Amsterdam began year-long celebrations this weekend to mark its 750th anniversary with one ancient and formerly down-at-heel neighborhood playing a starring role in the festivities.
Sitting cheek by jowl with the city’s Canal Belt, the once working-class Jordaan neighborhood is the setting for a new musical, which its producers said captured the essence of the Dutch capital and its residents.
“We specifically designed a musical to celebrate Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary,” said Marc Muller, producer at the DeLaMar Theatre where the musical Onze Jordaan (Our Jordaan) hit the planks to a full house on Wednesday evening.
Photo: AFP
“From October 27 the city will enter its year-long celebration and we thought a musical is an ideal way to contribute to the festivities,” Muller said.
Any mention of the Jordaan in the Netherlands would immediately be greeted by a knowing smile. For many Dutch citizens, Amsterdam is best exemplified not by its gritty and notorious red light district, but by the Jordaan.
“This is the best neighborhood in the Netherlands,” said Evert Jansen, 82, Jordaan born-and-bred and sporting a typical Amsterdam flat cap.
Photo: AFP
“The best actors, the best singers, the best footballers are all from here — [Ruud] Gullit and [Johan] Cruyff. The best comes from here,” he said.
Built in parallel to the Canal Belt during the so-called Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, many of its streets and canals today still carry the names of plants and flowers.
Historians say one of the possible origins of the neighborhood’s name, the Jordaan, comes from the French word “jardin,” meaning garden.
Back in the 17th century many of its residents were migrants from all over Europe, working in the city’s factory and harbor, “all attracted by the wealth of Amsterdam,” said Annemarie de Wildt, historian and former curator of the Amsterdam Museum.
The Jordaan’s population grew exponentially for the next two centuries and living conditions plummeted.
However, even back then, the neighborhood became famous for its music and singing — especially when Italian laborers brought their love of opera to the Jordaan’s tiny streets.
Bel canto, a smooth operatic style of singing, was soon incorporated into the Jordaan’s music tradition.
This continued into the 20th century, De Wildt said.
“Somehow... the Jordaan had a sort-of notorious culture of its own, characterized by a lot of music, theater,” she added.
“People started writing novels about the Jordaan, making films about the Jordaan, a whole genre of songs started,” she said. “In that sense, I think it’s one of the most famous neighborhoods of the whole of the Netherlands,” she said.
For the producers of the musical Onze Jordaan it was the ideal mix.
“You need several ingredients to make a musical: a good story to start with, and the Jordaan on many levels has a good story to tell,” Muller said. “You need a culture that’s easy to explain to the whole of the Netherlands and very importantly, fitting music, music that people know.”
“And because of this combination, we’ve chosen the Jordaan,” he added.
Dressed in black leather and a pair of aviator sunglasses, long-haired long-time Jordaan local Michiel Hooidonk sipped an ice-cold Heineken beer as he surveyed passers-by at his local bar, the Cafe ’t Monumentje.
“I’ve lived here for the past 20 years. I don’t ever really leave the neighborhood,” said the 63-year-old self-confessed “ageing rocker.”
“You can feel it. The warmth, the coziness, but sometimes also the conflicts. That’s why I think all sorts of people move here,” crystal shop owner Laura Adriaanse said.
However, many residents like Hooidonk and Jansen said the neighborhood was changing as gentrification creeps in.
The Jordaan saw an exodus of residents in the 1960s fleeing substandard housing, leading to an influx of students and artists cashing in on cheap accommodation.
House prices have since rocketed and today the Jordaan is one of the most upmarket and expensive locations in the Netherlands.
“Earlier we had 60,000 people, real ‘Jordaanese,’” Jansen said. “Now you only see Porsches and Land Rovers on the streets.”
However, younger generations said they welcomed the changes.
“The population has changed, which I really like, so everything is kind of the same, but at the same time the people are changing,” said Melody Musscher, 20, whose family is from the Jordaan.
“And that’s really cool to see,” she said.
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