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Tell us about yourself?

Sharing a life that spans half a century is a confusing task. Since all kind of asymmetric memories tumble around to be the first sedimented in written words. For sure I can put the most important facts first. And these facts are five in total, counting my children. Three boys and two girls. The two oldest boys are ‘Hollanders’, my oldest daughter is a honoured Zeeuws, Frysian, Holland mixture, my youngest daughter and youngest son are proud heritage bearers of Holland-Bulgarian genes. So my children point to a turbulent life. And indeed I have a turbulent life. My character and the Dutch habit of being an entrepreneur by default let me took risks in life.

I studied at the Amsterdam Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, at the departments (schools) Direction and ‘Kleinkunst’, the latter can best be translated as Cabaret although in the Dutch concept Kleinkunst also spawns Music Theatre, Musical and something like Vaudeville and StandUp-Comedy, Opera and even Operetta.

I think the Bulgarians are still well aware of the Iron Curtain that once was, but in the West the memory already has faded. When the Wall fell, I went to Moscow and became an apprentice of prof. G. Bogdanov to become a Master of Biomechanics, the heritage technical theatre training system of Vsevolod Meyerhold. In later years I worked on Modern Dance, and became a Master of the Japanese Butoh technique (the Black or White dance as some name and frame it).

Work and private are always mixed being an artist.

So I act what I do and realize what I act. Some state if one is lying: ‘what an actor’, but this is a double insult, actors never lie, since if they would, the public will despise them, their character a phoney. Acting is a profession that can only be mastered after years of study. Every year of practise ads up to honesty of characters staged. I’m an actor. And a director. I also write (some really nice children plays indeed performed throughout Holland and Belgium, for one of them we have now the Bulgarian stage and translation rights!). To be added here, together with Dian Rusev we’re working on the staging in Bulgaria of the famous novel The Dinner of Herman Koch.

Tell us more about your country - where you grew up and studied, what you did for a living while you lived there?

Holland is a strange country. The longest people on earth live there. It’s one of the most dense countries in the world. The name is not Holland but The Netherlands (plural!), it has two languages Dutch and Frisian (north-west), but people in the southeast although speaking dialect can not be understood by people in the west and that’s just 255 kilometers away.

It has a colonial history that stretched all continents, it gave England its ‘City’ (William III, 1689), founded New Amsterdam (1625 now named New York) paved the way for the Declaration of Independence (‘We the people’) through the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (1581), it’s a royal republic or a republic allowing to be ruled by a German family… - ouch now I hurted a lot of feelings... but this is interesting.

It’s a Dutch characteristic. Being open, blunt, and according to the rest of the world plain insulting by telling what pops up in your mind. Rude one can call it. Honest too. Is Holland an honest country then? No, corruption and malversation are all around. Even the juridical system is corrupted and meager beyond belief and mainly beyond reputation. Reputation is all in this world. Holland doesn’t even have a constitutional court, nor does it abide referenda, and if a referendum is held politics do not follow the outcome since they consider the people being idiots.

But we have virtues too! And they are many and impressive equaled to none.

We built and build the country from the water itself.

Our design skills are beyond competition, since we designed and design our country - no tree you see in the Netherlands is there out of its own free will, it’s planted and planned. We Dutch are innovative, lost three World Championships (football) one of them was bought by the organizing country (Argentine - for those offended, this is a proven case). Due to flowers and vegetables the Netherlands is ranked second in global agricultural export productivity.

We have the best Ice skaters in the world, sports in general is one of the major enterprises and we tend to accelerate in that field, compared to countries with a similar population. We have Baruch Spinoza as our heritage and Huygens, and Rembrandt and van Gogh, and the best DJ’s in the world are from Holland; talking about entertainment, not only Heineken and Unilever are providing the world with ‘bread and drinks’ but the Dutch entertainment business is one of the leading in the global market.

And for what it’s worth, the Dutch gave the world the system of the stock-exchange and the first multinational in the world, the VOC (United East Indian Company), our most famous dish is ‘rijsttafel’ (rice table)  which originated in the ‘gordel van smaragd’ as we used to name Indonesia (translated: the girdle of smaragd). And yes we also gave the world the word ‘Apartheid’ since the Boers from South Africa are from Dutch descent (as the language ‘Afrikaans’ is). To shortcut this, without the world is aware of it, the Dutch heritage is in every vein of the present day vibrating world.

