzle.
Margreet: I go to as many courses and performances as possible, just last week to Science on Stage, theatre lecture Mental Masterpiece by neuropsychologist Erik Scherder. How art and culture influence our brain. That influence of art and culture on (mental) health has been proven. At film organisation Movies that Matter where I previously worked, we carried out research together with the Erasmus School of Economics at Erasmus University on the impact of human rights films on young people. So you can measure those effects, and therefore offer more appropriate programming. But it's not just the offerings, also the collective experience, being touched and imagining has such a connecting and positive effect.
Eme: Science requires effort, in the evening you also look for relaxation. At Griffioen you loosen up. There is still a world to be won and developed within VU Amsterdam for the combination of effort, relaxation and science. Art and culture people dare a lot, they create in freedom and have to renew themselves all the time. Science works in a more regulated way, with research, data, footnotes and citations. The two complement each other well. And at a theatre lecture like Erik Scherder's, everything comes together.
We are people, not products
Margreet: This is also one of my goals, but a good balance between the two is important. Students dancing, making music or painting together in the evening during a Griffioen course; VU colleagues going to a cabaret evening together; VU Alumni returning to their old university for a performance, it can all coexist and is equally valuable. An entire day uninterrupted hunched over a laptop in a lecture hall or hours of consecutive meetings, it is proven not to be healthy. We are people, not products. And VU Amsterdam offers all those opportunities, under one roof, on a campus, for everyone. I see that as a huge quality of VU Amsterdam that I rarely come across in a comparable environment.
Surely put all your offerings on show a bit more!
Eme: The big savings task for all universities and colleges is, of course, a source of concern. For teaching, research, services, for all of us, including culture. The next 4-year cuts to higher education between 2025-2028 are alarming. The proposed additional 21% VAT increase on theatre, media and sports is now on hold, but let it stay there, because this cost increase affects our entire society. We need to properly anticipate that too.
Yet for culture at VU, I don't see it as just pessimistic. Since the move from Uilenstede to de Boelelaan, Griffioen is visibly linked to VU Amsterdam, all cultural partners (Rialto VU, VU Griffioen and VU Art Science gallery) are anchored in one building and the impact of culture can be extraordinary. Although I still grumble that VU Amsterdam is out-of-the-ordinary from the outside. Yes, this is one of my lame word jokes but I do mean it: ‘Surely put all your offerings in the shop window a bit more!’ VU Amsterdam is a very cautious and modest university. Not profiling yourself fully is safe, but it also has disadvantages. Stick your head above the parapet. There are now a number of improvement projects underway to address this.
Margreet: It's a lot of political choices, dictated by voters' choices. We have to learn to deal with that. And keep explaining to these voters what we stand for, that science really affects your and my health, climate developments, innovation and above all: that we are part of a bigger picture. And that we can perhaps be a bit more openly proud of what we have to offer. Also in the field of arts and culture. I just got in, but everything radiates that VU Amsterdam is taking on this mission together.
Margreet: In Boxmeer, where I grew up and didn't get much culture from home, there was a small hall where you could get married, but where films were occasionally shown. That's where I saw Ciske de Rat. Fortunately, thanks to all kinds of (part-time) jobs in film theatres, a lot of films were added. After studying General Literature & Latin American Studies at Utrecht University, I worked in Spain, started a restaurant (I am an enterprising person) and came back to the Netherlands, working at the Municipality of Utrecht and at a research agency (again, lots of Excel sheets). I was a bit searching and decided to start teaching. In the classroom, I already discovered that cultural education has a great influence on the development of children and young people.
The difference with Griffioen is of course in the form of culture, theatre and courses as well as the fact that visitors come here of their own accord. But my conviction about the importance of cultural education within education remains the same. That is something I am going to brood on, together with my new colleagues at VU Amsterdam.
Eme: Griffioen's 70 different courses are also a form of amateur arts education. Of this fact, fortunately, VU Amsterdam is increasingly aware.
Listening to my father's old jazz records
No, I too did not grow up with culture in Leiderdorp and the border village of Dinxperlo, except for listening endlessly to the old jazz records my father played. I studied Political Science at the UvA and was an average culture consumer. Little theatre, but I did go to films and concerts. After my studies, I worked at a political consulting firm in the business world, where a lot of it was about money. In the cultural sector, unfortunately, it is often about the lack of it.
I was tipped off by a former fellow student to apply for the directorship of the CJP and then chose the position of director of an UIT-buro. So then you learn to run a company and lead a team. I have always found the latter a greater challenge than the whole financial and content aspect of such a job. Difficult, because every now and then you also have to say out loud that something is going completely wrong, or that people need to be added. I like contributing to the well-being of the team, I don't often get angry (and then only functionally) and want the best for everyone, both at work and at home. Giving compliments is easier.
Margreet: In the short time I've known you now, I see that we both have the same thing in mind: working constructively with a team in a good atmosphere. Building something good together, something valuable. We want the same thing, but perhaps do it in a different way.
Eme: Which art form touches me? Surely that is music. The performance of the band Her Majesty at Griffioen, for example, which performed the entire album Déjà VU (no pun intended) by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Or the band The Analogues, which performed live in front of 15,000 people a concert of the Beatles repertoire they themselves had only released on a studio album. I stood with my brother right in front of the sound people. Some tears did fall then, half our childhood passed by.
Margreet: I read an awful lot, but if I have to make a choice it is for Joshua Oppenheimer's film The Act of Killing. It shows how, after a huge genocide of communists in Indonesia in the 1960s, the perspective of a war hero slowly shifts to awareness of his heinous war crimes. Makes you think, though, this film.
Eme: Retirement after 1 December. No, I have no plans. Why should I? For once, I have time to have no plans. OK, there is one plan: to get all the tickets for the skating competitions at the Winter Olympics in Milan in 2026. Big savings, then. And of course, I still make breakfast every morning for my 14-year-old daughter and my working wife. With love. And time.
Margreet: I have been made very welcome at VU Amsterdam, a nice onboarding programme, really a warm bath. I'm going to talk more with lots of people inside and outside VU Amsterdam after 1 December. And make plans. And as theatre and course director, enjoy this fantastic work, together with all these committed people!
On Tuesday 19 November, Eme van der Schaaf and Erna Klein Ikkink (former SOZ director) will say goodbye to VU Amsterdam and we will celebrate 25 years of Griffioen theatre with a cultural party evening for invited guests in the NU building. The baton will then be officially handed over to Margreet Cornelius.
Text: Odette Roest
Image: Yvonne Compier