Troy is rather hot, this year. The Hague has just premiered Trojan Wars, an insane marathon performance (5 hours), with 35 actors for 40 roles and a text that, apart from being by Homer, is very clearly by Peer Wittenbols. Who I admire boundlessly. A review by colleague Peter Olsthoorn can be read on this site....
For those who love acrobatics and existential questions of life, Boris Gibé's L'absolu is a valhalla. The extraordinary spectacle can be admired during Festival Circolo in Tilburg. In an empty silo at a height of 12 metres, acrobat (and metaphysician) Gibé confronts the audience with the big questions of life. With his act, he shows that circus and art can go hand in...
'I often wonder why I keep doing what I do. I do circus, but I don't just want to tell stories, I want to act, I want to live up to my beliefs and my values. And by acting, I don't mean eating organic food, sorting my waste and donating to Greenpeace, no ; I really want to contribute to all those issues I...
'They come from two worlds, but work together towards something that is one. Jolanda Spoel has done that perfectly'. Katinka Reinders, head of education at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, is enthusiastic after one of the first play-in performances of Melomaniac at Maas Theatre & Dance. Just now, a room full of somewhat timid secondary school students turned into a churning group of lovers of...
During Tilburg circus festival Circolo, you can experience it, if you want to, and certainly if you can't help it: audio description. Especially for the blind and visually impaired, the festival offers the services of Komt Het Zien, a company specialising in live description of what is on stage in front of you. Founder Arlette Hanson, is one such...
Back Home, the new novel by Spanish writer Jesús Carrasco (49) is not only a portrait of a family and two generations, but also a portrait of Spain itself. 'Today's literature gives social groups a voice they didn't have before.' Three years of work and two complete novels ended up in the dustbin before Jesús Carrasco wrote his new novel Back...
Perhaps the COVID pandemic did not itself create unprecedented inventions and new things, but unexpected things that were already there suddenly came to the fore. Like podcasts, like online art, like new views on leadership and a different way of looking at the future. Very briefly, this is what you take away from the total of eight hours of...
Not a standard death mass, but an ode to life. Iraqi-Dutch composer Hawar Tawfiq has been commissioned by festival November Music and Ammodo Fonds to compose a brand new Bosch Requiem in which he opts for a very personal musical approach. With his Requiem des fleurs et des nuages, Tawfiq joins the ranks of earlier Bosch Requiem composers such as Kate Moore, Calliope Tsoupaki and Seung-Won...
We spend much of our lives saving our asses. You'd better be a bit cheerful about that, because life isn't manufacturable anyway. These are no small life lessons that René Geerlings, the new boss of Rotterdam-based Maas Theatre and Dance, deploys in his first play as artistic director. Still...
Dance and ballet, drama with gory atrocities and clattering emotions, imaginative lighting, set and costume effects and, above all, enthusiasm bursting forth. HNTjong's 'biggest production ever' with 30 actors for 50 roles is overwhelming. Thanks also to the corona crisis: the National Theatre had to postpone the performance for a year and a half and lift it over two summer holidays, with all the misery...
Theatre and film have close ties. Many classic plays have been filmed. One of the merits of Ivo van Hove and Jan Versweyveld is that they have reversed that relationship. Film as the starting point for their performances. Their radically innovative work is the starting point for the exhibitions - designed by themselves - about theatre about film about theatre. In 13 venues...
A request came in from the University of Amsterdam. After all, they like to get in touch with independent artists. Only from Amsterdam, admittedly, but still. We share the main part of the request here. Research on self-employed artists in times of crisis The corona crisis has (had) a major impact on self-employed artists. The University of Amsterdam is investigating the impact of the corona crisis on...
A virtual gun, which, when you shoot it, does not fire a bullet but displays a pop-up with encyclopaedic information about what you have just fired at. Now if only we fought the next war with that. It was conceived by Iranian artist Ali Eslami, who was forced by the lockdown to use his international network to develop...
With Orkater, I grew into theatre as a student. In the house here is the DVD box with Alex van Warmerdam's first seven delightful films, which I still watch back regularly, now together with the youngest generation learning and enjoying. Then I smile daily at the spines of his curious books, such as the fine collection of poetry 'I created the world'....
During the Netherlands Film Festival, Joris Hoebe (New Noardic Wave) and Guido Franken (CineSud) launched the new network organisation Screen Talent NL. A network that ultimately aims to inspire and support talent and film activities in all regions of the Netherlands.
Even though the satirical programme Jiskefet has not existed for more than 15 years, Michiel Romeyn (66) is still recognised on the street as 'lullo' Van Binsbergen, 'the white nigger' Oboema or office clerk Storm. In Romeyn's existence, the dividing line between life and theatre is fluid. 'I like to disrupt things,' he says. 'We're hopefully not going to talk about Jiskefet after all....
Last Monday, 20 September, the Nederlandse Reisopera presented its programme for the upcoming season. The speaker was Josef Fuchs, who was introduced as the company's new artistic director by its general director a.i. Nina Hiddema. A festive occasion, which caused slight surprise in the small gathering (a few journalists and some colleagues). In an interview (below...
Producer Pieter van Huystee resumes working with Heddy Honigmann, one of the Netherlands' leading documentary filmmakers. In her latest film No Hay Camino (There is no road), she looks back on her work and life. Interview with Van Huystee, on the road he travelled with her over 25 years.
'Him, dammit. Do I need to be any clearer?' With those words from the irascible photographer Alessandro Pavia, who appoints orphan boy Antonio as his new assistant, a new life begins for the protagonist of the novel Antonio's Eye by Raffaella Romagnolo. Antonio Casagrande, already almost 12 and blind in one eye, had almost given up hope of ever making orphanage Pammatone...
Jury and audience unanimous on new Dutch Poetry Slam champion Monique Hendriks has become Dutch Poetry Slam Champion 2021. After preliminary rounds across the country, eleven poetry slammers faced each other in the final on Friday evening 24 September, during the International Literature Festival Utrecht. Monique Hendriks took on Lucas Kloosterboer in the final battle and captured the national...
Mahat Arab (born 1996) is the winner of the second edition of ILFU's Storytelling Competition. He won with a spoken word recording titled 'Part-time fathers'. During festival day Exploring Stories, he received the grand prize of five thousand euros, from the hands of ILFU's organisation. More than 700 people participated in the ILFU Stories Competition; 723 stories were entered in five categories. Apart from Mahat...
Hope for liberation during a dark period of war threat and political oppression; a masterpiece by Beethoven sublimely expressed in dance by Toer van Schayk. Everything gets into an uproar Creating an abstract and layered classical ballet for a large ensemble of a top company to a Beethoven symphony: few can do it and Toer is one of them. His ballet stems from...
Admittedly, I was never a fan, but how I hated those planes last night. I was walking through a dark, nocturnal forest between Lage Vuursche and Hilversum. Where, in the silence, I could have listened extra carefully to creaking twigs, shuffling insects, whispering trees and the occasional owl, I mostly heard how happy we all are that after corona we have another...
FOODCHAINZ is an intermedial project and evening-long programme consisting of a tomato dinner with special guests from the food chain, the exhibition HARVEST FROM THE HOOD, the audio tour From Farmer to Plate and the theatre performance FOODCHAINZ! To be seen on 7, 8, 9, 14 and 15 October at Plein Theater in Amsterdam Oost! Tickets include dinner and bonus programming and are available at...
'It really is the case that at some point the dead come back to look for you, and then you have to have dinner with them.' Italian writer Marta Barone (34), who records these words in her novel Sunken City, experienced this first-hand when she lost her father Leonardo, now a decade ago. Barone grew up at...
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