When did you moved to Bulgaria and what was the reason for you decision?

I was invited to make a play. And stayed. That’s the short version. The longer version starts the same. I came with my youngest daughter, me for making an anniversary play, and she to learn Bulgarian. Those intentions worked out perfectly. I got work offers within my professional field and my daughter made huge progress in her language skills and so we stayed.This started five years ago.

I felt like home and although the many problems I encounter in this country I believe that it has potential to develop in a good way - this I saw working with the children - they are the future after all.

What were your thoughts about Bulgaria after the first few days of your stay?

In those starting months I wrote several articles for a Dutch website sharing my encounters with this ‘strange’ culture and country. It opened some eyes. But not about Bulgaria, merely about Holland. What you see living abroad is testing, or better shaking you presumptions of your own culture. Sometimes an anecdote is the best way to reveal what I mean.

Once in Holland parking my car I drove into a loose kerb stone, resulting in a flat tyre. I took pictures of the flat tyre, of the kerbstone that was not in it’s place and send it to the municipality. The next day they repaired that stone and payed for a new tyre. My responsibility was brought back to zero. I realized I bought off my responsibility by paying a huge amount of taxes, and gave my individual choices to someone else. I felt humiliated. This came as a shock, but only when I entered Bulgaria and was confronted with it’s roads and the flat tax.

There were many more thoughts, encounters.

But first let me share that from the start I felt at home. Feeling as ‘finally at home’.

And I am really ashamed not to speak fluently the wonderful language. My talents and skills were needed within the ‘foreign’ language section of jobs. That is not beneficial to learn the language of the new home country quickly. And, I have to be honest, my age is not the most convenient to learn a language. My daughter learned Bulgarian in 4 months! But she had the age being just 4 years and musically gifted. My musical gifts are available, but the brain has other tasks on a daily base.

Tell us about your life in Bulgaria.

My work as an artist never stopped, will never stop. I worked as a drama and language teacher on a private school. Wrote many a play for the children. Making all kinds of workshops about arts and language. I also had a lot of artistic projects  - like “Via Crucis” - Putqt kum Golgota - a Butoh adopted play created in Holland and performed in Bulgaria (now planned in England) together with the young and talented dancer Joanna Dralcheva. 

I participated in the Plovdiv ‘Nights of the Museums and Galleries’ and will have a premiere at NDK’s studio5 at the 23rd of November with a very nice comedian performance. I wrote for Joro Tornev a Bulgarian film script called Theatre Nights still in project phase. Now I participate in СЪН В СЪНЯ / концерт-лабиринт за спящ оркестър which is an unique theatre and music experience.

Of course as a teacher i still create programmes for children and adults.

Now we are opening Shakespeare language and theatre school that will help children to learn both - theater and english. I work also with some governmental school for improving the teaching of german language.

As a professional I also intent to start working and teaching young actors and dancers because i see very nice and bright people that want to develop.

And... all this makes me a happy person, having a lot of opportunities and meeting different and interesting people to work with.

What are your favorite things about this country?

Sometimes children come to me and ask, “Mr. Maarten” (that’s how they address me being in class), “Mr. Maarten what is your favorite color?” And I do not know. Sincerely. When autumn reigns I really love the golden brown, deep purple reddish of the leafs, when spring wondrously lurks from the black snow the wonderful pale green of bolstering leafs is ever so appealing, the heavy snowed branches in the park when winter attacks, those white with black shadow can be breathtaking beautiful, and the pale blue of a hovering summer morning on the Black Sea is stunning.

And so on and so forth. There are too many beautiful things to memorize. Being open for the wonders of life that Bulgaria has to present is the best gift one can offer himself. So my favorite thing is the wish that Bulgarians could be open and appreciate the miracles of their past, present and future of this Eden’s garden.

Do you have a dream about Bulgaria that you would like to achieve here?

I tend to create my dreams on stage. Putting in question all that is commonly accepted as the truth. In this sense art and science are on the same field. Is it true? And why? So my dream for Bulgaria would be and in fact is, that we question all the acts and thoughts that are widely accepted or are imposed on us. Are they true? And who gains from that so called truth? In short I want a daring people, daring to think for themselves and who are interested to bring the Bulgarian heritage, culture and soil to the next level in this time and age.