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.
Maybe it's the snow, and my little dog that made me so happy. Maybe it's the sledding children in 'The Pit' of Lunetten, and maybe it's the lameness that creeps up on me after so many valiant attempts to keep up the fun of art in times of Corona. But I sat through the first minutes of VPRO's Onstage...
Critics by default have a different opinion than the average audience. That, says Marijn Lems, theatre journalist at NRC and Theaterkrant, is what this research shows. Reason for us to take a closer look at this in the Culture Press Nerd podcast on the deeper details of the art journalist's profession. Another three-quarters of an hour for anecdotes and exciting revelations about the private life of the...
For a while, not making performances as if nothing happened, but developing concepts, experimenting, boldly going where no one in this sector has dared to go so far (sorry, I watch a lot of Star Trek during the lockdown). That strikes me as an excellent use of grant money and could also bring back some momentum in these crappy times.
News arrived this week that Andreas Fleischmann, the highly esteemed director of Amsterdam's DeLaMar Theatre, has now officially become director-director of Stichting MusicalMakers, the foundation he had set up last year, a day before the deadline for grant applications for four-year state funding. And that is not allowed.
More than 1,500 hours were spent by theatre critic Marijn Lems last year in theatres, in front of TV and, most importantly, with games. That's a lot of time and it raises questions. Questions especially about how you organise your time as a journalist, and how you divide it between watching art for work and what we will call 'normal life'. That's what this podcast is about, for just under three quarters of an hour.
To get a subsidy in the Netherlands, you have to jump through a lot of hoops. Every farmer knows that, and so does every artist. In the cultural sector, for instance, it is important that you have a form of organisation that is controllable and approachable. You cannot have a profit motive either. That is why you can usually only apply for funding as a foundation, so you have statutes, a board and a...
Cinecitta Tilburg gets 280,000 euri a year from the province of Brabant, or rather, the founder's mother. Despite there being quite a lot wrong with the application.
Good news from Friesland. The five larger theatres in the Netherlands' most independent province are going to cooperate intensively to tackle the corona crisis together.
Yesterday, I finally saw 'Away with Eddy Bellegueule', the theatre hit of the previous broken and devastated theatre season, and saw that its creators had effortlessly bridged the gap between youth and grown-up theatre. The show is a nineties grunge concert with brilliant actors and intense visual direction by rising star Eline Arbo.
What happens in 2022, when refunds are due or not, we will determine on 17 March. But we may just have to count on the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science changing its name already.
With these five tips, we are sure to come up with a wonderful programme, in this bizarre summer we are facing, in which we will hopefully be allowed to hit the streets again at all. My fingers are crossed for both.
Moniek Merkx will step down as director of Maas Theatre&Dans on 3 February this year. She co-founded this Rotterdam company in 2013, which makes theatre for people from small to large. A forced merger with two other youth theatre houses from the Maas city developed under her leadership into one of the most successful and interesting theatre groups in our country. In our podcast, I talk to her for an hour about how that came to be.
Planning in 2021 can only be done in the very short term, or with so many fits and starts that it is actually impossible to deal with. Therefore, at Lowlands - if it goes ahead at all - we will have a lot of offerings from our own country and the very close neighbouring countries.
Germany has 80 million people, the Netherlands 17 million, so we can multiply the Dutch aid by five if we want to test the German claim. Still, we arrive at an amount three times higher.
In this podcast, I talk to Marjolein Verhallen and Paul Adriaanse from Public Administration, Nanna Verhoef from Media and Iris van der Tuin from Philosophy, and artistic directors Lars Ebert and Jente Hoogeveen about what that is: leadership. And we talk about how you can learn it.
These actors sit at their kitchen table and we fly through space with them. Art can be that simple because we, the viewers, actually make the story.
Splendid Isolation is about the happiness of loneliness, but, Elgershuizen stresses, it is best experienced together. 'It needs to be performed, because as humans we need to be able to be together'.
If all goes well, it can be experienced on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 December.
When it talks about 'some adjustments', of course, you have to be careful. They know that at the province, so they don't mention details. And those details include a cut of 1.3 million from previously promised amounts.
Dutch theatre is thriving, despite frantic attempts by various Rutte cabinets to bring it down. And even though money is always short as a result: a lot of new theatre is being made. More than ever, even. But.
There is a but.
My tip to the bonzes in Het Gooi: forget young people. Focus on the wandering forties and fifties, who yearn for disruption. This broadcast of VPRO's Mondo was unforgettable.
From over 100 entries, 24 young composers have been selected for the semi-finals of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble's (NBE) composition competition Towards the New Year Concert with the grand prize of a performance with the NBE at the New Year Concert on 1 January (19:00 NPO 2).
With the saving of Frascati and at least a Chamber that does understand the importance of the sector, the most depressing event of the year - the culture budget debate - still ended with a few bright spots.
The support cultural organisations receive from the government seems generous, but we can add some nuance to this. This is because if a local authority gives emergency support to a museum, support is then set off against the National Enterprise Scheme (NOW).
The Netherlands is not big enough for two major musical producers. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn from Albert Verlinde's departure from Stage Entertainment.
So on 18 October 2020, something happened. VPRO's Mondo had suddenly become an upbeat broadcast. And this in these times, when lamentation and mourning over lockdowns and impending bankruptcies dominate everywhere. What was going on?
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