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'New venom is added every day.' In book, presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb lets non-white Dutch people experience what comes over them daily

Even though she has lived in the Netherlands since she was three, journalist and radio TV presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb (47) is still not considered a full-fledged compatriot. In her book 365 dagen Nederlander, she gives a disconcerting picture in short sketches of how non-white Dutch people or Dutch people with a migration background are treated. Biology teacher to class 'This is what you call olive-coloured skin. You can... 

Read More "'New venom is added every day.' In book, presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb lets non-white Dutch people experience what comes over them daily

'Silence has made me sicker.' Kathelijn Hulshof aims to break the taboo on mental illness with her book

An insight into her stormy inner self - that is what Kathelijn Hulshof (32) wants to give with her book Gevalletje borderline. We should dare to talk to each other about mental illness, she thinks. 'Then the burden becomes less heavy and lonely.' Hurricanes inside me 'No, you can't have borderline, people told me. I had completed an education, I had... 

Read More "'Silence has made me sicker.' Kathelijn Hulshof aims to break the taboo on mental illness with her book

Learning and moving: The Planet, a lament by Garin Nugroho. #HF21

Some art you don't quite understand, but touches you deeply. Paradjanov's films, for instance, or The Planet, a Lament by Garin Nugroho. Nugroho has chosen not to provide his performance with surtitles, so your rational brain has to be sidetracked for a while. What are they singing, what exactly is happening, what is it about? After a few minutes of this same... 

Read More "Learning and moving: The Planet, a lament by Garin Nugroho. #HF21

Between Past and Future. Frank Scheffer films a fruitful meeting between East and West #HF21

Saturday 26 June at the Holland Festival, a special evening around two music films by Frank Scheffer: the documentary Inner Landscape and the opera film Si Fan. Supplemented by a short live performance by Chinese musician Wu Wei. This will present a musical journey from the seventh-century Tang Dynasty to contemporary electronic music. An evening with unexpected perspectives.

TIME by Ryuichi Sakomoto: how five quarters can flash by in a thousand years. #HF12

In a legendary episode of the SF series Star Trek, The Next Generation, for fans like me, Captain Picard is hit by a strange light signal from an empty probe. We then switch to a village to which the captain seems to have been teleported and see how he leads quite a life as a village wise and gifted flute player. At the end, he dies... 

Read More "TIME by Ryuichi Sakomoto: how five quarters can flash by in a thousand years. #HF12

The bands were dead, but Kukangendai breathes life into everything. Be it inimitable. #HF21

Someone cried the other day that bands were dead. That in a world of digital convenience, loop apps and samples, there was no place left for boys and girls with a guitar, a rickety drum kit and possibly a piano. Last night, while real men were watching football, I sat in Amsterdam's BIM house watching a band. It made me overjoyed. Kukangendai, on... 

Read More "The bands were dead, but Kukangendai breathes life into everything. Be it inimitable. #HF21

Unheimlich and intriguing: Kindertotenlieder by Gisèle Vienne #HF21

A boy is a guest at his own funeral where a black metal band is playing a funeral concert. The killer, his best friend, is also there, along with anonymous black metal fans. The light is harsh, there is snow on the ground. To the right at the side of the stage, a wall has been built with crates of beer, to the left is what I am in... 

Read More "Unheimlich and intriguing: Kindertotenlieder by Gisèle Vienne #HF21

Antonio Scurati wrote novel about Mussolini: 'Of my readers, 99 per cent consider the book anti-fascist. The other 1 per cent were already fascist and recognise themselves in it.'

Formation of the Fasci di combattimento (the Black Shirts) Milan, Piazza San Sepolcro, 23 March 1919 We look out on Piazza San Sepolcro. Barely a hundred people. All men who don't count. We are few and we are dead. They wait for me to speak, but I have nothing to say. The stage is empty, awash with eleven million corpses,... 

Read More "Antonio Scurati wrote novel about Mussolini: 'Of my readers, 99 per cent consider the book anti-fascist. The other 1 per cent were already fascist and recognise themselves in it.'

A new layer of management is not going to solve Theatre Rotterdam's problems

Rotterdam and theatre, quite tricky. I should know, I was born there and it was a subject of several working groups during my Theatre Science studies in the 1980s. Since the last theatre reform, a merger in which independent performers would work together to provide all the special theatre in Rotterdam, but... 

Read More "A new layer of management is not going to solve Theatre Rotterdam's problems

To blaat or not to blaat. FC Bergman puts the sheep on a nice pedestal in The Sheep Song #HF21

Those blessed with the surname 'sheep' not only know that they come from a rich and honourable lineage, but also know by heart all the proverbs, sayings and name jokes, offensive or otherwise. Up to and including comradely blathering chiefs of art. Then the fact that Flemish theatre company FC Bergman is producing a show titled 'The Sheep... 

Read More "To blaat or not to blaat. FC Bergman puts the sheep on a nice pedestal in The Sheep Song #HF21

La Codista is an endearing ode to waiting, with a fine layer underneath #HF21

It is always nice to know that someone is waiting for you. Companies offering rare things, officials who have highly sought-after stamps to put up, all owe their happiness and income to people willing to wait for them. Waiting itself, of course, is also something you can build a life around. There are people... 

Read More "La Codista is an endearing ode to waiting, with a fine layer underneath #HF21

Ine Aya: Wodan's state visit to Kalimantan raises quite a few questions #HF21

After three centuries of colonial oppression and exploitation, it is now pay-back time. However, we, the progeny of the navy that came to get nutmeg there, are not so good at it. Because we come back to Indonesia with mass tourism, cheap clothing dyers and multinationals like Unilever. We do little else but drain the place further. Economically, but also culturally. This can be subject... 

