Rotterdam For Real

Rotterdam is real. It has room for dreaming; space for doing. Rotterdam is where you will find a diversity of people and places that, together, give a different dimension to every day. Here you can be who you really are. Creativity and innovation are just as much part of our DNA as the river Maas. Our city is the international business card of the Netherlands, which is why we are proud to welcome the 65^th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest with open arms. Together we roll up our sleeves. Together, we Make it Happen.

NTJAM ROSIE: ‘ROTTERDAM IS LIKE YIN AND YANG’

Singer Ntjam Rosie relocated from Maastricht to Rotterdam when she was 19. ‘I came to Rotterdam to study at the conservatoire. At first, I lived on the Kruiskade, and after that I also lived in the northern quarter of town and in Katendrecht. I’ve seen it all, but now I have found my peace in Kralingen. Rotterdam is the city I come home to. I have to travel a lot as an artist, but in the end I always come back here’.

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MARWAN MAGROUN: ‘THE CITY IS MY NOURISHING GROUND’

Photographer Marwan Magroun has lived in Rotterdam all his life. He grew up in the city centre and is now a resident of the western quarter. Marwan says: ‘I derive my identity from this city. This is where I have grown up with multiple cultures, and where I have learned from other people and about myself in a spectrum ranging from music to photography. I saw how my city changed at a young age, especially in the centre. Houses were torn down, and so was my primary school, which had to make way for the Markthal. That was the moment when I thought: wow, things are changing really rapidly now and I have to record this’.
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TERILEKST: ‘IT’S NOT POLISHED’

He wrote his music album Turquoise looking at the Meuse panorama: ‘The ships passing by, the glistening water. They have influenced my music’. Now Dennis van der Meijden, aka producer Terilekst, calls himself a Rotterdam resident. ‘After living in Amsterdam for three years, I relocated to Rotterdam in 2005, where I lived above Jazzclub Dizzy on the ’s Gravendijkwal for a while. I ended up there because of my sister, but I also had a girlfriend here. Rotterdam is less crowded; people are not so “in your face” and they are much more down to earth – there’s no pretentious bullshit here.
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ALINA FEJZO: ‘HERE, I CAN BE MYSELF 100%’

Ten years ago, Alina Fejzo came from Italy to Rotterdam to study choreography at Codarts Rotterdam: ‘Actually, I was a student of architecture, but I had been dancing all my life too. I gave the dancing one last chance; I allowed myself an audition at Codarts, and if it didn’t work out, I would stick with my study, but if it did, it would change my life, and that is what happened. I entered the city for the first time by crossing the Van Brienenoordbrug in the dead of night. I took one look at the skyline and fell head over heels in love with the city.

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