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'Dutch cultural world is full of happy volunteers.' Why the Culture Index misses the mark.

Last Tuesday, 24 July, in a week when the whole of the Netherlands is voluntarily lying down for pampus or any other island, the Culture Index came out with an important piece. In 'Five questions about volunteering answered', the Culture Index does indeed answer five questions. The question, however, is how relevant these questions are to the state of professional culture in the Netherlands. And, more importantly, does... 

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Just a few reasons to come to @tfboulevard in Den Bosch in early August.

If the weather holds up a bit, the upcoming edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard will be the most tropical in history. The smart ones among us, who opted for a staycation in West Balkonia this year, can indulge their cultural heart in Den Bosch. Not for nothing regularly called 'The Avignon of the Netherlands'. Theatre festival Boulevard is unpacking 2018 with a truly overwhelming... 

Read More "Just a few reasons to come to @tfboulevard in Den Bosch in early August.

Dusty Woo Hah! gets off to a slow start, but after that the audience is overwhelmingly eager

The hip-hop festival Woo Hah! nearly burst at the seams at its fourth edition last year. For its fifth edition, it diverted to the Beekse Bergen in Hilvarenbeek. We walked around there for a day. 'Make that circle bigger, make it bigger! Grooooter!' Speaking is Dutch chart topper Ronnie Flex. If you don't know him from his gigantic hits, then... 

Read More "Dusty Woo Hah! gets off to a slow start, but after that the audience is overwhelmingly eager

Major concerns over fate of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov - eight weeks on hunger strike in Russian captivity

Human rights organisations from around the world and thousands of filmmakers and artists express support for Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years by Russia. This Ukrainian filmmaker has been on hunger strike since 14 May. His life is in serious danger, according to the European Film Academy.

The songs that slap you in the face rock hard in an unguarded moment

In 2016, I was unexpectedly struck by a Beatles classic. So what are the ingredients of perfect pop music? It is August 2016. I am standing with my friend at a ticket office in Liverpool, the British port city that is just as much an open-air museum. It is rather rubbed in on us that this city gave birth to The Beatles. In the harbour, tourists spend the night in a yellow submarine, equally... 

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Lakedance is well organised: 'You don't have to walk around lost, nice and handsome people everywhere, no complaints anywhere, clean toilets!'

"In the Netherlands, we are actually on holiday," say Daphne (40) and Ilja (26), laughing. They are travel experts, with Japan as their core destination. "I visit a few festivals every summer, but whether I'm really a festival-goer? Not so much, I think." Seven years ago, Daphne was last to Lakedance, now she is "getting up to age" and got to go for... 

Read More "Lakedance is well organised: 'You don't have to walk around lost, nice and handsome people everywhere, no complaints anywhere, clean toilets!'

Dancer disappears into black hole with 'From Molenbeek with Love'

You'd better live in Molenbeek. For years, tensions have reigned in this Brussels neighbourhood. The no-go area is even directly linked to the Paris and Brussels attacks. Relations among themselves will not be gentle there either. Dancer/choreographer Yassin Mrabtifi is from there. He must be a dented personality. When I read the cheerful title of his... 

Read More "Dancer disappears into black hole with 'From Molenbeek with Love'

Anna Enquist: 'I would like to be able to be a bit angrier'

Because Evening, Anna Enquist's new novel, is a book full of pent-up exasperation and anger. Never before has she written so freely as with this book, without knowing where the story was going. "I would like to be able to be a bit angrier myself." After the poetry collection Hoor de staden and her memories of Gerrit Kouwenaar, A Garden in the... 

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How drinking beer and Haute Couture go together just fine at the Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem

When I thought of fashion, I pictured an elite group at the catwalk: catty models and hostile designers. After my visit to the Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem, all those images have been completely adjusted. In the month of June, everyone in fashionable Arnhem seems to be working together. Fashion designers walk fraternally with each other in a fashion parade, sharing studios, catwalks and celebrating... 

Read More "How drinking beer and Haute Couture go together just fine at the Fashion + Design Festival Arnhem

The Basel Miracle: "YES!" the petty people said en masse by referendum in 1967 to the purchase of two expensive Picassos.

