This year, the Holland Festival brings the extraordinary French-Algerian co-production Nya, which combines achievements of modern and classical dance with hip-hop and, in addition, Ravel's Bolero sounds alongside Houria Aïchi's Algerian evergreens.
There is no such thing as the perfect human being. We are all crooks. Or is there a way to get it right? Ilay den Boer and the actors of De Utrechtse Spelen / De Warme Winkel each explore in their own way at the 26th edition of Festival aan de Werf. Wasn't my grandfather just an asshole? That...
Case in point: more people are against cuts than the ministry would have us believe. On page 32 of the now heavily controversial brochure 'Cultuur in Beeld', the ministry writes: "In the CDE, carried out at the end of 2010, citizens were asked to indicate from 17 policy fields whether they think the central government should spend (a lot) less or (a lot) more money on...
The opening images are apt: Joop van den Ende among men in togas, behind a real Pedel (the man with the bells), apathetic. And rightly so, of course. Because the once head man of cultural-entrepreneurial Holland, who started out in a party goods shop, achieved academic status without ever studying. For the man who always felt somewhat disadvantaged by the cultural and intellectual...
How bad is it really? A few lied lines in a Ministry of Education, Culture and Science booklet? Pretty bad. Because it's an outright lie, and a government that lies is not to be had. Because: how can you trust them anymore?
Of course, you were all lining up for that legendary Richard III by Orkater with music by Tom Waits. Or you had locked yourself in for Oostpool's small-room gem 'Till the fat lady sings', or you just didn't want to miss an episode of O O Cherso and The Voice of Holland. Anyway: now you know what you...
Russian conductor Valeri Gergjev was back in Rotterdam for a while, for one concert. He conducted his own orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), in de Doelen. The famous orchestra played repertoire that we in our country know inside out: Gustav Mahler's 1st symphony and Dmitri Shostakovich's 1st piano concerto. A now historic combination: because the Netherlands has become fused...
There is an interesting 'drone' underneath, and that may strike someone as menacing. In any case, the video at the end of this article has more meaning than many culture lovers might think. The fact is that the sweeping cuts made by the UK government through their 'Arts Council' have met with hardly any protests in retrospect, while the disproportionality in the cut...
[View the story "Theatre sector versus Council for Culture" on Storify]
It's easy to cycle past it as a Utrechter, the Basis voor Actuele Kunst (BAK) in Lange Nieuwstraat, but internationally few can ignore it. BAK is big. Under the leadership of artistic director Maria Hlavajova, who is as ineffable as she is sympathetic, the centre has become a leading centre in the world of contemporary art. A few years ago,...
Although the announcement of 'sonic tapestry: Shoes, part V' by Tomoko Mukaiyama can be read as a variant of Sex and the City on classical music, Sarah Jessica Parker would forever look at her Manolo Blahniks differently after seeing Mukaiyama's performance. This very special piano recital was Saturday 7 May at LP2 (Room 2 of the Rotterdam...
About a decade ago, on the main stage of Rotterdam's De Doelen concert hall, there stood a frail and still searching young woman, a singer-songwriter in a language other than English. Sometimes in Portuguese but mostly in the criollo of the Cape Verde islands, this Sara Tavares presented, with minimal accompaniment, her CD 'Mi ma bô' that would later give her international...
It was predictable. Now that the Culture Council has given the secretary of state a go-ahead for massive and very deep cuts in dance, the first press releases are appearing with the outraged reactions. The National Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater are aggrieved: 'How
We at culture press did not use the word cheese slicer, so it is not about us, but still. Today, the Council for Culture is reacting rather furiously to the many negative reactions to its advice issued last week. Of course, it is also kind of unfortunate that the Council has to issue an opinion that it itself does not support at all, and then the...
Admittedly, our method of reviewing (see our contributions on Springdance and De Internationale Keuze) is new to the Netherlands, but in the States a few were already doing it. For example, the two yummy guys Andrew and Andrew are doing well with their iPhones, doing the same as the Dodo with the Kodak Zi8 (no shares, though we would love to be sponsored...
State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra does not like whining. Don't come to him with email bombardments, Twitter campaigns, angry letters and abusive language. He is not only insensitive to it, it even backfires on him. At least that is what he told
Our overview of Twitter responses to the Council for Culture's advice, released on 29 April. [View the story "Twitter reacts to Council for Culture advice" on Storify]
Once again, we are using a new web service. Just to see how it works. Feel free to let us know (in the comments) if you find us too geeky. We'll do something about it. [View the story "Springdance 2011" on Storify]
On Wednesday 27 April 2011, we reported on the annual symposium of the Royal Association of Booksellers. Interesting bi9jeen meeting, we can say, but of course not every speaker was as brilliant as Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaar, the director of the Collective Propaganda of the Dutch Book Foundation, whom from now on we will call the John and Jesus of the storytelling industry...
Nothing is more uplifting than singing a canon together. French choreographer Boris Charmatz's Frère Jacques, seen as the bouncer on the final night of Springdance, is a special case, though. 'Levée des conflits' has no recurring refrain, but it has no fewer than 25 stanzas, which are danced by each of the 24 dancers. The insane polyphony that rises from this monster canon of dancing bodies slowly rattles the viewer apart over 1 hour and 40 minutes, at least if they keep following the multitude of movements and manipulations. 'Levée des conflits' presents the audience with a dilemma: does it surrender to the inimitability of interlocking phases and versions of a composition that it cannot possibly oversee? Or does it frantically search for structure, something to hold on to, something to orientate itself in this hall of mirrors of repetition and multiplication?
Springdance Utrecht has ended. Boris Charmatz gave the last performance of the Utrecht dance festival last night with "Levée des conflits". Critics Fransien van der Putt and Daniël Bertina already show their opinions in the film below. They also have a conversation with Boris Charmatz. Read more about this performance.
The Springdance Festival in Utrecht is coming to an end. Today, the last performances take place. Three reviewers from the Cultureel Persbureau look back on the festival, in an interview with Jeroen Stout. Reviewer Fransien van der Putt does get spring fever from Springdance, she says in the interview: 'This festival exceeded my expectations.' Daniël Bertina (also a critic) also found it a particularly...
Her full thighs clatter together. She shakes her bare arms, grinning at the trembling skin on her upper arms. She stomps furiously across the Theatre Kikker's playing floor, while her hefty body - dressed in a small, nondisguising black dress - emphatically bounces happily on all sides. You just have to dare. In her one-woman show 'Gina', Swiss theatre maker Eugénie Rebetez beyond all embarrassment. In the skin of Gina, Rebetez shows her own yearning for stardom, with plenty of self-mockery and absurdist humour. A quirky mishmash of mime, stand-up comedy, cabaret and contemporary dance.
Had we completely forgotten about the goat from sheer terror. Anyway. That goat, or at least its completely skinned carcass according to Dutch law, plays a role in the finale of Ishmael Houston-Jones' show Them. Afterwards, we saw the audience come out rather affected.
When music sounds, almost everyone tends to move with it. Music leads to dance. That link is crystal clear. But in modern dance, that obviousness is broken. Watching 'Silent Ballet' by Emanuel Gat Dance, this becomes poignantly clear. Without a single sound being sent into the auditorium, the eight dancers swarm across the stage....
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