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Wijbrand Schaap

Cultural journalist since 1996. Worked as theatre critic, columnist and reporter for Algemeen Dagblad, Utrechts Nieuwsblad, Rotterdams Dagblad, Parool and regional newspapers through Associated Press Services. Interviews for TheaterMaker, Theatererkrant Magazine, Ons Erfdeel, Boekman. Podcast maker, likes to experiment with new media. Culture Press is called the brainchild I gave birth to in 2009. Life partner of Suzanne Brink roommate of Edje, Fonzie and Rufus. Search and find me on Mastodon.

scene photo rhapsody © Kurt Van der Elst,

Josse de Pauw and Asko|Schönberg bring heaven a little closer

Het was 2000 en Wim Kayzer, van de VPRO, bracht een serie televisieavonden die inging tegen alles wat commercieel verantwoord was. Het heette ‘Van de Schoonheid en de Troost’ en bevatte avondlange interviews met mensen als Jane Goodall, J.M. Coetzee, Karel Appel en George Steiner. Intellectuelen, kunstenaars, denkers.  Op 23 november 2023, de dag na 22/11, toen Nederland een openlijke… 

overzicht meerkosten per branche (Bron Kunsten92)

Research: fair pay in arts sector will cost an extra 180 million by 2025

Het onderzoek is er, en de cijfers zijn niet opwekkend. In de kunstsector is het onderbetalen van vooral ZZP’ers en het niet honoreren van overwerk staand beleid. Als dat vanaf nu, met het bestaande budget, goedgemaakt moet worden, vallen vooral kleine instellingen en festivals direct om. Het onderzoek daarnaar werd gisteren gepresenteerd aan demissionair Staatssecretaris Uslu van Cultuur. Opdrachtgever Kunsten… 

grafiek afzetcijfers kinderboekenweek 2019-2023 (bron: KVB Boekwerk)

Cijfers Kinderboekenweek dalen, maar dat vertelt KVB Boekwerk graag anders.

“De afzet van kinderboeken tijdens de Kinderboekenweek editie 2023 ligt hoger dan in 2019, 2020 en 2021. Dit geldt voor zowel de afzet via fysieke winkels als e-commerce.” KVB-Boekwerk, het onderzoeksinstituut van de Nederlandse Boekverkopers, brengt al een paar jaar trendrapporten uit over de boekenmarkt. Dit jaar zijn daar ook voor het eerst cijfers bij over de verkoop van kinderboeken,… 

een fotorealistische afbeelding die is geïnspireerd door de tekst die u heeft verstrekt. Het beeldt een levendige en kleurrijke debatscène uit tijdens een cultureel evenement in de Herz zaal van TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. De scène illustreert een deel van het 'Collectieve Creatieve Cultuurdebat', met een diverse groep deelnemers waaronder kunstenaars, beleidsmakers en politieke figuren. De sfeer is een mix van serieuze discussie en informeel gesprek, met een focus op kunst- en cultuurbeleid. Op de achtergrond is een digitale weergave te zien van door DALL-E gegenereerde interpretaties van politieke partijprogramma's, die overgaan in een reeks socialistisch-realistische kunstwerken.

Collectief Creatief Cultuurdebat toont wanhoop kunstsector 

“Maar kunt u in de komende week niet alsnog met een wet komen die kunsteducatie vastlegt in het basisonderwijs?” Een markant moment in het ‘Collectieve Creatieve Cultuurdebat’ dat op woensdag 15 november in een volle Herz van TivoliVredenburg werd gehouden. De Creatieve Coalitie en Kunsten ’92 deden nog een laatste poging om kunst en cultuur op de agenda van de… 

De toekomst van het theater is flexibel. In gesprek met Huub Huikeshoven en Arjen Berendse over ´Wat is een goede zaal?’  

