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.
And then there turns out to be a festival theme after all. Comes all by itself. Perhaps not thought of beforehand by the management of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU), but after three days of immersion crystal clear. Writing is about that about which we do not speak. During the last festival night, Saturday 13 May, I immersed myself for the occasion in a section that allows 'Utrecht' to...
Good timing by the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU) to put China at the centre of this year's edition. Just in time before the Chinese have connected the Betuwelijn to their own railway network on their own initiative, with their well-known decisiveness. High time to get to know the Chinese soul, it seems to me, and that does not succeed immediately....
Dutch, ladies and gentlemen, is just about the most difficult language in the world, and any committee that wants to improve it only makes it worse. As a professional language user, I have thought so for years, and it has now been happily confirmed by people who really know about it: translators. The first day of the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU)...
Of course: Hugo Borst, Suzanne Vega, Herman Koch. Enough reason to travel to Utrecht between 11 and 13 May. But there is much more to experience at the International Literature Festival Utrecht. And it doesn't even always have to do with books. I will show you a few things I am definitely looking forward to in festival palace TivoliVredenburg. The...
'Stop it. The fewer awards people give each other, the better.' Ingmar Heytze, poet, is clear: 'Within every conceivable genre, there are already big enough prizes. If you ask me, they should restrict that Nobel Prize to science from now on.' So on the final evening of the International Literature Festival in Utrecht (ILFU) next Saturday, it will be all about those...
In the Volkskrant of 8 May 2017, Sarah Sluimer lets loose. The opinion maker (for Volkskrant and De Correspondent, among others) used to be a theatre maker and now wonders aloud why she is a bit done with theatre. Because she actually writes that down. I quote: 'I breathed theatre. I ate performances and was convinced that what was there,...
The play La Democrazia in America (to be seen at the Holland Festival on 4, 5 and 6 June) is of course about democracy in America, but actually more about The Democracy in America. And the two should not be confused. For The Democracy in America is a 1,200-page book by French jurist De Tocqueville. This...
One of the most wonderfully successful programmes on Dutch radio is Radio Kunststof. Every weekday on Radio 1, between seven and eight o'clock, it attracts a bizarre number of listeners, especially for that time of day. And especially for an art programme. On TV then is DWDD, also called art programme on its public broadcasters, but with Matthijs van Nieuwkerk and millions of viewers. How...
Something is changing considerably in the world of literature. Libraries are closing or turning into flex spaces for poor freelancers. The sold circulation of an average successful novel remains in four figures. Young people no longer watch TV or listen to the radio, but make their own well-watched and generously paid films on YouTube. Or they sit the...
The SER report published on Friday 21 April rubs it in nicely: the cultural sector is on the verge of collapse. It is even worse than a year ago. This shows that the patience of a PvdA culture minister over the past four years has not helped. Indeed, Halbe Zijlstra's multiplier of misery is doing its job entirely as expected....
For those who like to be around art, politics has become a bit more fun again, since 15 March. Since the 2017 elections, Thierry Baudet has been in the House of Representatives. Thierry Baudet knows a lot about art, he thinks, and we will come to know it, too. In fact, Thierry Baudet is the best thing about art these days...
In a discussion (on facebook, where else) about NRC Handelsblad's departure from Blendle, an editor of that newspaper made very disparaging remarks about a reader who had paid 30 cents for one of his articles. In a recent article on Frankwatching, an expert concluded that investigative journalism could only survive if we started subsidising newspapers....
What happens when you take someone's head off? Little, you will say, since the accompanying body dies. But then you are wrong. Because at the first GRIP evening at Utrecht's Theater Kikker, Steven Michel showed that the rest of the body then just takes over. Fascinating to notice how you go from a bare back to...
The first bare female breast I consciously observed in my life was the happily swishing boob of the girl in the Fa advertisement. It must have been sometime deep in the 1970s. The same time the Pacifisties Socialistiese Partij also did something similar with a cow in the background. Now, a good forty years later, the...
By now, we are a little surrounded by voting guides and electoral compasses. There is one for every area of policy. What to vote for if you have a beating heart for art? The Correspondent gave a nice little overview the other day. It showed that art is indeed a hobby of mainly left-wing parties, at least when it comes to subsidised art. Art...
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Ruth Mackenzie has achieved an enormous amount in the short time she has been boss of Holland Festival. I've experienced the festival now since the late 1990s and watched it evolve from something very personal and sometimes obscure (under Ivo van Hove), to an ethereal feast of sizzling aesthetics (with Pierre Audi), to what it...
There are those, including in the arts, who still think the world has not changed for good. Who suspect that a vote for a culture-friendly party will at a stroke turn back the clock eight years. Those people will wake up after 15 March to a new world, even if the Netherlands has suddenly chosen whether or not...
Bart Rutten becomes the new artistic director of Utrecht's Centraal Museum Bart Who? Bart quite an important figure. Bart Rutten was the man behind some great blockbusters at Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum. That he is going to Utrecht after Malevich and Matisse says a lot about the good work of his predecessor Edwin Jacobs. It says even more...
Five art experiences will always stick to this bizarre year for me. And one thing really scared me. Whether the worst is now behind us? At least the most extraordinary is still on view until 5 February 2017. A chronological overview of what was unbelievable, unthinkable, inconceivable, unbelievable and perhaps untrue. Much of it, by the way, will be in 2017...
On 20 December, the general membership meeting of Coöperatief Cultureel Persbureau unanimously decided to accept a cooperation offer from The Co-operative/House of Journalism and Reporters Online. This is an important step in the development of independent cultural journalism. Culture Press, as the Cooperative Cultural Press Agency is known on the internet and social media, is growing significantly as a result. The...
In art, you work because of your passion, not because of the money. That's so, that was always so. In art, it's even suspicious if you care about money. And if you do worry about money once, it immediately comes out rotten. Are you going to shout about culture, march der your...
Yesterday, the chamber made €10 million available for the arts. This brings the tally of government cuts to at least €190,000,000 still. This hard-won extra is the last that could be asked for. Everyone agrees, the new system has been definitively embraced. The protest has made itself redundant now that the compromise has been made. And what have we got...
If the shock of 9-11 in 2016 highlighted anything, it was the yawning gap between the higher and lower educated in our neoliberal society. White, less-educated and angry male America elected a racist and war hitter as president. We can't help but conclude that democratic, liberal, highly educated and bigoted America refused to see the blow coming. In the spring ...
Een van de sterkste argumenten van de tegenstanders van kunstsubsidies is, dat de gewone man niets aan kunst heeft. Dat argument is nu door wetenschappelijk onderzoek weerlegd. ‘Geluksprofessor’ Ruut Veenhoven presenteerde deze week een onderzoek waaruit bleek dat vooral lager opgeleide mensen gelukkiger worden van kunst. Ze worden er zelfs gelukkiger van dan van sport, zowel passief als actief, of…
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