Skip to content

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.

'Limited measurement': minister throws Berenschot report in wastebasket

Minister Bussemaker thinks it is far too early to sound the alarm about the cuts municipalities are still going to make on culture. Research firm Berenschot had calculated earlier this year that many per cent would still be cut from the local culture budget. Our own sources told us that Berenschot was still on the sunny side. According to the minister, however, the research is too limited: only 65 municipalities were checked, and besides, it is still far too early.

We then wonder how v...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Pascal Schut. Photo: Hans Gerritsen

The audience speaks: Pascal Schut and Davide Cocchiara best dancers of 2013

The winners of the Dans Publieksprijs 2013 have been announced. On Friday 14 February, the prizes, divided into seven categories, will be awarded at The Hague's Theater aan het Spui. Besides winners Pascal Schut (Introdans) and Davide Cocchiara (The Red Piece), they are choreographers Conny Jansen Danst for the performance 'How Long is Now' and Isabelle Beernaert for the performance 'Red, Yellow & Blue'.
Conny Janssen is further presented with the Oeuvre Prize for her influence on Dutch dance. The dan...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

4 reasons why the arts are going to lose a lot more. Municipal culture congress wrongly optimistic

It was ball in Rotterdam on Thursday, 30 January. At the Municipal Culture Congress, a few hundred officials, local politicians and arts organisations gathered to talk about where they could help each other. It was supposed to be a positive day. There had been long enough complaining and arguing: look ahead, hopeful into the future. Even if the worst is yet to come.

Read More "4 reasons why the arts are going to lose a lot more. Municipal culture congress wrongly optimistic

5 lessons from a Tilburg riot: superficial newspaper determines superficial cultural politics

Regional newspapers hardly do any real cultural journalism anymore. We know this because it was the reason we once founded Culture Press. Just how bad things are now, five years later, with art in the region and the way newspapers deal with it, was evident this month in Tilburg. A local journalist from the Brabants Dagblad had written a piece on questions raised by a PVV MP in the province. In the news story, this former sports journalist qualified...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Municipalities pass on most cuts to the arts

Culture cuts have now reached 450 million euros. The Lower House earlier decided on cuts of 200 million. The cut in the municipal budget by the same Lower House now leads to a further cut of 250 million euro. This is calculated by research firm Berenschot in a report to be presented in Rotterdam on Thursday 30 January.

There are positive outliers. Utrecht, the fourth largest city in the Netherlands, is not cutting back further on culture. Daarme...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Video: why women don't play a role in art history, and how to (not) fix it

A sitcom they already have. Women. Girls is a resounding success, so who better than slightly snobby Girls star Jemima Kirke to explain why women have been kept out of art? Indeed. No one, they thought at the rather innovative Tate, and so they had her explain in a cheerful but also aptly-named way where things went wrong between the art world... 

Read More "Video: why women don't play a role in art history, and how to (not) fix it

Research shows: music taste is a matter of appointment and habituation

That we have a scale the way we do, and that we perceive certain chords as beautiful, is because we have learned it. And what we have learned is the result of agreements. In music, as in fine art or theatre, there is no absolute ideal to which artists should aspire. No absolute beauty, no divine spark, no heaven to which we all long to return, just a set of agreements.

Read More "Research shows: music taste is a matter of appointment and habituation

Show with substance is like good sex with a storyteller

 "A good book is a man seducing me is like sex with a stranger." Anne Provoost, the securely Flemish-talking essayist managed to shake up P.F. Thomése and Hermamn Koch for a moment. In a debate during Writers Unlimited, she made a plea for the not-true story, and did so in a metaphor that rather stirred the imagination. She quoted her own work "Fiction and Power" in which reading indeed becomes a rather physical affair:

"Your lich...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Through Facebook, writers return to origins #wu14

It's because of Facebook. Says Ton van de Langkruis, artistic director of writers' festival Writers Unlimited: "You can no longer be that anonymous figure bombarding the world with hermetic texts from a locked attic room. The market is no longer for it. Your main means of communication is facebook. There you have to be open to questions, you communicate with your readers. We are back in the village square where the first stories were once told."  

