Skip to content

O(h) that sea. OK. But which of the two?

The difference is just an 'h'. But confusing it is. This week, the rock opera 'Oh That Sea' premieres in Zeeland. In a month's time, the spherical location performance 'Oh Die Zee' will launch in The Hague, just as the Zeeland show is having its final weekend. The performances are both also about the Odyssey, the classic Greek epic about a Greek hero who, after destroying the city of Troy, takes ten years to return to his own city, where he then ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

We are becoming more portable. Cultural press has a new design

Culture Press has a new site. The old site was over two years old. And that is very old, in Internet times. We couldn't be left behind by De Correspondent, Dutch Cowboys and Medium either. After all, who still reads the internet from a PC screen? Right. Nobody. Analysis of our visit data showed that the number of mobile readers of our site was growing hand over fist.... 

What you can learn from Culture Press. Already 4 unique offers for art lovers and culture writers.

Being able to write nicely is fine, but the journalists at Culture Press can do more. They have studied to be art experts, have spent thousands of hours in rooms and halls that even you did not know existed and possess enormous drive. How else could this website exist?

We want to share this knowledge with you. In more ways than just through this website, or with the newsletter that a select group of viewers receive. We offer a programme, consisting of webinars, li...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Matthias Mooij (1976-2014): a career that should have been there.

He could have become an important director, but was at the wrong time, in the wrong place. In the end, his illness fatally bothered Matthias Mooij. Yesterday, this still young theatre-maker died of lung cancer, more than a year and a half after the premiere of his first large-venue production: Mogadishu. With that production, of a play written by the English writer Vivienne Franzmann, Mooij set a new tone in theatre: no longer did he seize back in theatre ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Meanwhile, the Manifesta continues as usual in Petersburg. Is that choice?

About the same time as the train from Donietsk to Kharkov, a press release arrived in my mailbox yesterday from the Manifesta. Our cultural pride in St Petersburg. This weeks Dutch festival is organising an audio tour of Rimini Protokoll, the renowned strong-political company from Germany. Oh. And, as a third item: there is a talk tonight on what the Biennale is capable of in times of political turmoil.

No word in that announcement about taking down 298 free world citizens

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Increasing pressure on art talent: 22 new creators to keep a close eye on.

For the past few weeks, academies across the country have been celebrating: a new batch of visual artists graduated and showed themselves to the world. Besides parents, grandparents and a few friends, a lot of art professionals descend on such a graduation presentation. Scouts, in the form of other artists, press, curators, collectors and gallery owners. All these people especially hope not to miss out on the new discovery and therefore try to be there as early as possible. In some cases, they...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Who are the finalists of the 50th Organ Festival?

Last night marked the 50th edition of the Organ Festival in Haarlem was graced with a concert in the Grote or St Bavo church by organists Ton Koopman and Olivier Latry. The voluminous book The Haarlem Essays gepresented, detailing the renaissance of the improvisation competition founded in 1951. The atmosphere in the sold-out church was supreme.

Journalism has changed. Countless reasons why you as an arts journalist can be at the forefront.

Once upon a time, people had a newspaper. In the newsroom, a few people knew why people had a newspaper. But it was a fact of life. People had a newspaper. Those who did not have a newspaper were not human beings. Nowadays, people don't have a newspaper. They have the internet. Those who don't have the internet are retarded.

Deventer seeks one boss for not a museum, but a story

Who can tell the story of Deventer? Apply. And if you manage to convince the committee, you can touch a nice salary for three years. As director of the world's first museum production house.

You read it right. Shortly after the VVD, together with the PVV, killed its own patriotic culture by, among other things, cutting all theatre and music production houses from the budget, Deventer comes up with a 'museum production house'. Because, this city says: ambitions to create a grand e...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Reinbert de Leeuw in Zomergasten, not in Muziekzomer

In just over two weeks, the NJO Music Summer will start, with more than sixty-five concerts performed by young musicians, spread across more and less obvious venues in the province of Gelderland. One hundred and sixty-one youngsters streamed in from all over the world to show their skills from 1 to 17 August. Anyone staying in Gelderland at that time could not possibly miss their presence.

