Free-lance arts journalist Leidsch Dagblad. Until June 2012 employee Marketing and PR at the LAKtheater in Leiden.
Vlindertje Smit and the service of what is dead It is an orderly, clean space, not unsociable, despite the pieces of horse bone that dominate the studio in their showcases. Visual artist Butterfly Smit prepares animals and parts of animals. Thinking back to the publicity storm that British artist Damien Hirst stirred up with his preserved-animal artworks, you might expect Butterfly Smit to...
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).
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 eloquently and with many mannerisms, suggesting that she is hyper-sensitive to anything to do with art, your thoughts balance between:
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'.
Breaking new ground in theatre is the aim of Canadian director Robert Lepage and his group Ex Machina. It seems like everything is unusual about 'Playing Cards: Spades': playing floor, lighting, seating around the stage, the stories, the acting and the surprising denouement.
It will be a total experience, as if you were briefly in another world. 'Mirror Mirror' by Conny Janssen Danst is set in a former submarine hangar of the Rotterdamse Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM). The audience is taken there by boat.
Straight lines, single-coloured surfaces. Red, yellow, blue and white. Representing the essence of reality. That was the aim of the painters of De Stijl in the first half of the last century. At the same time, Hendrik Valk also had this ideal.
Young, promising talent among choreographers deserves protection in these times of austerity. Dance group Conny Janssen Danst is committed to this with the programme 'Rotterdam Spring'. Besides work by Conny Janssen herself, the programme features choreographies by Dario Tortorelli and Loïc Perela.
The Netherlands has added a new award for young choreographic talent. The BNG Culture Fund, in collaboration with Korzo in The Hague, has established the BNG Bank Excellent Talent Dance Award
The cuts to arts have prompted many people to stress that art should be socially and politically relevant. For Samuel Wuersten, artistic director of the Holland Dance Festival, social and political relevance is a broad concept.
Even before she graduated from mime school, Boukje Schweigman swore off language. She worked out a wordless philosophy in her performances. She seeks the mystery of life. However vast and elusive her starting points may be, her performances give the audience the most direct, immediate, skin-tight sensation imaginable in a theatre.
"I don't have a theatre background, but I know what I like." These words from Cammy Mai Tran are typical of a trend among young theatre-makers. They find the walls between different art disciplines to be oppressive. Increasingly, we see them walking right through those walls. And when the blow is over, new inspiration swirls richly over them.
Young choreographers Cecilia Moisio, Giulio d'Anna and Melissa Ellberger have been nominated for the Prize of the Netherlands Dance Days Maastricht 2013.
A man and a woman dance passionately in the hall of Paradiso. Such an experimental dance performance is unusual for the Amsterdam pop palace. Yet the festival I Like To Watch Too right here. Many people feel a barrier towards this kind of performance, but here there is just the right 'in and out' atmosphere to make avant-garde art something you can just look at and that always triggers something in you.
Isn't avant garde dance too lofty? Is it still viable in these harsh cultural times? I Like To Watch Too aims to clear up this misunderstanding. The festival brings experimental dance closer to the public than ever.
In minute 1 of CRACKz (Dança Morta) it is already hit. The dancers of Grupo de Rua de Niterói whirl through Zuiveringshal West of the Westergasfabriek leaning on one hand. The space seems made for this performance.
Holland Festival
Circus, tricks, clownery, spectacle: it has been a party for centuries. But roughly the same party every time.
Zimmermann & De Perrot, originally clown and DJ respectively, found each other in the brilliant insight that circus could be turned into beautifully absurd modern theatre.
'That men and women in the Islamic world live apart from each other, that is a big frustration,' says choreographer Abou Lagraa. 'That is what El Djoudour is about.'
Because of his background, Abou Lagraa has a special, enlightening perspective on these issues.
Holland Festival
,,The special thing about Quartett is that an intimate story between two people is blown up to impressive proportions. The characters find themselves in a room, which seems to float. In this seclusion, an isolated game between a man and a woman plays out. Giant video projections
Holland Festival
Holland Festival ,,I like to use the word 'Gesamtkunstwerk'. Light, space, matter, body, sound: it all belongs together. Each aspect forms an essential part of the whole."
Choreographer Nicole Beutler prepares with pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama and
Rokia Traoré, Dieudonné Niangouna, Brett Bailey, Compagnie La Baraka by choreographer Abou Lagraa, El Gusto with Kashba Blues: there is a lot of Africa in the Holland Festival 2013. Performances that
''You would think: women are emancipated. But people long for the clichés and prejudices about women from the 1950s again. If you dress super-feminine, you get whistled at like a dog. But how should
Dance and music belong together. Yet there is always something new to discover in this combination. The Amsterdam Cello Biennale invited dance group LeineRoebana to create a dance and music performance with cellist Jakob Koranyi and CvA Percussion to music by composer Tan Dun: 'Snow in June'. In recent years, LeineRoebana has shown like no other group how enriching unconventional combinations between dance and music can be.
PUNCH! is a fantastic festival. It shows how much beauty, news and surprise emerge when the line between dance and performance is dissolved. PUNCH! promotes a refreshing view of the world and shakes loose entrenched interpretations. The young dance makers and performers show tremendous originality and creativity that you will not only enjoy watching, you will go...
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