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.
It was 2000 and Wim Kayzer, of the VPRO, brought a series of television evenings that went against everything commercial. It was called 'Of Beauty and Consolation' and featured evening-long interviews with people like Jane Goodall, J.M. Coetzee, Karel Appel and George Steiner. Intellectuals, artists, thinkers. On 23 November 2023, the day after 22/11, when the Netherlands held an open...
The research is there, and the figures are not uplifting. In the arts sector, underpaying especially freelancers and not honouring overtime is standing policy. If this is to be made up from now on, with the existing budget, small institutions and festivals in particular will fall over immediately. The study on this was presented yesterday to outgoing Culture Secretary Uslu. Principal Arts...
"Sales of children's books during Children's Book Week edition 2023 are higher than in 2019, 2020 and 2021. This applies to both sales through physical shops and e-commerce." KVB-Boekwerk, the research institute of Dutch Booksellers, has been publishing trend reports on the book market for a few years now. This year, for the first time, these include figures on sales of children's books,...
"But in the next week, can't you still come up with a law that enshrines art education in primary education?" A striking moment in the 'Collective Creative Culture Debate' held in a packed Herz of TivoliVredenburg on Wednesday 15 November. The Creative Coalition and Kunsten '92 made one last attempt to put arts and culture on the agenda of the...
"There is something strange going on. Municipalities have no money to build or furnish such a theatre, and companies have too little money to make productions. So it is chafing on both sides." Huub Huikeshoven, trained as an interior designer, works at Theateradvies, an organisation that advises on the layout and design of theatres. There, it turns out quite...
At half past eleven on a Sunday morning, it might be a bit much: Maya Fridman, improvising on her cello. Watching her play, together with pianist Maarten van Veen, is an intense experience. She becomes one with her instrument, it overwhelms her, it is almost too intimate to watch. But what warmth waves through the audience....
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
"Maybe the future of music is string quartets doing Skype performances for babies in neonatal wards, maybe everything is on an iPhone but edited to sound like a low-quality mp3 you downloaded from Napster in 2002, maybe it's soundscapes in sacred springs. I'm much more interested in this way of thinking." (Jennifer...
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...
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...
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....
"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...
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...
"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...
"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...
"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...
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...
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,...
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....
"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...
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...
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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