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Sigur Ros - © Hörður Óttarsson

Sigur Rós overwhelms Concertgebouw with multi-layered magic music - HF23

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... 

Clare Stewart new business director of IFFR

Earlier this year, business director Marjan van der Haar announced her departure from IFFR. It was announced yesterday that Clare Stewart will be her successor next week. Stewart has earned her spurs at numerous leading festivals, including the BFI London film festival and BFI Flare London, the British Film Institute's LGBTQIA festival; the Sheffield documentary festival... 

Pankaj Tiwari, an artist from the poorest part of India, and Polish performer Maria Magdalena Kozłowska. Photo: Eva Roefs

Sustainability is a luxury issue in Jerome Bel's airplane-less autobiography (and the show turns out to be more fun than I first thought)

Input from members: that's what drives this club. Just watch. Yesterday I wrote this piece: Jerome Bel is quite something. The man who identifies himself as a choreographer has banned himself from flying for sustainability reasons, which is why he could not come to Amsterdam from Paris to read his own autobiography. However noble the non-flying... 

Lynette Walworth by Cassandra Hannagan

Lynette Walworth brings empathetic art. That takes some getting used to at the Holland Festival

A TED Talk, but not 15 minutes as prescribed by that scattershot ideas organisation, but an hour and a half. In How To Live (After You Die), the monumental artist Lynette Walworth takes you through a story-with-light images about the temptations of sectarian faith, which, via the Amazon and the Outback, over Donald Trump and along the steppes of Mongolia, ends in the caves... 

ensemble Wuthering Heights. Photo: Steve Tanner

Glossy role for the bog in unprecedentedly perfect update of Wuthering Heights at Holland Festival

I can't resist mentioning it, because I think they were doing it for a reason, the dancers in the musical Wuthering Heights making really visible big rounds with their arms one time: this was a half-second reference to Kate Bush's world-changing 'windmill swings' in the music video to her legendary 1978 pop song. A subtle nod as in my... 

still from Euphoria by Julien Rosefeldt

Rosefeldt's 'Euphoria' is one of the most impressive things I ever experienced. 

What if 200 of the greatest thinkers and poets this planet has known in recent centuries were just one of us? An ordinary stranger on a bus, or your taxi driver, or a skater? Or a singing tiger in a supermarket? Julian Rosefeldt makes that thought audible, tactile and almost tangible in the mega-installation 'Euphoria' at the... 

Laurie anderson by Ebru Yildiz

Deep poignancy and plenty of humour with Laurie Anderson at Holland Festival

Laurie Anderson visited the Holland Festival for a third time and played to a sold-out Carré. With a five-piece Sexmob, a jazz combo from New York for the occasion, she performed well-known and lesser-known songs from her oeuvre spanning more than four decades. And every song felt like it was dear to her, with fresh, new arrangements of double bass and baritone ... 

ANGELA (a strange loop) 4 © Julian Röder

Susanne Kennedy's 'Angela - a strange loop at the Holland Festival: no new insights, rather clichés

Well, Angela... this 'posthuman' play by German-British director Susanne Kennedy, now at the Holland Festival, aims to touch on many things: life & death, time & space, truth & fake. The play begins with a text running across the walls announcing that everything in this story is real, based on diaries and facts. Soon after, this statement becomes... 

Brainwash Festival / Joy Hansson

Volle zalen voor katholieke cultuur van Nick Cave en Herman Finkers

Christelijke culturele tradities, zoals het Katholicisme, zitten in het verdomhoekje. Hoe komen ze eruit? Hoe je achtergronden qua gender, afkomst en overtuiging ook noemt, deze allemaal positief bezien helpt, met mededogen en humor; hoe mooi en grappig zijn al die verschillende mensen en uitingen! Dus schrijf ik nu met genoegen over twee personen die op de cultuurladder klommen, en net… 

Seas and mountains of women in Walzer by Frieda Gustavs and Leo Erken

Banners from the Women's Suffrage Association, Haarlem Division show that things have changed over the past century. But banners of London suffragettes demanding equal pay for men and women make it clear that it is far from enough. The opening night of Walzer, the new VR installation at Eye celebrates women's lives. Dolle Mina's, suffragettes, Aletta Jacobs, nameless women who... 