There are performances at former factory sites, such as the Zoetenlaboratorium in Arnhem, the Zwitsalterre...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Working for free has become commonplace in the arts. 4 bare facts by festival director Meulman

'The practice of paying with a book voucher does not belong in a professional sector with considerable economic importance.' Jeffrey Meulman, director of the Netherlands Theatre Festival, has learned to live with it. Against his will. As host of the annual Gala of Dutch Theatre, he has managed to organise that festival again. Without money.

On his website, Meulman explains: 'Since the liquidation of the Performing Arts Promotion Office in October 2013, there has been for...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

One and a half million for art. Provided it is directly demonstrably useful

One and a half million euros sounds quite a lot. So a cry of joy will be heard here and there now that Jet Bussemaker is allocating that extra amount to culture. After all, this is yet another make up after the almost 300 million her ministry took from the sector earlier. However, the conditions the culture minister attaches to the money tell a different story: the money is only for art that is demonstrably useful.

Aufführung der Komposition " Delusion of the fury " von Harry Partch in der Musiktheater Inszenierung von Heiner Goebbels mit dem Ensemble musikFabrik in der Jahrhunderthalle Bochum im Rahmen der Ruhrtriennale 2012-14 am Mittwoch, 21.08.2013

Seeing music (and not hearing it?)

Because of my fascination with the complex relationship between listening and watching, I decided to visit three performances at the recent Holland Festival and experience what happened when I tried to pay equal attention to ears and eyes. The first was "Delusion of the Fury" (1966) by American composer Harry Partch, the second a concert performance of Philip Glass's opera "The CIVIL warS" (1983), the third a performance of Franz Schubert's "Die Winterreise" (1827) in which...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Gertrud Leistikow: So are the real roots of modern dance in the Netherlands after all?

In the first half of the 20th century, dance did not represent much in the Netherlands. There was some interest, but it exclusively concerned classical ballet. The successful dance performances all came from abroad.

It has all but disappeared from the history books that a remarkably creative and original dancer and choreographer settled in our country during those years: Gertrud Leistikow (1885 - 1948).

Silent hakas, blood and grim nudity at The Crimson House

Princess Beatrix can take a punch in contemporary theatre. Just two years ago, she was in the audience (as queen) at The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic, and this year at The Crimson House by Lemi Ponifasio / MAU. Just about one of the most radical - because loud, raw and rather unfathomable - performances of this edition of the Holland Festival. We didn't quite get there, by the way, but

Four opera myths shattered @Oerol festival

Is a performance opera if not a note is sung? If the audience sits on a stand in a car park with headphones on their heads? Or if a man cries out like a dog with a tongue out of his mouth throughout the performance? The definitions of opera are stretched quite a bit at five Oerol performances. Interestingly, hardly anyone calls the performance opera. By necessity, musical theatre is often used, but that term does not really fall into a warm bath.

About five years ago, ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Five things we learned from opera amuse Sweeney Todd

What: A preview of the 'musical thriller' Sweeney Todd

Location: the biggest rehearsal room of the Dutch Travel Opera

Present: almost the entire cast, one hundred and fifty guests

Menu: bread, pastry, a dessert as pretty as it is tasty

Drinks: water, red/white wine ánd Bloody Mary's, complete with celery as a stirrer, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, pepper (and salt, nowhere to go), lemon (should have been lime), prepare it yourself

 
(1) How m...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Ayn Rand was haunting Dutch theatre as early as 2006.

Ivo van Hove did not just create a play based on Ayn Rand's novel of ideas The Fountainhead. In 2006, the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam even wanted to base a whole new design of the theatre system on it. Eight years later, we can see that only the negative aspects of Van Hove's vision have been realised.

