Podium Buiksloterkerk: Theater in Buiksloot, Amsterdam

Podium Buiksloterkerk is the concert and theatre programme of the Buiksloterkerk, the oldest monument in Amsterdam-Noord, a small brick church just behind the Buiksloterdijk. Go for classical, jazz and world music or a children's show in an intimate room with a blue-green wooden vault, surrounded by trees, water and an old graveyard. From September to May there are about three performances a month, and the year also brings a plant swap market, a Christmas singalong and an end-of-year disco that the whole neighbourhood turns out for. The foundation runs entirely on dozens of volunteers, with income from friends, hire and the programme itself. The church took its present form in 1710, using older parts, and its pulpit dates from 1659. Services stopped in 1984 as the congregation dwindled. The Nederlands Hervormde gemeente handed the building to the Stichting Buiksloterkerk in 1992, and neighbours helped save a structure that had become badly dilapidated.