In March, Cultuur op de Campus organizes a series of three interdisciplinary evenings on taboos in order to make students think about themes such as religion and sexuality.
Original text: Vincent Veerbeek
Translation: Marissa Aarts
The three evenings are consecutively about the taboos of religion in an academic context, sexual identity, and talking about feelings. In order to highlight these themes from as many different angles as possible, an interdisciplinary approach has been chosen, with not only lectures and discussions, but also musical performances and literary recitals. ‘We have noticed these themes are also relevant to actors and within the music world’, says Aimée Dabekaussen, General Board Member of Cultuur op de Campus. ‘On the third evening, which is titled Sad, we host a dance performance that relates to the theme of feelings, and music by a band that has dedicated an album to this subject. The goal of the series is to help people come to new insights. ‘Art can awaken people in a different way than a lecture can. In addition, it fits the character of Cultuur op de Campus, so we started working from that perspective.’
In order to organize the evenings, Cultuur op de Campus is working together with LGBT+ youth organization Dito!, Muslim student organization MSV, and a student psychologist. ‘Collaborations are helpful to gain inspiration. In addition, other organizations usually have better insight as to what is happening with regard to a certain topic’, explains Dabekaussen.The intended result is an evening-long program in which students get the opportunity to reflect and have conversations on themes that usually remain undiscussed. ‘We want to show these topics from different angles in order to make them easier to be talked about.’
The taboo-evenings Sense, Sex and Sad will take place on March 14, 21 and 28 in theater hall C.