Daniel Bertina

/// Freelance cultural journalist, critic, writer and dramatist. Omnivore with a love of art, culture & media in all unfathomable gradations between obscure underground and wildly commercial mainstream. Also works for Het Parool and VPRO. And trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

'It felt a bit like the first time sex: way too direct, rushed, overactive and largely based on insecurity': Ivo Dimchev in battle with Franz West's wearable art

by Daniel Bertina
15 April 20128 July 2016
4 min read
SPECIALS

"What the fuck should I do with this?" was choreographer and performance artist Ivo Dimchev's (1976) first thought when confronted with the artworks of Austrian artist Franz West. After Dimchev's solo performance Some Faves (2010) in Vienna, West, a multi-awarded creator of bizarre sculptures and objects, sought contact with the choreographer. He asked him to make an improvised video based on his...

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‘Soms slaat het verlangen niet gezien te worden om in een overdaad aan exhibitionisme.’ – Yasmeen Godder over The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act

by Daniel Bertina
11 April 201230 March 2022
5 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Ze heeft het druk gehad. Hoogzwanger werkte Yasmeen Godder (Jeruzalem, 1973) aan haar eerste choreografie voor Batsheva Dance Company. In een maand tijd stampte ze onder de vleugels van Batsheva haar nieuwe voorstelling The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act uit te grond, en beviel tussendoor van een gezonde dochter. scenefoto Voor de derde keer presenteert de Israëlische choreografe Yasmeen Godder haar…

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From insane Moroccan drum 'n bass to alienating dream sounds: Dakka al Marrakchia, Zoumana Diarra & Basile Maneka #WU12

by Daniel Bertina
22 January 20128 July 2016
2 min read
Writers Unlimited

It is incredible what an energy the men of Manar can generate. These six - dressed in djellabas - percussionists play Dekka al Marrakchia: an insanely rousing form of traditional Moroccan drum 'n bass party music and religious Gnawa. After a solemn, almost ritualistic beginning - in which the band comes jogging onto the stage of the Theater aan het Spui in a goose-step, accompanied by the menacing sounds of two huge horns - the drums erupt and the dance floor is full of swinging visitors.

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Edney Silvestre ziet het probleem niet zo, in het debat Lust & Colour. ‘In Brazilie zijn we toch allemaal gemixed’ #WU12

by Daniel Bertina
21 January 201229 March 2022
2 min read
For members only, SPECIALS, Writers Unlimited

Robert Vuijsje leest voor (klik hier!)

"It's raw. The language is very powerful" - noemt de Brazilaanse schrijver Edney Silvestre de voorgelezen passage door zijn Hollandse collega Robert Vuijsje. Het doet hem denken aan toen hij een tiener was, en Henry Miller las. "Daarbij vergelijken is dit wel een beetje een kinderverhaaltje."
De toon is gezet. In het chaotische debat Lust & Colour vroeg Wim Brands drie auteurs naar het samenvloeien van geilheid en huidskleur. Een lastig onderwerp. Ze k...

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Column: Staat van Verwenning door Patrick van der Hijden, de opening van het debat Burger King & Burgerschap

by Daniel Bertina
21 January 201229 March 2022
12 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

In het debat Burger King & Burgerschap geven Patrick van der Hijden, David van Reybrouck, Chris Keulemans en Samuel Vriezen hun visie op de staat van de burger. Publiek mag, maar hoeft niet, meedoen. Hieronder de column Staat van Verwenning, voorgedragen door Patrick van der Hijden - als aftrap voor het debat.

"Ons leven is in de achttiende eeuw uitgevonden.
De leden van de hogere klassen – de elite – hadden een eigen huis, vaak met tuin. Ze stuurden hun kinderen naar school en die begonnen...

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Hearing sober prophet of doom John Gray speak is always a relief #WU12

by Daniel Bertina
21 January 201226 October 2018
3 min read
For members only, SPECIALS, Writers Unlimited

Eind jaren tachtig was John N. Gray (South Shields, 1948) adviseur van Margaret Thatcher – Gray: “I was just a small mote of dust in her administration" – nu is hij felle criticaster van alles wat met het neoconservatieve gedachtegoed te maken heeft. Op Writers Unlimited voelde publicist Bas Heijne hem aan de tand.
Gray is politiek filosoof, voormalig docent aan de prestigieuze London School of Economics, beeldenstormer, taoist, onheilsprofeet en schrijver van magistraal scherpe, maar bij vlagen...