This is an extraordinary story about crowdfunding avant la lettre and an urban 'bourgeoisie' that for once does not vote by refendum against throwing money at modern art. In Switzerland, no less. Kunstmuseum Basel made a small, fine, penetrating exhibition about it, still on show until 18 August, 2018. Ideal for a stopover on the way to Italy. If you do have a moment... 

Read More "The Basel Miracle: "YES!" the petty people said en masse by referendum in 1967 to the purchase of two expensive Picassos.

Amsterdam has the @HollandFestival. Ask yourself why that is. And whether that's ok.

Last week, while walking the dog, my neighbour Stefanie asked, "What is that anyway, this Holland Festival?", and I almost caught myself wearily going to explain that it was the most important performing arts festival the Netherlands and its environs and that everyone with a bit of education should know it. But I held back. And wondered: how... 

Read More "Amsterdam has the @HollandFestival. Ask yourself why that is. And whether that's ok.

Opera 'The Rise of Spinoza' by Theo Loevendie deserves permanent place in repertoire

In 2014, the world premiere of The Rise of Spinoza by Theo Loevendie received an enthusiastic reception at the NTRZaterdagMatinee. Rightly so, as Markus Stenz steered the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Groot Omroepkoor, vocal soloists and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf through the colourful one-act aptly. The live recording was recently released on CD, allowing the opera to reach an international audience as well. The now 87-year-old Loevendie... 

Read More "Opera 'The Rise of Spinoza' by Theo Loevendie deserves permanent place in repertoire

'Renew yourself, or languish.' How the @hollandfestival gives regulars a refreshing kick in the ass.

That's at least one mistake you can make: booking for a Christoph Marthaler performance and then expecting something new to happen. Yet I did it, on my last visit to this year's Holland Festival. Someone had said that the Swiss playwright, who has been creating performances in which lost souls are... 

Read More "'Renew yourself, or languish.' How the @hollandfestival gives regulars a refreshing kick in the ass.

Lessons in Love and Violence: glowing music fails to spark icy drama at @hollandfestival

'Love is poison' Mortimer sings to the king in the first scene of Lessons in Love and Violence. The military adviser denounces his relationship with Gaveston, whom he showered with favours while his subjects went hungry. 'Don't bore me with the price of bread' ripostes the king. Rather than worry, he treats his lover to poetry and music... 

Read More "Lessons in Love and Violence: glowing music fails to spark icy drama at @hollandfestival

Gisèle Vienne performs at @hollandfestival on rave culture: 'Violence and aggression are not necessarily negative.'

French-Austrian theatre maker Gisèle Vienne is showing her latest work Crowd at the Holland Festival. Vienne takes the rave party as a starting point for subtle observations on what moves people during a night out. Besides the ecstatic pleasure of dance and trance, the performance also stages all kinds of nocturnal self-loss, awkwardness, loneliness and aggression. Acid The wonderful mix of acid, trance and... 

Read More "Gisèle Vienne performs at @hollandfestival on rave culture: 'Violence and aggression are not necessarily negative.'

Geeks and mouse arms at the Muziekgebouw. The bar is high for @hollandfestival's new bosses

Then suddenly there is a very different audience in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. Gamers. Or rather developers. And hardcore new-music aficionados. 'I only come for Maze,' said my neighbour petulantly. He came for the music ensemble. Not for the games, that is, not for the computer graphics. And maybe not even for Claron McFadden. That famous, hyper-pliable opera singer who appeared in... 

Read More "Geeks and mouse arms at the Muziekgebouw. The bar is high for @hollandfestival's new bosses

The @Hollandfestival Proms are many, bold and full. Every now and then, that's quite nice

That George Benjamin is this year's Holland Festival court composer makes perfect sense. And I say that as a non-expert. After all: the way contemporary classical music is often written and talked about scares laymen like me. Would I ever have enough knowledge to appreciate those gourmet sounds? On Saturday night, I made my first live acquaintance... 