"The book is a whirlwind and doesn't let you go. It juxtaposes the thinking of the artist with that of the opportunist. And then I thought, let mi...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Doesn't 'The Returns' exclude you as much as the art snobs parodied by Forsythe?

When someone speaks in sentences with words that repeatedly rhyme with 'art' or in which the syllable 'art' keeps popping up, you have to adjust to a different logic than that of everyday communication. If it is also a woman dressed in bright red who pronounces those words elatedly and with many mannerisms, suggesting that she is hyper-sensitive to anything to do with art, your thoughts balance between: 'how awful' and 'how funny'.

[caption id="attachment_16465"...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Spaghetti 'Thyestes': classic roots work fiercely in a new preparation

In Rome, they have known what good food is for 20 centuries or so. Bloodletting is everything. Seneca, a Roman of the better sort, wrote plays in which bloodshed was elevated to an art. Audiences feasted on them, just as they feasted on Seneca's recipes in Shakespeare's time, 1,500 years later, and as we feast on Game of Thrones on TV now. It can't be gory, can't be cruel enough. We like that.

Simon Stone is an Australian wonderboy, at least in theatre. He mixes the casu...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Struggling River of Fundament - grandiose recycling opera that doesn't know when to stop

From 2007, video artist Matthew Barney (The Cremaster Cycle) and composer Jonathan Bepler on a free adaptation of Norman Mailer's most maligned book Ancient Evenings. To Mailer's mythology of ancient Egypt, they added the equally mythical American automobile industry in an ambitious and operatesque film project with a demanding length of 5 hours 11 minutes.

From February River of Fundament on world tour and the Holland Festival

Voices from the realm of shadows - retrospective Luigi Nono at Holland Festival

After impressive retrospectives dedicated to John Cage (2012) and Edgard Varèse (2009), this year the Holland Festival placed Venetian composer Luigi Nono in the spotlight. Under the title 'Trilogy of the sublime', the imposing Gashouder was the epicentre of three full-length concerts, short 'Nono interventions' sounded in the Rijksmuseum's subway, a two-day symposium was organised around Nono, and his widow Nuria set up an exhibition entitled 'M...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

'Fix it yourself.' Culture minister puts fate of amateur arts in hands of municipalities and citizens

In March this year, the Council for Culture sounded the alarm. Unique under the new leadership, which is usually extremely docile when it comes to culture cuts. But what happens to the music schools, children's drama schools, libraries and amateur orchestras is otherwise entirely up to the citizens themselves, and their local councils. This is the minister's response to the chamber.

In the letter, which landed in MPs' inboxes this weekend, the minister states, "I will maintain my commitment to the terrei...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

How it feels to single-handedly make a decision that turns the world upside down

That Serbian Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Austrian crown prince in 1914, thus triggering World War I, was until recently in the Netherlands no more than a dry historical fact. But now that it has been a century since this attack, this young freedom fighter is still getting a face in our country. But what De Warme Winkel is doing in the performance 'Gavrilo Princip' is much more than 'giving a face'.

Private Membership (month)
5 / Maand
For natural persons and self-employed persons.
No annoying banners
A special newsletter
Own mastodon account
Access to our archives
Small Membership (month)
18 / Maand
For cultural institutions with a turnover/subsidy of less than €250,000 per year
No annoying banners
A premium newsletter
All our podcasts
Your own Mastodon account
Access to archives
Posting press releases yourself
Extra attention in news coverage
Large Membership (month)
36 / Maand
For cultural institutions with a turnover/subsidy of more than €250,000 per year.
No annoying banners
A special newsletter
Your own Mastodon account
Access to archives
Share press releases with our audience
Extra attention in news coverage
Premium Newsletter (substack)
5 trial subscriptions
All our podcasts

Payments are made via iDeal, Paypal, Credit Card, Bancontact or Direct Debit. If you prefer to pay manually, based on an invoice in advance, we charge a 10€ administration fee

*Only for annual membership or after 12 monthly payments

en_GBEnglish (UK)