From 3 to 28 June, the 79th edition of the Holland Festival takes place; the Netherlands’ leading international performing arts festival.” Here you will see productions you would not otherwise encounter in the Netherlands. For an entire month, you can enjoy international artists who push the boundaries of dance, music and theatre.”

Intimate solo performance by Egyptian storyteller and collector Ossama Helmy-OzOz. Seated at a table filled with objects and analog audio devices, he takes on the role of a DJ – not mixing tracks, but memories: old home recordings, beautiful Arabic music by Oum Kalthoum, Fairouz, Fadi Iskandar and others, and fragments of spoken stories. At the heart of the performance are reel-to-reel tapes from the 1970s, carrying voice messages from a husband to his deceased wife.

Oz Oz blends personal reflections with echo, delay, reverb, looping, distortion, and shifting tape speeds. Using only analog equipment, he builds a live sonic narrative – part radio play, part listening session – about loss, and about who you are in relation to someone else, and what disappears when they are gone.

Ossama Helmy is also the founder of the Arab Origami Center and, together with Mohammed Gaber-Bora, leads the workshop Story-Gami on June 18th. During this workshop, origami serves as the starting point for a collective story, with each fold bringing together personal heroes and meaningful moments.

Both the storytelling and the music are fully subtitled. 

Ossama Helmy – Oz Oz objects/electronics