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.
"I select dancers very carefully. I don't do auditions. I don't believe in anyone having to prove themselves in front of the others. So that's why I take quite a long time to choose who I want to work with. If I choose that person, we go for it 100%. No matter what." Corpus Criolla is a fascinating dance performance in which Caribbean...
A festival is still the best way to get acquainted with new art. Yesterday, after six days of persistent drizzle and torrential rain, the sun finally broke through over Bossche Zuiderpark. Bartenders who had spent the first few days getting used to quietly serving those few customers who braved the rain for a white wine (because it was summer...
In preparing my coverage of Theatre Festival Boulevard, I had also put 'interview with Elias de Bruyne' on my wish list. It didn't materialise, which is fortunate in retrospect, because Cornald Maas beat me to it. At least, Cornald Maas interviewed Elias de Bruyne during his performance 'Euhm... In 5 Acts', which premiered on Saturday 5 August. Well...
Fascinating television, for sure. Cabaret artist Theo Maassen, who is emerging as an excellent interviewer in this Summer Guest year, went 'full Paxman' on Khadija Arib. Following in the footsteps of famous BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, he pulled out all the stops to elicit a confession from the former Lower House Speaker. It didn't work, and at half past 12, after a very tense hour of interview television, it stood...
"You can't say anything anymore either" is the title of a show by theatre friends George and Eran from Amsterdam-West. They have previously presented sensitive themes in a theatre form close to stand-up comedy, and so this programme is about the language battle. A language battle about which words are still appropriate, which stereotypes are still 'allowed' and...
Yves Degryse is one of the people behind the extraordinary Flemish company Berlin. Between 2011 and 2015, Berlin worked on the performance Zvizdal, largely shot in the 'forbidden zone' around the exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. I saw the performance in 2016 in Den Bosch, during Festival Boulevard, and was 'blown away'. This year, it returns to Boulevard
Louis Janssens is a young, ambitious theatre-maker from Flanders. With a string of rave reviews behind his name, he seems to have effortlessly found his place in the theatre world. This year, he is a prominent guest at Theatre Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch. His latest play, 'Desire', will premiere at the Verkadefabriek on 3 August. The play highlights the delicate...
At a little before half past eleven, Sunday evening 30 July, cabaret performer and gifted interviewer Theo Maassen asked world-famous cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema: "What's the question you don't get answered?" Hoyte: "Shit, are you going to close with that?!" It was in the telling finale of an extraordinarily impressive second episode of Zomergasten 2023. An episode, too, in which we talked a lot about cinematography...
The creative sector is pushing for a major change in the arts subsidy system. This is evident from the lobbying documents (position papers and suggestions) sent to political parties' election programme writers. The largest and most important of these, the theatre boards (VSCD) and Kunsten 92, want the national government to give municipalities a clear and specific culture budget ('earmarked') from now on. By doing so, they want...
The motorhome sank. The theatre group Vis à Vis-inspired studio set of the legendary summer series Zomergasten had had its day. Was probably also because of the new presenter. Theo Maassen is very tall and lanky, and likes to flap his legs, so he would never have lasted without a wet suit to spend six summer Sunday evenings on the...
Above all, we must continue with the favourable arts policy initiated by the fourth Rutte cabinet. That is what the arts umbrella organisation Kunsten ´92 says in a letter in response to the fall of the last cabinet under that name. This is a remarkable turn of events after 13 years in which most of the art world wanted nothing more than to get rid of the...
In Anton Chekhov's legendary play 'Seagull' (1896), the young, ambitious playwright Konstantin shoots a seagull. It is a symbolic act, giving 'wings' to his desperate love for the young actress Nina. On 29 June 2023, the no longer very young (40) actor, writer and storyteller Greg Nottrot stops every now and then to...
