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.
The difference between tricks and art is the transformation. From a two-dimensional canvas into a form with three dimensions, from moving air into emotional music, on a stage from man into woman or vice versa and from a handstand into a liquid abstraction. Transformation where you are live, so it can be done very well in the circus, I experienced last...
The Dutch Slavery Museum has moved a step closer, now that the Arts Council (Amsterdam) and the Council for Culture (Rijk) have issued an opinion on the exploration of a direction group presented earlier this year. This satisfies official procedural due diligence, although establishing the necessary museum in this way seems likely to take at least as much time....
The link between the Orpheus myth and Arnhem potenrammers is more obvious than you might think. At least, if your name is Peer Wittenbols and you are one of the country's best playwrights. That you can also think of accordions as part of that is, in turn, extraordinary. Still, Blood Coral, a performance by accordion duo Toeac, with a lead role for Jack Wouterse on a text that promises...
A campfire, primeval hamburgers and flammkuchen with bacon and cream, as well as coffee with oat milk and remarkably many loose buns in Tilburg's Leijpark. White wine, kombucha and speciality beer. Some people get pimples from such combinations, but it felt remarkably good, last Monday at Festival Circolo. The hipster folk, considered super sustainable, mixed effortlessly with the burgundian Brabanter, so in...
'Every time I go to a beach, I see the sea through a filter of all the texts written about the sea.' Writer Joachim Robbrecht, at the request of Romain Bisschoff and together with writer brother Artun Alaska Arasli, created a sound poem for Ensemble Silbersee. During November Music, the work will finally premiere, after it had been a year...
At the end of July, we posted an appeal by the UWV on this site. The benefit agency sounded the alarm because few cultural organisations had yet completed their final application for corona support. If they had not submitted the application corresponding to the advance received earlier before 31 October, they would have to repay that advance anyway. Every reason to take a...
'A sorcerer's apprentice? It is really not the case that Josef Fuchs could and would single-handedly bend an entire application process to his will. That is pertinently untrue and I even find it damaging to his person.' Nina Hiddema reacts vehemently to our article on Josef Fuchs' remarkable job title, and the change in it. Hiddema explains: 'I am...
Ko van den Bosch once founded the ruthless theatre company Alex d'Electrique and theatre would change permanently because of him. They made punk theatre and because there was very little video anyway, the myths about trays of shit and actors attacking each other with chainsaws are more numerous than it actually occurred. I have long thought that in a...
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....
'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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
The Belle van Zuylen lecture at this year's ILFU literature festival will be written by Italian success author Elena Ferrante and spoken in three languages by Anna Bonaiuto, Olivia Colman and Olga Zuiderhoek. Ferrante herself never appears in public and has kept her true identity a secret for 30 years. Her lecture is titled "A tangle of written words" and promises to be in line...
There are some people, who would prefer to tinker all day with soldering irons and circuit boards. I once had such an uncle who sometimes did not entirely safe things with a 220-volt electric train, so I limited myself to battery-powered Lego. That you can also do something with electronics and music was, of course, already known, but what I saw in...
Last weekend's #unmuteus parades might lead you to believe that, as soon as the weather allows, the cultural world will be out of its misery in less than no time. The tens of thousands who took to the streets are quickly populating the halls again, and with a little more water with the beer, and slightly more expensive mints, the night and event industry - which is also there for the...
Art, and certainly avant garde art, thrives on the frayed edges of society. Especially in the second half of the 20th century, industrial heritage and as yet unrenovated urban foam were the places where art could escape the norms of the ruling class. The NDSM wharf in Amsterdam North, Hall 4 or the Submarine Wharf in Rotterdam, Ceramique in Maastricht, Sterrebos in...
'As for many people, the theatre festival really does mean something. Like the Fringe, it is impossible to imagine without it. I've been able to make artistic friendships there, I've been able to have arguments there, I've met people who I thought were adversaries who turned out to be comrades-in-arms. Because there are not only performances, there is...
Plays often end in chaos. An overturned liquor cabinet, a blood blade among royals, we are used to a few things. Jetse Batelaan's latest play, baroque and sharper than he showed before, also ends in beauty, but then that is actually the beginning. Indeed, the ending is sterile and stripped of any life. But that is where the performance begins. The artistic director of...
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