Read More "Ine Aya: Wodan's state visit to Kalimantan raises quite a few questions #HF21

Mailles remains in the Holland Festival a closed oyster that does not reveal its pearl.

Something about roots, and that they are cut off and that this is inconvenient. Or not, because it gives freedom. Something about men and women, but what exactly didn't quite become clear in Mailles, which I got to experience at the Holland Festival on Thursday 10 June, after another curious test-for-access episode. The great hall of the building that I just don't... 

Read More "Mailles remains in the Holland Festival a closed oyster that does not reveal its pearl.

Theatre festival Boulevard changed the DNA of Den Bosch, even the Netherlands

Whether we want to speak only of 's-Hertogenbosch from now on. Apparently, a last vestige of decency has bravely survived in the provincial capital of Brabant. Nazmiye Oral, master of ceremonies at a party at Den Bosch's citadel on 9 June, forgot right the first time. City marketers and old nobility fight hand in hand for a respected name to trump the vernacular.... 

Read More "Theatre festival Boulevard changed the DNA of Den Bosch, even the Netherlands

Culture Council to investigate cross-border behaviour across cultural sector

We are a bit done with sex, drugs & rock'n'roll in culture. At least, not in what is presented through our galleries, film screens and venues, but in how that comes about. Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven has asked the Council for Culture for advice, and the Council is going to set up a commission to do so. This was just announced via... 

Read More "Culture Council to investigate cross-border behaviour across cultural sector

The Council for Culture has a sense of purpose. And it's about time.

'To strengthen the position of self-employed workers, a regulation could be revisited that would make it easier to enter into several short-term contracts throughout the year with interim retention of benefits.' There is a lot of useful stuff in the Culture Council's advice published today, but this sentence made me the happiest. Not so happy yet... 

Read More "The Council for Culture has a sense of purpose. And it's about time.

INTIMATE LETTERS

Today I must write about A.L. Snijders, the totally idiosyncratic inventor of the Very Short Story. I have admired his work ever since I discovered it through Vrijstaat Austerlitz (1997-1999), a literary magazine that ran for only four issues. Those are probably the best literary magazines, the fewer issues they cover the better. Arjan Witte and Tommy Wieringa, two of the founders... 

Read More "INTIMATE LETTERS

At Giselle Vienne's L'Etang, I feel again what I have been missing all this time.

England is closed. The culture minister happily reports that artists can tour Europe again, as long as they do not go outside Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. We've always taken an ambitious approach in negotiations on touring artists, including in my meeting with @AbidRaja last month. Delighted that our new trade deal with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein will allow musicians, performers... 

Read More "At Giselle Vienne's L'Etang, I feel again what I have been missing all this time.

After a year and a half at home, Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot's Fremdkörper with testing access is pretty tough

There are reasons not to live in Belgium, but yesterday I was intensely longing for an evening with my southern neighbours. After all, they have 'testing for admission' in the cultural sector just a little better regulated than here. When I attended a 'testing for access' performance in Antwerp, there was a tent in front of the theatre entrance where I walked in, with a time appointment, a... 

Read More "After a year and a half at home, Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot's Fremdkörper with testing access is pretty tough

Choreographer Ernst Meisner: 'What works for me is an empty studio where I turn on the music at night and walk around for a hundred hours'

Choreographer Ernst Meisner (1982) is artistic coordinator of the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company and artistic director of the National Ballet Academy. As a former dancer, he knows that you have to get out of the rehearsal studio, onto the stage. That's why he makes sure his dancers and dancers-in-training keep dancing in front of an audience as much as possible, even if the performances are online because of corona. 'I... 

Read More "Choreographer Ernst Meisner: 'What works for me is an empty studio where I turn on the music at night and walk around for a hundred hours'

How writer Maartje Wortel was confronted with herself: 'I was literally and figuratively running the same laps over and over again.'

For five years, writers Maartje Wortel and Niña Weijers walked endless laps through the Oosterpark every day. When that suddenly came to an end, Wortel was suddenly confronted with herself in a big way. 'I didn't feel I had anything to hold on to anymore'. Cheerfully waving, Maartje Wortel (38) approaches, a full bag of groceries in hand. 'Not handy no, for a walking interview,' observes... 

Read More "How writer Maartje Wortel was confronted with herself: 'I was literally and figuratively running the same laps over and over again.'

Angry Ghosts Podcast - From Action Tomato to Cancel Culture with Gerardjan Rijnders

Gerardjan Rijnders is considered one of the great theatre innovators of the post-1969 Dutch theatre field. Because he became personally involved in Aktie Tomaat and the Maagdenhuis occupation as a teenager, he is the ideal person to shine his light on current emancipatory developments within the theatre field. In the first part of the conversation, we talk... 

Read More "Angry Ghosts Podcast - From Action Tomato to Cancel Culture with Gerardjan Rijnders

You only really experience the magic of an actor when you are there live. 

Sometime in 2022, if you can again, please go to a theatre where you can see 'Sadness is the thing with feathers'. There you can watch and listen to Jesse Mensah's phenomenal talent - if he hasn't won the Song Contest before then - and experience the magic that sticks to Jacob Derwig. Forget, before then... 

Read More "You only really experience the magic of an actor when you are there live. 

Goodbye movie house, longing for museums: (my) insights after corona

What does culture visit after corona look like? The topic came up regularly on this site in recent months. I myself wrote two personal contributions on it. Now that cultural institutions may almost reopen their doors, the crystal ball is giving way to reality. In my article on 'the promise of the empty hall', I noted a reluctance to... 

Read More "Goodbye movie house, longing for museums: (my) insights after corona

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