Read More "The @Hollandfestival Proms are many, bold and full. Every now and then, that's quite nice

Hewar and Gurdjieff Ensemble @Hollandfestival: music unites two troubled peoples

After the smashing finale of Ishtar by Dima Orsho, the audience stands up as one and erupts in an ovational applause. I am almost stunned by the loud cheers and shouts that overwhelm the members of Hewar and the Gurdjief Ensemble. Bewildered, I look around me: surely there would be another song? But no, there... 

Read More "Hewar and Gurdjieff Ensemble @Hollandfestival: music unites two troubled peoples

Gesualdo at the @hollandfestival: a hell of a match made in heaven.

Pizza Napolitana is not going to taste the same again. After all, mozzarella can be anything. We owe this enrichment of our lives to De Warme Winkel, the anarchic theatre company hired by the Nederlands Kamerkoor to enhance their Holland Festival programme. We knew it. And you can go and check that out for yourself, because after that... 

Read More "Gesualdo at the @hollandfestival: a hell of a match made in heaven.

Swinging parachutes and twitching muscles at Playful Arts Festival: 'If the visitor does nothing, the work does not exist'

Occasionally it chafes at Playful Arts, an intimate festival that brings play and art together. It's all about interaction, doing it yourself, experiencing it. Some visitors have to cross a threshold. But then something does happen. Those dancers must be in really good shape," I hear someone behind me mutter reverently. On the other side of the street, a man points to... 

Read More "Swinging parachutes and twitching muscles at Playful Arts Festival: 'If the visitor does nothing, the work does not exist'

It's up to us to offer Octavia E. Butler's sower fertile ground in the @hollandfestival

First of all, the chairs have to leave the auditorium of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Then some discomfort, those two hours that Octavia E. Butler's The Parable of The Sower lasts. At least it would make for some shared sorrow, and possibly some awkward swinging. Because the way things were going, that first night of Toshi Reagon's debut at the Holland... 

Read More "It's up to us to offer Octavia E. Butler's sower fertile ground in the @hollandfestival

The colonial image of the black woman with bared upper body is rewritten in Legacy by Nadia Beugré at @HollandFestival

A sizable group of women, their skin all shades of brown, white and black, their breasts and chests hopping briskly to the beat of stepping and running movements on the spot, swirls around its own axis upon entering the auditorium at the Brakke Grond. Legacy is an intimate performance that moves loosely up and down between concert, performance,... 

Read More "The colonial image of the black woman with bared upper body is rewritten in Legacy by Nadia Beugré at @HollandFestival

The real @hollandfestival special #3 about Bowie. And Bausch. How the recent dead keep us alive.

Nothing defines us like our taste. And especially taste in music. We find that music taste defines exactly who we are and can easily distinguish us from people who have distinctly different, and therefore lesser, tastes. Pinkpop, a pop festival with several world-famous headliners, experienced this. Each world star plays to their own audience, which schi... 

Read More "The real @hollandfestival special #3 about Bowie. And Bausch. How the recent dead keep us alive.

Dimitris Papaioannou turns heritage Pina Bausch to his will with Neues Stück 1 Seit sie for Tanztheater Wuppertal, Holland Festival #HF2018

Neues Stück 1 Seit sie - Ein Stück von Dimitris Papaioannou is a long title for an overwhelming piece, which Tanztheater Wuppertal is bringing to the Holland Festival this year. Nine years ago, on 30 June 2009, a month before she was to turn sixty-nine, Pina Bausch died suddenly. The world-famous and highly influential choreographer of experimental, haunting and unparalleled dance theatre left behind a... 

Read More "Dimitris Papaioannou turns heritage Pina Bausch to his will with Neues Stück 1 Seit sie for Tanztheater Wuppertal, Holland Festival #HF2018

How Wiek Hijmans makes the electric guitar socially acceptable

Wiek Hijmans (b. 1967) is tirelessly promoting the use of the electric guitar in contemporary composed music. He also likes to be influenced by jazz and rock in his own pieces. On Electric Language, his latest CD, he presents music by eight composers alongside his own Victus. Six pieces were composed especially for him. The disc appeared on the label... 

Read More "How Wiek Hijmans makes the electric guitar socially acceptable

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