“Er is iets vreemds aan de hand. Gemeenten hebben geen geld om zo’n theaterzaal te bouwen of in te richten en gezelschappen hebben te weinig geld om producties te maken. Aan beide kanten schuurt het dus.” Huub Huikeshoven, opgeleid als binnenhuisarchitect, is werkzaam bij Theateradvies, een organisatie die adviseert over de inrichting en vormgeving van theaters. Daar blijkt het nogal… 

Luna Quartet and Vincent van Amsterdam

In Den Bosch this Sunday, I heard light breaking

Om half twaalf op een zondagochtend is het misschien wat veel van het goede: Maya Fridman, improviserend op haar cello. Haar zien spelen, samen met pianist Maarten van Veen, is een intense ervaring. Zij wordt één met haar instrument, het overweldigt haar, het is bijna te intiem om naar te kijken. Maar wat een warmte golft er door het publiek… 

PR image November Music

'Transformation makes music interesting' Simon Steen-Andersen's surprising 'Inszinierte Nacht' is coming to November Music 

The image should especially pierce piano lovers: a concert grand piano crashing out of the ceiling onto a stage in super slomo. The interior bulges out, keys fly around. Moments later, the ruined piano empire turns out to play a part in a real piano concerto after all. It could have been a one-off performance, were it not for the... 

Marcel Duchamp, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Duchamp's urinal is said to belong to female artist. Or does the business stink?

It had been hanging in the air for a while, but now there seems to be fairly incontrovertible evidence that Marcel Duchamp did not invent his urinal artwork himself. A book to be published next month claims that the inventor of 'conceptual' art nicked his thing from German artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. That in itself was a longer-running ... 

House of Vineyard in the Willet-Holthuysen House. Photo: Bete van Meeuwen.

'Grand March: The Willet-Holthuysen House through a Ballroom Lens.'

From 2 December 2023, the Amsterdam Museum will present the exhibition Grand March: Celebrating Ten Years of Dutch Ballroom Culture. The exhibition is a collaboration with House of Vineyard, the first ballroom house in the Netherlands. In the rooms of Amsterdam Museum location Huis Willet-Holthuysen, House of Vineyard shows the power of ballroom culture with stimulating fashion interventions and art installations. Interventions and installations As trailblazers of... 

Scene image by Rogier Boogaard

Frank Masmeijer won't regret Nottrots Holiday Show

Whether it could be a little less superficial was the question from an audience member halfway through the first part of The Utility's Great Holiday Show. Greg Nottrot, in the role of quizmaster of this pastiche on the great 1980s television show, promises there will be another layer. Because he is obliged to, since he gets subsidy. Welcome... 

A Jennifer Walshe course in 10 lessons #novembermusic2023

“Misschien is de toekomst van muziek wel dat strijkkwartetten Skype-optredens doen voor baby’s in neonatale afdelingen, misschien staat alles op een iPhone maar dan bewerkt om te klinken als een mp3 van lage kwaliteit die je in 2002 van Napster hebt gedownload, misschien zijn het soundscapes in heilige bronnen. Ik ben veel meer geïnteresseerd in deze manier van denken.” (Jennifer… 

NSC and BBB election programmes: get cultural money for region from national funds. 

There it is, the long-awaited election manifesto of the 'Who Says A, Must Say B' party New Social Contract. Until now, Pieter Omtzigt has not been known as an art lover. Nor are there any notable culture people on his candidate list, so the fact that it contains anything about culture at all is a bonus. It's 9 points, I'll highlight 2 of them: "To promote the creation of... 

Cirque Pardi by Pierre Rigo and Charles Bigaud

How life-proof is circus? 3 lessons I learned during a week at Tilburg's Festival Circolo

Ten days of circus, this year in truly autumnal conditions for the first time in ages. Storm and patches of rain, flooded lawns really only enhance the fun between and especially in the tents set up in the Railway Park. I take home three lessons from it. 1: Circus is a lonely profession Was once a circus performer someone who was one... 

What does Culture Press do with your press releases and invitations?

The other day I had an unpleasant conversation with a public relations officer of a medium-sized festival. He thought it would be a good idea if I came to write about that fantastic festival because of that unique opening event. I asked, "Are you members?" He said, "No." I said, "Then I don't know if I will be able to, because during that time there are also activities.... 

José Kuijpers and Helmert Woudenberg in Blind. Photo Jean Philipse.

'If someone has to be in charge, why not the writer?' Helmert Woudenberg and José Kuijpers star in writer Lot Vekemans' directorial debut 'Blind' 

"What I really like is that Lot Vekemans, the writer, sees and hears how some texts just don't go, or don't do it. I would grant that to more writers." Actress José Kuijpers plays alongside Helmert Woudenberg in Lot Vekemans' play Blind. The play will premiere at the Brabant company Matzer on 22 October. Vekemans is... 

Funnel Vision by Company Alud. Photo Wijbrand Schaap

Circolo 2023: how I fell in love with an ostrich in 1 day.

