Joop Mulder, Oerol Festival
Biography
Joop Mulder was born in 1953 in the Dutch province of Friesland. This is where he founded Otteloeres, a monthly festival of music, poetry and art. In the early 1970s, he washed ashore on the island of Terschelling and became the barkeeper of Café de Stoep, which he would eventually take ownership of years later. In de Stoep, Joop organised monthly concerts, accompanied by poetry, theatre, and visual art. This was the root of what would develop into the Oerol festival.
In June 1982, the first Oerol street festival took place. For over a decade, Oerol continued to grow and thrive, but in 1993, Joop was forced to pull the plug due to financial constraints. Two years later, Oerol returned bigger and better – this time with solid support from the Fonds van de Podiumkunsten (Performing Arts Fund) and the business community on Terschelling. Theatre in sheds and barns expanded into a new phenomenon, and Oerol became a haven for the next generation of site-specific theatre makers. The festival won wide recognition throughout Europe, enabling Joop and his international colleagues to establish Eunetstar - a network of festivals that produce work from a pool of European funds.
In addition to being a guest programmer at European festivals, Joop also acts as a cultural adviser in South Africa. He has been made a Knight of the Order of Oranje Nassau and a few years later received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Stichting Nationale Evenementen Prijzen (National Events Awards Foundation). In 2008, Joop was made a Chevallier dans l’ordre des arts et des lettres by the French ministry of culture.
