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.
Water is very good at covering things up. Sixty kilometres south of Weimar is a huge reservoir, about which the locals know little more than that the hydroelectric plant supplies power to houses and the steelworks, a few kilometres away. At least one village has also disappeared, and artist cum experimental radio maker Sandra Rücker found out that her...
I had - in a previous house - a neighbour who gave a young tree in front of our apartment complex a bucket of water every day. He had a thing for trees, as he had brought back some Sequoia seeds from a trip to the US, back in the day. He had put these in the ground in various places. One near the house, and that one, because of possible...
A lone madman? An unsuspecting visitor would think so, and when I arrived at the Theaterplatz in Weimar yesterday afternoon, I was that unsuspecting visitor. During the opening speeches of Kunstfest Weimar, a man shouted insulting texts at Bodo Ramelow, the prime minister of 'Free State of Thuringia'. The man dressed in a yellow vest was taken away by the police. Later, during a very bedraggled...
Nice how things coincide, on 'Summer Chairs'. Last week, I reported on the BBC breakfast show's Red Bench, and what a torture device it is. On Sunday 20 August, an almost exact equivalent of that semi-circular Red Bank came along in Summer Guests with Kamagurka. This Red Bench was in a Flemish theatre with Johan Anthierens, who in his show 'At...
Adriaan van Dis with an intensely coquettish Renate Dorrestein, who (rightly) got him on the ropes with a few well-aimed pussy remarks. This excerpt from 1991 opened Zomergasten 2023 #4, and it chopped. Nostalgia all around, and during those first minutes of Theo Maassen with animal and children's book author Bibi Dumon Tak, the bar was set high. Would Theo Maassen with this...
"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...
If you want to do research out of curiosity, you should especially not apply to the government for money. Whether you are a scientist or an artist: in The Hague, they want you to know in advance what you are going to find and what it will yield. Anoek Nuyens, who caused a furore with her performance 'De Zaak Shell' (The Shell Case), could therefore produce her next...
The Casady sisters, since they went through life together as CocoRosie in 2003, have developed a totally unique sound. Yesterday, they were guests at the Holland Festival, at the invitation of their friend ANOHNI. The latter, as associate artist, introduced this year's festival audience to the female and queer side of the New York art scene. CocoRosie are with...
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...
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