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.
Tis Pity! Holland Festival brings the best show to the smallest audience.
Language is music. Sometimes we forget that. Then we think language is a way of conveying objective meanings. Kind of silly. Language is food for all the senses. No strumming is needed under that. That's pure opera without embellishments. The English-language performance 'tis Pity she's a whore' I saw at the Holland Festival yesterday proves that. Even if you don't understand the seventeenth-century phrases, it is a joy to listen to.
Warhorse is almost perfect: 6 reasons to go. Or stay away.
Saturday, June 14, went off in a flood of evening gowns, dinner jackets, Dutch celebrities and Gooische Tanks War Horse premiered. A play about a war in which the Netherlands was neutral, and of which there are memorial stones in every village in the rest of the world. You can go and see it. Or not. We have listed six arguments.
Subsidy goes mostly to the rich. Thanks to austerity.
Dutch museums do not pay for the art they present. Cable companies stick money from writers in their own pockets. Spreading new journalism platforms without permission and without paying the work of small independents. Libraries are closing down, and are being replaced by private libraries or school libraries.
Wanted: 2,500 Amsterdammers who want to be surprised by fresh-faced twenty-somethings
450,000 euros they need to raise, the 15 culturally optimistic signposts of Public. All but a few were born well past 1980, so they don't suffer from any baby boomer arrogance or generational nit-picking: these are real, young, happy Amsterdammers.
'Less progress!" shouts the festival. DEAF finds the future a bit scary this time.
We are all a little afraid of losing control. So we are reluctant to like 'Europe', we are frightened by the unprecedented world powers lurking in our mobile communication devices and we think the public transport chip card is an onion, while every day we are motivated to want newer, better, higher, more.
Legendary director Peter Brook (89): Theatre is the field given to me
The Valley of Astonishment. Titles don't come much prettier than that of 'The Valley of Astonishment'. Theatre legend Peter Brook's tentative last play is coming to Amsterdam. The Holland Festival gave me and two journalists from Parool and NRC, respectively, the opportunity to talk to the already legendary director when he was alive. Pretty special, because the man who enchanted an entire generation of theatre-makers and audiences with performances such as the nine-hour Mahabharata in Avignon, is considered a deity among theatre connoisseurs and enthusiasts.
Is Anne too big for reviews? 3 reasons why I find it hard to review Anne
Someone commented on Facebook that it looked a bit odd for a newspaper to hand out stars for a play based on The Diary of Anne Frank. Although I myself shudder to give out stars this early for a Godwin make, surely there is something to The Play and The Review. Indeed, reviews of The Play to The Diary seem superfluous. For how do you review such a play, with such a history? Isn't fuss about layering or no layering, adventurousness or no adventurousness in the direction even a little irreverent? So these are three issues, which led me to consider that maybe it shouldn't be possible at all. Anne review.
Juliette Binoche plays at Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Because Dutch culture the Dutch only notice when scoring abroad (also applies to football, by the way): Big news about the Netherlands' first company. National coach Ivo van Hove of Toneelgroep Amsterdam has appointed none other than Juliette Binoche snared for a lead role in a play.
Help! Find the Lost Painters Folding Bike!
In the art theft category, this is the lowest form: stealing an old folding bike outside the door of an expensive art fair. Then grab that redundant navigation system from that Porsche Cayenne, the Guccitas carelessly placed on the counter, or slide that triple-insured, diamond-encrusted iPhone from that coffee table under your newspaper and continue to enjoy your conscience outside.
Johan Simons receives 150,000 euros: 'I thought, that must be for Elsie'
This year's Prince Bernhard Culture Fund Prize goes to Johan Simons. At the announcement, in a meadow below Utrecht, the director was surprised: he suspected the prize was meant for his wife, Elsie de Brauw, widely regarded as one of the best actresses in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Tom Waits exists thanks to Partch. 7 reasons to go see Delusion of the Fury. And listen.
'Harry Partch knew exactly what he was doing. He chose very specific bourbon bottles to fill in those 43 steps in the octave. So he made music that is very accessible, but also very elusive. And that's what good art should do.'
Sometimes a good story needs to be told, not just imagined.
Some art needs a story. Then a canvas on the wall with the caption 'Untitled' is not enough. The performance 'Laaroussa' (Bride) by French-Tunisian brother and sister Selma and Soufiane Ouissi falls into that category. As extraordinary as their physical presence on a dark stage is, without explanations beforehand and a Q&A afterwards, it all says precious little.
Is that bad?
6 Reasons why Holland Festival 2014 will be the best ever. And War Horse.
"The only one who still dares to go for the elite". On the way to the car park under the Passengers Terminal Amsterdam, the retired newspaper reviewer who once had a page on music sighed at the feeling of his part of society. It was after the press conference where the programme of Holland Festival 2014 was presented. He was talking, as we sank deeper and deeper, about Pierre Audi, the artistic director of that Holland Festival, who this year announced his last - and most glorious - programme ever.
The surreal break from Soesterberg is almost over. Now go and enjoy it.
Even if war breaks out today, fighter jets will no longer land there. 200,000 visitors a year is the minimum they need now, at Soesterberg. The former air base in the heart of the Netherlands, where until 2009 a squadron of F15 jet fighters stood ready to teach the then enemy, the communists, a lesson, is coming into the hands of the public. The developer is putting the finishing touches to the Military Aviation Museum there. Small parts of the five-kilometre-long runway are being ploughed over, and a few hangars are being put to use as repositories of art.
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