Ostriches, as droll as they are graceful, disappearing into man-sized reeds at dusk. I saw the sculpture yesterday in Tilburg's Spoorpark, where Circus Festival Circolo has settled again this year. As simple as poignancy can be, you can make your own story out of what good performers present to you. The nine handstand specialists of Collectif d'équilibristes showed me in Le Complexe de... 

Gerda Havertong during the Night of Poetry. Photo: author

Fortieth Night of Poetry shows what programming fun can make for 

"I actually want to shout, 'Waaaa! That I'm standing here!" It is nearing noon when Babette Foncie Fotchind shares this with the TivioliVredenburg, still filled to the brim. It is met with loud, assenting cheers. It is one of the many highlights and highlights at this 40th edition of the Night of Poetry, the rather unique party that Utrecht... 

Sabine Maringer (screenshot podcast)

What the (circus) world can learn from sex worker Sabine Maringer #circolo2023

"I think you can apply this idea of consent culture to families, friends, leisure groups, anywhere, if you like." On Friday 13 October 2023, Tilburg's Circus Festival Circolo will open with a seminar on the premises of the Fontys University of Applied Sciences. Keynote speaker at that seminar is Sabine Marringer. She will come with a special message, she announced: "I sent... 

screenshot from the poscast. Left: Lucho Smit.

Lucho Smit is the new artistic director of Circus Festival Circolo: "Our festival will become even more of a place for encounters between creators, students, audiences and society."

"My accent, my heart is with the people involved in circus. I therefore want to put them at the centre." Lucho Smit (1983) has been artistic director of Tilburg circus festival Circolo, which starts on 13 October, since April this year. He wants to put the festival, which has been around for 15 years, in the middle of the... 

Glorious bodies during a rehearsal in The Hague (Photo by Wijbrand Schaap)

With Glorious Bodies, Piet van Dycke celebrates the survivability of elderly acrobats #Circolo

Det Rijven (1956) feels more vulnerable than 20 years ago: "I am not only afraid of falling. I also realise that my body is like an old bicycle that occasionally plays music and just wants to stop. Or has a flat tyre. That's really more often than before. You never know if the bike is still on the... 

Jilles Flinterman, photo by Sanne Peper

Boudica survived 2,000 years of male historiography. She has now become fascinating theatre. 

The overhead projector. What a beautiful tool in the hands of an artist. There will probably also be someone who does something unexpected with a digital whiteboard, but it cannot be as inventive as what Jilles Flinterman does in ´Boudica'. The play, created under the wings of Utrecht-based theatre group Aluin, tells of a woman who has a statue in England,... 

A full Pandora at the Poetry Slam photo by Wijbrand Schaap

Utrecht is a warm bath for those who love imagination, thanks to #ILFU

113 decibels. That's what the elated audience managed to pull off with Nicole Kaandorp (no relation to Brigitte, but at least as talented) at the Pandora. It happened in the first round of the semi-finals in the NK Poetry Slam 2023, the unofficial opening of the International Literature Festival Utrecht, which we call ILFU in English.... 

screengrab broadcast throne speech 2023

Nice paragraph on culture in the speech from the throne. And good news for the library.

"A good example of how the government wants to encourage that power from the bottom up is through culture. Culture confronts, inspires and bridges contradictions. From festival grounds to concert halls, and from museums to music schools. That is why the cabinet continues to promote the enjoyment of culture, for instance with the Culture Card for young people. The cabinet also wants the public library in as many... 

Theatre Maas and Tobias Kokkelmans at ITA, screenshot television broadcast Mon 18 Sept 2023

The flash marriage between theatre and television could hardly be any shorter. Or could it?

15 minutes of television. Theatre Maas, who used to be called Cornald, has managed to get Dutch theatre's biggest party back on kind of prime time television. On Monday 18 September, we saw his recap of this gala of Dutch theatre, which included awards, snippets of speeches and elated actors. I wondered if we could... 

Floris Kortie on Podium Klassiek's new webpage

Floris Kortie deserves every support in his Podium Klassiek solo.

On Sunday 10 September, Podium Klassiek opened the season in a very stripped-down version. Floris Kortie was all alone. In the world of public broadcasting and classical music, where things are usually fixed three years in advance, something was up. I felt an end approaching. Podium Witteman had become a fixture here at home.... 

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