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I suspect that the decision to keep the museums, concert halls and theatres closed, while sports and Bijenkorf can open, was not born out of cultural hatred. A year ago, I would have doubted it. Now it is clear that those of you from the OMT do not actually want relief at all, but want to curb the biggest threat of civil disobedience. Sportsmen and middle-class people are more likely to throw...
It all goes into effect only in 2023, at the earliest, but the first gusts of fresh wind blowing through the Performing Arts Fund are stirring the treetops. Under new director Viktorien van Hulst, the Fund wants to put an end to the many subsidy schemes that in recent years, under the guise of 'customisation', have become a bureaucratic jungle...
In honour of David Bowie's 75th birthday on 8 January 2022, the long-awaited album "TOY" will be released on 6×10-inch vinyl, cassettes and a 3 CD set a day before. In fact, this previously unheard album is part of the Brilliant Adventure boxset, which fans have been able to buy for 150 euros since November 2021. Is this a long-awaited sign from the afterlife, or...
These are the stories that stirred mouse arms and click fingers in 2021, and this is exactly the material from which Culture Press derives its raison d'être. It is the top ten most read stories, in a year that saw over 250,000 page views. Fear and trembling in the culture sector: the dark side of the 'trickle down' Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen did...
Marijn Lems has a hobby that coincides nicely with his work as a reviewer for NRC Handelsblad, Theaterkrant and Cultuurpers. After all, he plays countless games, sees bizarre amounts of television series and also goes to the theatre more than many colleagues can afford. Every year, he creates a top list, which he posts on Facebook. Once it was the...
In the third episode of the podcast KunstZINnig, journalist Jasmijn Huisman talks to Amsterdam city poet Gershwin Bonevacia about how poetry gives meaning to his life: 'There is always a fire inside me that I cannot deny. I didn't make the choice to write, I just can't do anything else.' Gershwin Bonevacia is...
Rutte 4 says sorry to Rutte 1, 2 and 3. We cannot explain the new coalition agreement very differently. Almost all the crown jewels of 11 years of neoliberal policies have been abandoned. That the budget for the cultural and creative sector is now (including marginal repairs during Rutte 3) back to 2010 levels is almost unbelievable. That...
She could barely tell a sparrow from a wren, and almost gave up bird watching. But now writer Nicolien Mizee effortlessly recognises a barred siskin or a dipper. Nicolien Mizee's Bird Book is meant to encourage laymen like herself. 'You just experience so much more of your surroundings.' How romantic: the wild swan brought writer Nicolien Mizee and her husband Rob...
The opening images of West Side Story (2021) already tell a whole story. It is contained in a few frames. A billboard showing a grandiose new housing project. The camera glides past it almost casually as we glide over rubble of a New York slum, not with the characteristic fire escapes along the facade, as in the first film adaptation (1961) of this 1957 musical theatre piece,...
A safety net scheme for freelancers in the cultural sector: fifty interest and industry organisations this week appealed once again to the cabinet and the Lower House for financial support for this large group. This concerns 70 per cent of so-called cultural workers, i.e. a majority who do not have permanent employment. Due to the just reintroduced evening closure of venues, they are seeing their income once again...
Pure panic and existential angst: that's the picture you get when you approach makers in the arts personally about the effects of trickle down (the trickle down of corona funding from the government to those makers). The Creative Coalition may be making a fist for them, talking to the minister about it, the institutes debating it, but the creators are silent....
Patricia Goduto (37) was on stage in major Stage Entertainment shows early this century when an old childhood trauma played up and plunged her into a years-long psychosis. Her life changed irrevocably, she became addicted to drugs and alcohol and was declared incurable by her practitioners. Now she has been on stage for a few years, cured of her...
It is perhaps his most ambitious novel to date, and at the same time the first he would rather not talk about. For in De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company, writer Auke Hulst (46) broaches a sensitive and personal theme: mourning for an unborn child. Near future The Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company is a novel as only Auke Hulst writes it....
In the second episode of the podcast KunstZINnig, I talk to art curator and writer Hanne Hagenaars about how art gives meaning to her life: 'Art has deepened and, in a way, saved my life'. Hanne Hagenaars wrote the book 'No Cloud: How Art Saved My Life' in 2016. In this book, she discusses artworks that...
Creating a character you really feel involved with as an audience is what dance maker Sandra Kramerová is rock solid at. Her solo performance Majka drags me along from the start. But precisely because she performs her choreography so strongly, I am left afterwards with the feeling that I am missing something. That's a wonderful experience. It's not going well...
He will not be thanked, the headline above this article. After all, if there is one thing you don't want, it is to give a minister of a Rutte cabinet a compliment. And certainly not one of culture, the sector that, under Rutte's 10-year premiership, suffered the heaviest blows in post-war history. Rutte is the...
Whenever a technology is presented that I am not yet familiar with, I like to explore. A museum with holographic glasses? Do it! However, it turned out to be the content that will stay with me for a long time. The Museum of Austerity by Sarah Wares and John Pring is no easy read. But essential for understanding the impact of austerity on disabled people...
DocLab has been the most exciting part of IDFA for 15 years. This is the place for experimentation in form, technology and content; pushing and stretching the boundaries of the medium. I like to plunge in, sometimes with skin and hair. The VR installation Symbiosis gives that opportunity quite literally. You get to enter a post-apocalyptic world, where people are forced to make connections...
Teun Toebes (22) shares kitchen, bathroom and toilet not with fellow students but with people with dementia. He wrote a book about it: VerpleegThuis. The book came in at number 1 in the Bestseller 60 last week, much to his delight, because Toebes wants to reach as many people as possible with his mission: to change care for people with a faltering brain. 'It...
We are approaching episode 200 of Pearl Radio, a series of audio material that matters. Face of the cultural podcast is independent radio maker Stefanie Visjager. Delving into listening archives, interviewing creators and carrying the audience along in calm storytelling voice are all part of her remit. Since the birth of the term podcast in a 2004 Guardian article, it has been running wild...
IDFA-DocLab is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Leading platform for all kinds of interactive or non-interactive, virtual or physical projects through which artists give us a different window on reality.
As a physicist, Paolo Giordano was deeply concerned about the development of Covid-19. As a writer, he could interpret those feelings of concern and share them with the public. Giordano's articles are collected in What I Don't Want to Forget. 'It would be a sin if all this suffering and all these deaths were in vain.' Aware of the danger When he...
IDFA 2021 will kick off on 17 November. Again largely on location. A pleasant surprise this year is the rich crop of Dutch documentaries.
The Every (The Everything) is the name of a successful and widely loved company, the world's largest combination of a tech giant and a commercial giant. Dave Eggers describes this in his latest novel "The Every", follow-up to bestseller The Circle. On sale from mid-November 2021 at Amazons and Bol.Coms, but those who wanted it earlier could already...
Friends call him brother. His children say daddy. One day he hopes to become a grandfather. Sam Bettens (49) was known worldwide as the lead singer of Belgian band K's Choice when he decided to transition. And now he walks the beach in swimming trunks: 'I never want to hide myself again.' Tomboy As a young girl, Sam Bettens was a tomboy and wore the...
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