Nynke Laverman

Anyone who attended Oerol on the Dutch island of Terschelling in 2025 witnessed the birth of Nynke Laverman’s new project. Outdoors, in a circle of oak trees – with birds, wind and sunlight forming part of the performance – the story she wants to tell with her new album OAK came to life. OAK is both a continuation of and a response to her previous album Plant, once again interwoven with wisdom from Indigenous cultures.

Storytelling

Nynke Laverman (1980) grew up in the Frisian village of Weidum, the Netherlands. She did not live on a farm herself, but there was one at the end of the street where she could always be found – constantly outdoors, among animals, in the fields. Freedom and nature. Moving to Amsterdam to attend the Academy for Musical Theatre and Dance was a major culture shock. “For six months I was incredibly homesick – the environment and the way people related to one another were so different. It also felt very vulnerable, because at a theatre school you have to be completely open from day one; you’re not safely anonymous in a lecture hall”, says Nynke. 

At the same time, she also immediately felt she belonged in the world of artists. “When I started at the academy, I saw myself as a performer: I can sing and act, and I enjoy dancing. I never expected there to be a creator inside me, but that’s who I’ve become. I feel like a storyteller, with the most beautiful medium in the world at my disposal: music.”

Wisdom from indigenous cultures

The story Nynke wanted to tell did not become clear to her immediately. “Over the past years, a number of things have really clicked for me”, she says. “I always thought I loved travel and adventure: for every album I went somewhere else. In Mongolia, where I travelled for my third album, I realised that I am inspired by Indigenous cultures – cultures that have always known how to live in harmony with their surroundings.”

“What stands out for me most is the principle of reciprocity: giving and taking must always be balanced. Of course, you may take from nature, but only what you need, and you give back when you can”, Nynke says. “In Indigenous cultures, the concept of ‘ownership’ doesn’t really exist either. Things belong to themselves – including the land. That may be because Indigenous cultures see everything as animated, as having spirit. They therefore treat everything around them with respect. In the West, we see only humans as animated, not our surroundings. In Mongolia, when I saw a beautiful stone and picked it up to take with me, I was told that stones there are seen as the storytellers of the world. They are so old and have witnessed so much. All of that is stored within them. Anyone who has lost their story can go looking for it in the rocks of the mountains. This is also why they don’t just pick stones up casually there: ‘That stone will feel unsettled for three months’, I was told.”

It already exists

“In 2019 I became truly aware of everything that is happening on Earth – climate breakdown and the ecological crisis“, Nynke says. “At first I felt a lot of anger and indignation, but I also understood that I couldn’t stay stuck in those emotions for too long. Since then, it has felt like a kind of assignment to use my music to pass on Indigenous wisdom and inspire others. The beautiful thing is that this wisdom has existed all over the world for centuries. To emerge from these crises, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel – it already exists. It has already been thought through, already lived. In fact, it is still being lived today. There is an enormous amount of wisdom about how we can live in harmony with our surroundings. A worldview is just a story you believe – or not. Another worldview is closer than we think. I find that hopeful. The challenge lies in letting go of old systems and changing how we see the world.”

The power of art 

What moved Nynke so deeply in Mongolia was that the Indigenous worldview she encountered was not merely theoretical – it was a way of life, practiced in daily reality. She began to question more and more why, in the West, we have taken such a different path, why our worldview is so distinct. As an artist, Nynke feels a deep responsibility to contribute to what is happening to the Earth. That responsibility can be uncomfortable, because, as she puts it: “The problems are so vast and seem so unsolvable. I feel that responsibility, but I don’t always know what my role can be. Am I just a drop on a scorching hot plate?”

At the same time, she sees how art can create space for reflection, and how it can confront and move people emotionally. “On an intellectual level, there is already an enormous amount of information, but knowledge alone isn’t always enough. Music always has had the power to transport people. That’s an incredibly valuable tool. It reaches people in the heart, which makes them more likely to act.”

“I notice that a new worldview also calls for a new language. In our Western vocabulary, I can’t find the words to capture the feeling of being connected to everything that exists”, Nynke continues. “You end up with business-like words as ‘connection’, or words like ‘nature’ that already imply a separation between humans and their environment. With music and sound, I can express this. That allows the subconscious to speak, the associative.”

Musical stories

Nynke’s previous album Plant (2021) emerged from her sense of shock and dismay. In the song Your Ancestor, she apologises to future generations as an ancestor and ‘Homo Economicus’. Tree Tree invites listeners to view humans through the eyes of trees. For the slow release of the album, Nynke created a podcast for each track, in which she interviewed scientists, philosophers and performing artists who inspired her – including nature philosopher Matthijs Schouten, social philosopher Roman Krznaric, climate activist Anuna de Wever, bioengineer and researcher Valerie Trouet and cultural historian Eva Rovers.

After Plant, Nynke felt she had said everything she needed to say. During a vision quest in nature, however, a new idea emerged about the story that now needed to be told. The final part of the Plant performance had been an improvisation – which Nynke later came to see as a powerful metaphor for where we currently stand as a society. “We must let go of the structures that no longer serve us, without knowing what comes next. That not-knowing is deeply uncomfortable, and improvisation always felt that way to me as well. Just the idea of it made me break out in a cold sweat. Now I feel its necessity and its value.”

“We all belong to the same family of life”

“I experienced that the moment you let go, you are always held by something – there is always something you can trust: an intuition, a current, or whatever you want to call it.” Almost all of the tracks on OAK are therefore recorded improvisations, without a fixed song structure. “They are like musical journeys, where you slide from one world into another”, Nynke explains. “They slow things down, bringing you closer to the essence, creating space to truly listen again – to one another and to our surroundings. OAK is about the deep connection between humans and nature, which has always existed. We have pushed nature away and neglected or estranged that relationship, but the true connection has never disappeared. We cannot not be connected: we all belong to the same family of life. I believe everyone feels that connection deep down. We just have to remember it again.”

As with Plant, Nynke is releasing OAK slowly: each month a new track is released, accompanied by a podcast episode (in Dutch) in which Nynke and Lex Bohlmeijer speak with someone who inspires her. The theatre tour of OAK begins in early March 2026. For this project, Nynke and We Are The ReGeneration are collaborating – we will keep you posted about the entire journey of OAK.

Originally published on the 17th of October 2025. Latest update: 3rd of February 2026.