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In How to be a dictator in Africa zijn schrijvers Helon Habila en Dinaw Mengestu opvallend positief over de toekomst van hun continent, ondanks de bedenkingen van David van Reybrouck en moderator Andrew Makkinga.

by Daniel Bertina
20 January 201230 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

over dctatorsDinaw Mengestu deelt zijn achternaam met de voornaam van één van Ethiopië gewezen dictators. “Vooralsnog ben ik schrijver, maar aspireer een carrière als dictator.” Dictators ontstaan niet in een vacuüm, stelt Mengestu. “Wij als burgers scheppen onze leiders.” In zijn voorgedragen verhaal geven de burgers al hun dromen uit handen. Ze schuiven al hun verantwoordelijkheid af richting de machthebbers.…

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La Fin Du Western is screaming, stomping and spitting tirade against the absurd power struggle in Ivory Coast #dekeuze

by Daniel Bertina
1 October 20118 July 2016
4 min read
ACTUAL

"I love westerns," says one of the African players. "Because you always know how they end. Clearly. With only one winner." On the stage floor are four smoothly twirling, stomping dancing, trained performers from the Ivory Coast. They are a stark contrast to their co-stars: two lumbering, yoghurt-pale and uncoordinated German actors. The Africans speak French, the Germans mostly English. The...

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"Talkshow" by artist Miet Warlop and film scholar Hilde D'haeyere is an overly noncommittal slapstick collage #dekeuze

by Daniel Bertina
28 September 20118 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL

She bends over. A huge wooden shot thunders over film scientist Hilde D'haeyere around and smashes against the playing floor. She stays alive through a recess in the wood. Unperturbed, she springs up and continues reading from her essay: a scholarly treatise on function of slapstick in the silent films of Charlie Chapin and Buster Keaton, as well as in the work of visual artist cum theatre maker Miet Warlop.

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Ingmar Bergman becomes opera at Grachtenfestival

by Daniel Bertina
27 July 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Amsterdam, 1999. Studying Theatre Science, first-year theatre analysis class. I sit with notepad and pen clutched in fingers, making indecipherable notes. Halfway through the lecture, Sjaron Minailo (Tel Aviv, 1979) saunters in, dressed in a huge fur coat, with big Gucci sunglasses and dreadlocks. With a sigh, he plops into the back lecture bench, hears three sentences of the disrupted lecturer's speech

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#HF11: With The School for Scandal, Deborah Warner gives a gleeful kick to an arch-conservative theatre tradition. The British are not amused.

by Daniel Bertina
2 June 201113 February 2019
6 min read
Holland Festival, SPECIALS

The School for Scandal_8 © Neil Libbert — Photo: Neil Libbert

That was a bit of a grind for British theatre critics. The celebrated director Deborah Warner (1959) recently pulled Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal out of the closet. A play from 1777, and an untouchable part of the British theatre canon. Building on the style of her earlier production Mother Courage (2009) Warner also indicated The School for Scandal - goddamn - a quirky, contemporary twist.

"With many video, light, music and noise - like a rock concert, " grins Warner in the office of the Barbican Theatre In London. "Mother Courage had an incredibly populist, exciting atmosphere. I love that arrogant theatricality immensely, and I wanted to continue that style in The School for Scandal. For me, the big challenge was to explore the Brechtian theatre style of Weimar - which I got through Mother Courage had discovered again - to collide with an eighteenth-century theatre text."

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Via Intolleranza II is an irresistibly witty theatrical chaos about the construction of an opera village.

by Daniel Bertina
27 May 201130 March 2022
5 min read
For members only, SPECIALS

photo: Aino Laberenz
De vorig jaar aan longkanker overleden Künstler Christoph Schlingensief – alleskunner, provocateur, regisseur, levenskunstenaar – krijgt op het Holland Festival een uitgebreid eerbetoon: de openingsvoorstelling Mea Culpa, een programma met zeven speelfilms, en Schlingensiefs zwanenzang Via Intolleranza II.

Doodziek vatte Christoph Schlingensief het wilde plan op om in Burkina Faso een operadorp uit de grond te stampen, Remdoogo. Een zelfvoorzienende vrijplaats waar mensen va...

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Eugénie Rebetez shows the alienating contrast of a woman who wants to be more and is also at peace with who she is

by Daniel Bertina
23 April 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Eugénie Rebetez in 'Gina'. Foto: Augustin Rebetez.
Haar volle dijen kletsen tegen elkaar. Ze schudt met haar ontblote armen en kijkt grijnzend naar de trillende huid op haar bovenarmen. Ze stampt woest over de speelvloer van Theater Kikker, terwijl haar forse lijf – gekleed in een klein nietsverhullend zwart jurkje – nadrukkelijk aan alle kanten vrolijk meestuitert. Je moet maar durven. In haar one woman show ‘Gina’ gaat de Zwitserse theatermaker Eugénie Rebetez aan alle gêne...

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Yasmeen Godder lets contrast between frightened individual and roaring group animal linger too much in dancers' minds

by Daniel Bertina
20 April 201129 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Dancers by Yasmeen Godder - photo Itzik Giuli
Ze zit op haar knieën. Schokkend en trillend deinst ze achteruit. Met klauwende vingers die in het luchtledige lijken te grijpen. Als een bange kat. Schuifelend beweegt de danser zich achterwaarts in een halve cirkel op de witte toneelvloer van Theater Kikker. Eén voor één stappen de vijf anderen het lege open speelvlak op, terwijl de eerste danser angstig het publiek blijft aankijken. Zo begint 'Storm end come'. Met deze voorstelling toont de Israë...

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