Two men are sitting together at a table eating spaghetti. One is wolfing down the plate of pasta in no time, while at the same time telling an amusing anecdote - just barely intelligible - with fierce gestures and self-righteous grunts. The other, an elderly guy, is totally ignored. Despite frantic attempts, the poor man just cannot manage to...
At two-thirds, the lump shoots in to not go out until the end. It happens at every Alain Platèl performance. Heartfelt sobs from the audience, lots of swallowing around you and the inevitable tears welling up like a natural disaster. To call the Flemish choreographer's work predictable because of this is going too far. What he and his company Les...
[View the story "Opening Holland Festival 2012" on Storify] Opening Holland Festival 2012 On 1 June, the Holland Festival opened at Theater Carré. We were there, saw Platel's C(h)oeurs and tasted the atmosphere. Although it almost went wrong. This is what of it was witnessed on social media Storified by Cultureel Persbureau - Sat, Jun 02 2012 08:37:18...
Top theatre from all corners of the world, big names we had never dared hope for, and a newsreel that we will broadcast at unexpected times. Festival day newspaper The Dodo, now a household name in festival land, is going all out at this year's Holland Festival. Of course. It is the dream of every blogger, professional or amateur, to be at the performances of the...
In about a year's time, the Strut choir and the Irish folk band The Henry Girls on one stage. Artistic director Donna Risa: "I expect a wonderful interplay.''
A classic mistake: Andries Knevel describes Richard Wagner as Hitler's court composer. And is not contradicted by anyone.
Maybe it is also just the wrong choice to see part three immediately after the first two parts. Maybe after a day of you or some settling down you will be able to appreciate Petry's text, on its own merits. Imagine a three-star dinner. A sensuous succession of small and medium-sized dishes, prepared with the...
200 million less, half out at the basic infrastructure of the arts in the netherlands. what remains, how does the field react. Follow it here. advice council for culture
What Rabobank can do, we can do too, thought the journalists of the Cultural Press Agency: working together in a cooperative association. In June, the new form for the news agency will become a reality. This will increase our clout and boost our innovative capacity. The Cultural Press Agency Foundation received time and money from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in 2010 and 2011 to...
We at culture press have nuanced views on reviewing. Once upon a time when there were only newspapers, reviews were fairly unique pieces of writing by people appointed by the newspaper to proclaim The View to its so many hundred thousand readers. Since then, those so many hundred thousand readers have become newspapers themselves, and so have about as many reviewers.
"For me, opera is much more than just music," says Israeli director Sjaron Minailo. "It may sound a bit pompous, but my internet opera is completely in the tradition of Richard Wagner. Soul Seek is really a multimedia gesamtkunstwerk, in which fashion, web design and digital media, play, cinema, theatre, dance and experimental music merge into one. Without one element...
The culture card has been saved. This is wonderful news, so soon after the rock-hard slap in the face of the schoolgoing youth of the Netherlands that the now outgoing cabinet dealt in 2011. On improper grounds, as the Court of Audit revealed, the negotiators of PVV, CDA and VVD already scrapped during the formation this opportunity for schoolchildren to gain knowledge at steeply discounted...
Young people from Guatemala, nightingales from Northern Ireland and theatre-makers from the interior of Peru. Just some of the guests at the Community Arts Festival to be held in Utrecht in June 2013. Music, film and theatre with ordinary people behind and in front of the scenes, accompanied by professional artists. What else do they have in common?
For the second time during Springdance, artists and audience share the stage of Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg. REDUX ORCHESTRA, conducted by composer Ari Benjamin Meyers, plays his Symphony X, a pulsating, up-beat (120 p/m) minimal work. Spectators, conductor and musicians - can you just call them musicians? - merge into one big, extremely subtle, participatory choreography of...
Summarising 34 years of Springdance festival is impossible. Nor can we actually evaluate. Mourning because this year was the last? Perhaps. The festival that sailed past lows and highs in its young adult life is merging into a new festival, and no one knows at this point, 28 April 2012, what that festival will be called, and what it will...
Springdance closes with a remarkable dance concert on 28 April. Visual artist and choreographer Tino Sehgal created a movement piece to music by composer Ari Benjamin Meyers, which will be performed among the listening audience. Tino Sehgal's work is a well-kept secret. In any case, hardly any recordings of it are known. During the interview, Meyers says the following about it
Kat Válastur claimed that it is almost impossible to describe the dynamics of her performance with words. She is right. It is rare skill how with only two dancers in one place, so much can be depicted and the audience is sucked into a maelstrom. In the small hall of Theatre Kikker, mechanical thuds sound and two giants appear in the middle of the stage. They turn out to be dancers:...
Every festival begs for volunteers, and in the early days of Springdance, there were not even any paid staff at all. That's also saying something. As Springdance merges with Festival aan de Werf after 30 years, the theme of this latest edition is 'scupltured bodies & body sculptures'. At SYLPHIDES, this aptly applies. "How people move doesn't interest me, I want...
The Young Makers Marathon For Your Eyes Only at Springdance features performances by students from the influential dance academies School for New Dance Development (The Netherlands) and P.A.R.T.S. (Belgium). I had the pleaure to see two of them. Cow's Theory by Cecila Lisa Eliceche (P.A.R.T.S.) is a hyperintense piece of contact dance. Three female performers move at super slow pace,...
After the presentation of the Rotterdam and The Hague arts recommendations, and a few days to weeks before the harsh judgements of the Council for Culture, and a few months before the devastating reports of the Performing Arts Fund, it is starting to become clear how drastically the Dutch cultural sector is being hit
"We've been working on some songs and dances," says visual artist Martin Creed, assisted by his five-piece band and five ballet dancers. In his fragmentary performance, Creed explores the relationships between the five basic positions from classical ballet, the bouncy off-beat rhythms of his post-rock band, and Creed's own video art. This is his first choreography and it shows. "Works No....
A little tent allowed to play for sea anemone on dry land, its four legs perky in the air. Actors having a cup of tea and a game of cards. It all looks very innocent. What begins as a wonderful picture novel gradually grows into a rebus of considerable length. "My private Himalaya" is akin to a walking exhibition, with a wind machine....
You think you are buying a ticket for Springdance, but actually you are making an appointment at the office, at the Central Museum. Once let inside the waiting room, staff walk busily past you and the doorman takes one call after another. You obediently fill in a form. As usual, you have to reveal all sorts of personal details. And then that question: what...
You have those performances that remarkably simply and unobtrusively drag you into a world completely your own. Performances in which everything is recognisable. Words, movement, scenery. Everything equally familiar and homely. But then there is a tap against it. Patterns blur. Language is at odds. Everything rattles and drifts. And yet it makes sense. To your eyes and ears...
What is gravity? What is air? What is breath? In Untried Untested by choreographer Kate McIntosh, four women explore the magical workings of nature using simple means. They are armed with dozens of black balloons, a tangle of ship's rope, a handful of feathers, a few bags of potatoes, wind machines and fluorescent lights, a playground made of wrapping paper. And their own bodies. Unfortunately, that wonder remains...
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