Wie uit nieuwsgierigheid onderzoek wil doen, moet vooral niet bij de overheid aankloppen voor geld. Of je nu wetenschapper bent of kunstenaar: in Den Haag wil men graag dat je van tevoren al weet wat je gaat vinden en wat dat gaat opleveren. Anoek Nuyens, die furore maakt met haar voorstelling ‘De Zaak Shell’, kon daarom een volgende voorstelling over…
De gezusters Casady hebben, sinds ze samen in 2003 als CocoRosie door het leven gingen, een totaal eigen geluid ontwikkeld. Gisteren waren ze te gast op het Holland Festival, op uitnodiging van hun vriendin ANOHNI. Die heeft als associate artist het festivalpubliek dit jaar laten kennismaken met de vrouwelijke en queer kant van de New Yorkse kunstscene. CocoRosie zijn met…
Amy Winehouse is alive. Although perhaps we shouldn't call it life, as she stands in all her corpse-blue glory, looking bewildered at the audience in the Muziekgebouw for an hour. A bit like we know her from those tragic last concert recordings, where she was stiff with all the chemicals and liquid aids to perform a few last notes. She is now...
"The corona crisis exposes some weaknesses of the cultural and creative sector. In this most flexibilised sector of the economy, the flexible shell proved to be an easy austerity option during the corona crisis. As a result, self-employed workers have partly had to seek refuge outside the cultural and creative sector and may not return." What we already heard, saw and knew...
The dome of Artis Planetarium is made for stars; it is not a shiny Imax canvas. That the images in Coral: Rekindling Venus by Lynette Wallworth therefore do not splash off the screen is to be expected. Wallworth, a close friend and colleague of ANOHNI, is prominent at this year's Holland Festival and made Coral, Rekindling Venus exclusively...
That he prefers not to hear news about the weather, but that there were once people alive who he knew, and what the weather was like then, Ed Atkins cannot talk about that often enough. So he repeats that phrase endlessly. A 'loop', then, as we know it from music and video art. But performed live. Is...
"The easiest gain is then to produce less. Because high production implies a lot of energy and material use, travel movements and other forms of impact." Last week, the Council for Culture's long-awaited opinion on sustainability was released, and sooner than I could click 'open', all was set. Came all because of the above sentence, which, mentioned in...
The picture is immediate. Vast glaciated vistas, patches of fog and the twilight of a land where the sun rises only once a year. Something like that. And then that soaring music that in one long tone makes all air traffic redundant for at least a month. Beneath it the rumble of shifting earth plates. For the first time in 10 years, Sigur Rós made another...
Even though they are not yet members at ITA, let me pass on this press release. Because of its (inter)national importance. Coming: Ivo van Hove (1958) will end his role as artistic director of ITA on 1 September 2023. This means that he will then hand over his position as statutory director and artistic director. The Supervisory Board (BoS) intends to appoint Eline...
Input from members: that's what drives this club. Just watch. Yesterday I wrote this piece: Jerome Bel is quite something. The man who identifies himself as a choreographer has banned himself from flying for sustainability reasons, which is why he could not come to Amsterdam from Paris to read his own autobiography. However noble the non-flying...
A TED Talk, but not 15 minutes as prescribed by that scattershot ideas organisation, but an hour and a half. In How To Live (After You Die), the monumental artist Lynette Walworth takes you through a story-with-light images about the temptations of sectarian faith, which, via the Amazon and the Outback, over Donald Trump and along the steppes of Mongolia, ends in the caves...
The first half of the Holland Festival is pretty much over, so time for Team Culture Press to take a look at what that first half has brought us. A lot, according to Helen Westerik and Wijbrand Schaap, and also many real highlights. 'Perhaps the best edition in years.' Among other things, we discuss the intimate installation 'Evolution of Fearlessness', look back...
I can't resist mentioning it, because I think they were doing it for a reason, the dancers in the musical Wuthering Heights making really visible big rounds with their arms one time: this was a half-second reference to Kate Bush's world-changing 'windmill swings' in the music video to her legendary 1978 pop song. A subtle nod as in my...
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