With 'Like me' being the fest...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Arie Boomsma flings books of poetry at Writers Unlimited

The latenight closures of Winternachten at Writers Unlimited are always upbeat. That's because the poets have already loosened up and the audience has drunk a bit more. And this time it was also because of mega-audience favourite (on other occasions) Arie Boomsma. Out of wantonness, the cheerful ratings canon smashed poetry books of his programme's guests.

It wasn't really fun for everyone, but you are a poet and your sales figures fit a hundred thousand times those of ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Noreena Herz topples from pedestal at Writers Unlimited

"Don't listen to the experts, they are actually always wrong." The gist of 'Eyes wide open', Noreena Hertz's latest book, is clear. That she is an expert herself, and therefore her views should be distrusted, makes sense. That the conversation she had on the subject with former politician Femke Halsema became increasingly bizarre was not so logical. Downright shocking was the fall that the terror of all the world's bankers took at the end.

That people are bad at making decisions,...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

'Thanks to facebook I have time to spare': writers embrace the social network at Writers Unlimited

Fouad Laroui does not do internet. The Moroccan-born author and professor does not even have a mobile phone. "I realise that this makes me part of a small elite," he declared during a debate at Writers Unlimited, "but I don't see the point of it." His tablemates did not share his opinion, which is quite remarkable. Just a few years ago, most of the international writing elite regarded social media as something with which they did not need to interfere.

Read More "'Thanks to facebook I have time to spare': writers embrace the social network at Writers Unlimited

2 nights of sex, booze and relaxed writers: a mini guide

Writers Unlimited is the most fun literary festival in the world. We can know, because we have been there twice now. Whether the comparison with all those 20 million other literature festivals in the world is entirely pure, we don't know. We do know that a lot of the writers who attend Writers Unlimited agree with us. At least during those few days and especially nights in January.

A few reasons.
1: Sex
On Writers Unlimited, at least one programme is always about...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Expected unemployment due to arts cuts still at least 3,000

The UWV stated last Thursday that it has no idea how many people have actually been made unemployed by the culture cuts. From a rather ramshackle-looking research by NRC Handelsblad, which looked exclusively at jobs lost in Amsterdam and only at state-subsidised institutions, found that that category alone had generated 600 clients for the UWV. The rest are beyond the scope of the Amsterdam office.

Read More "Expected unemployment due to arts cuts still at least 3,000

The battleground of the arts: 41 institutions gone, 132 through without grants

The first assessment of the cold clean-up by Rutte 1 is here. Bussemaker sent it to the 1st chamber. In the Netherlands, 41 arts institutions have been closed down, while 132 other clubs are bravely holding on without subsidies (and therefore without staff). How long these firms will continue to run on volunteers is still unknown. Next year, we will surely be able to add a few to the list of the deceased.

There are still 224 companies left in the subsidised arts. For Zijlstra's axe were da...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

NRC Next only half-checks: concert attendance does decline

It is even worse
Update following audience question. Wilmar de Visser, double bass player with the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, thought he had seen other figures at OCW, but when we checked, those figures turned out to be even worse than we already suspected here. Since this is a breakdown on the classical and opera genre, here's the answer: "I checked, but you're throwing up your own glasses. The average number of visitors at opera and orchestras combined (because ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

4 old cows in eternal Amsterdam theatre war cause Daamens oekaze?

How can a usually very ordinary, amiable theatre director suddenly come out with the announcement that a few orchestras can go and the National Ballet has to be outsourced? We wondered so and headed to the Concertgebouw car park yesterday. Because at the Concertgebouw there was a get-together due to the celebration of a new grade, and where there are get-togethers, there are loose lips. Especially in car parks. And there, among all the pulmonary emphysema complaints, we heard some news: Melle Daa...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Piano man Kiev inspired by art at Hoog Catharijne

The Piano Man, the boy who went viral this weekend for playing the piano in front of a platoon of ME in Kiev, came up with his idea in Hoog Catharijne. NRC Handelsblad reports that. Like so many others, 22-year-old Markian Matsech was walking through the Utrecht shopping centre this summer, just as the art event Call of the Mall was taking place there. An image he saw there inspired him so much that he gave it his own twist.

The statue in question is the wax doll of the Tan...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Sell! Sell! Sell!", says Gorilla. Four reasons why the culture index is a useless toy

ABN deletes text.
We still have the text of the ABN/AMRO message available for those interested. Click on the plus at the bottom.

We have a culture index. Today it was presented by the Boekman Foundation, a cultural research agency. The culture index, actually an AEX for culture, is meant to give insight into the state of culture. Problem is, though, that the figures are a bit old. So thanks to the index, we now know that h...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Why the National Ballet should stay and Melle Daamen should become chairman of the Culture Council.

Update
Meanwhile, in NRC Handelsblad reacted somewhat panicked to the opinion of Melle Daamen, whom he calls an impatient entrepreneur: "You can imagine structurally subsidising two instead of four dance companies anymore. The other two could apply for grants for projects from the Performing Arts Fund, which should then get more funding."
Read More "Why the National Ballet should stay and Melle Daamen should become chairman of the Culture Council.

Erwin Olaf's sets in context, or: why should your visitors come back to your museum?

Erwin Olaf has a thing for wallpaper. The art photographer, known for his hushed and ominous compositions, thinks what is on a wall is at least as important as what happens in front of it. The New Institute has now managed to combine that idea nicely in an exhibition that shows both the sets of Erwin Olaf's most famous works and a few wallpaper designs from the quivers of great artists. It works and is absolutely beautiful to see, but what's in a corner of the ten...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Co-operation is co-operation: Culture Press after Lost-painters now joins forces with Bijlage.tv

We were actually still missing a good video event, and the people behind Annex.tv, the online TV channel for XS4all subscribers was still missing a good online presence in the cultural sector. And so that's where we could help each other. We thought. So we try out what we can do together.

Read More "Co-operation is co-operation: Culture Press after Lost-painters now joins forces with Bijlage.tv

More museum visits due to museum annual pass. So money should probably be added.

20 per cent more visits to museums thanks to the museum year card. This will earn museums a sloppy 14 million euros extra this year. The jubilant press release about the study by a renowned agency does not lie. Or does it? After all, six months ago featured in NRC Handelsblad still read that the Museum Card Foundation was in cash trouble.

Read More "More museum visits due to museum annual pass. So money should probably be added.

Lower chamber talked about art. We followed the debate for you

We kept a liveblog. Nice and old-fashioned, from the days when every month there was uproar somewhere about the government's handling of art. Now there is peace in the tent, as the PVV sardonically points out, because 'The Left' is now the bearer of policies devised by the PVV. The PVV predicts a black future for 'The Left' once the PVV comes to power.

Below are our updates, which paint a picture of a room that still doesn't really know where it is in d eculture ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

Welcome to the Culture Press archive! As a member, you have access to all, over 4,000 posts we have made since our inception in 2009!

(Recent posts (under three months old) are available for all to read, thanks to our members!)

Become a member, or log in below:

Private Membership (month)
5€ / Maand
Subscribe
For natural persons and self-employed persons.
No annoying banners
A special newsletter
Own mastodon account
Access to our archives
Beste Keuze
Small Membership (month)
18€ / Maand
Subscribe
For cultural institutions with a turnover/subsidy of less than €250,000 per year
No annoying banners
A premium newsletter
All our podcasts
Your own Mastodon account
Access to archives
Posting press releases yourself
Extra attention in news coverage
More details in the welcome email
Large Membership (month)
36€ / Maand
Subscribe
For cultural institutions with a turnover/subsidy of more than €250,000 per year.
No annoying banners
A special newsletter
Your own Mastodon account
Access to archives
Share press releases with our audience
Extra attention in news coverage
Premium Newsletter (substack)
5 trial subscriptions
All our podcasts
More details in confirmation email!

Payments are made via iDeal, Paypal, Credit Card, Bancontact or Direct Debit. If you prefer to pay manually, based on an invoice in advance, we charge a 10€ administration fee

*Only for annual membership or after 12 monthly payments

en_GBEnglish (UK)
nl_NLNederlands fr_FRFrançais en_GBEnglish (UK)