Hamlet Ophelia by Sanne Peper

Heady 'Hamlet and Ophelia' about Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious

I saw Sid Vicious perform with the Sex Pistols at the illustrious Eksit in Rotterdam in 1977, more than 45 years later my teenage daughter toured Vicious's story in International Toneel Amsterdam's performance Hamlet and Ophelia. She still has a life to go, I immersed myself in memories. A (too long) look back According to the annals... 

cover report Shadow Dancing

Border crossing in the dance world: excellent research leaves out elephant in the room

Dansen, van superamateur tot wereldklasse professioneel, gaat gepaard met grensoverschrijding, machtsmisbruik, fysieke aanslagen en seksueel wangedrag dat in stand wordt gehouden door een hardnekkige zwijgcultuur. Het langverwachte onderzoek door Marjan Olfers, ‘Schaduwdansen’, naar grensoverschrijding in de danswereld, had nog schokkender resultaten dan iedereen vooraf vreesde. De cijfers zijn inmiddels genoegzaam bekend: een meerderheid van de dansers heeft grensoverschrijdend gedrag aan… 

Elon Musk's exploding rocket

What the Culture Council can learn from Elon Musk

Nieuws van de Raad voor Cultuur: ‘De vier teams ontwikkelden diverse bouwstenen, die ze verder geconcretiseerd hebben. Daarnaast hebben de teams elkaars ideeën getest en verrijkt. Aan het eind van de dag presenteerden ze aan de hand van visualisaties hun bouwstenen aan leden van de raad.’ Dit citaat is, met de titel ‘Laatste bijeenkomst designteams nieuw cultuurbestel‘ afkomstig van de… 

Susan Neiman (Image provided by Publisher Lemniscaat)

Susan Neiman: 'I see the woke as people with good intentions and confused theory'

'People who consider themselves traditionally on the left don't want to criticise woke because they are afraid they are aiding and abetting the right, and they certainly don't want that. And yet they feel that there is something wrong, something not really left-wing about woke discourse. That's what I'm trying to untangle.... 

Writer Richard Osinga ©Keke Keukelaar

A puzzle with time. Richard Osinga's cruel but also loving new novel 'Coin'

Some writers are at the forefront, others write their novels in the lee. Richard Osinga (51) belongs to the latter category. With each book, he gains in eloquence. Mint is the new shoot on the stem of his increasingly interesting oeuvre. At one point, Richard Osinga himself was a little too lazy. After his novel... 

Dutch-Romanian writer Stefan Popa ©Gaby Jongenelen

Stefan Popa's new novel: an exciting and tasty dish

In his new, fifth novel, writer Stefan Popa (1989) returns to Romania, which previously served as the setting for his debut novel Vanished Borders. The novel's protagonist is a 'half-breed', just like the writer, but the other way round. While Popa, is a son of a Dutch mother and Romanian father, protagonist Alex Petrescu, on the contrary, has a Romanian mother and... 

Writer Nhung Dam is increasingly embracing her Vietnamese roots. 'My background is also a gift.'

Writer and theatre-maker Nhung Dam (38) tried to be as Dutch as possible, but is increasingly embracing her Vietnamese roots. Because these are precisely what make her unique, she now realises, and offer a wealth of stories. Including for her second novel, Definition of Love. Two worlds Nhung Dam (38) more or less grew up in two worlds. Her cradle was in... 

Mores.online logo

Conflicts of interest in culture sector affect mores.online. What about subsidies?

This weekend, Mariëtte Hamer came out with a strong recommendation for the hotline mores.online. The club where cross-border behaviour within the arts and media world can be reported had itself become discredited. For example, the chairman, as partner of the discredited Tom Egbers at NOS Sport, had not reacted skilfully to the fuss. It did not contribute to the trust... 

Happy Days 02 © Sanne Peper

The illusion of happiness and love with Antoinette Jelgersma and Erik Whien

"Another happy day. He listens to me ...Another very happy day, he speaks to me." Life reduced to its essence, with Winnie towering womanishly above the human molehill for her final episode. Antoinette Jelgersma, in Happy Days under Erik Whien, portrays a more monty version of Winnie, one of the toughest stage roles, with a monologue sitting still... 

Pr-picture The Toneelmakerij by Rachel Schraven

Paul Knieriem on his Hamlet for Amsterdam youth: 'Here you feel what representation and recognition does to a room'.

In mid-March, I went to see the Toneelmakerij's Hamlet, a performance specially made in and for Amsterdam-West. I had some questions about that performance, I wrote in the review, and we would discuss those questions in a podcast with Abdelkader Benali, the adaptor of the text, and Paul Knieriem, the director. An hour and a half before the recording... 

Yara Piekema and Roan Ten Cate answer questions from the audience (Photo: author)

Go see good youth theatre if you no longer believe in the adult offerings.

We have a huge need for magic and a miracle in our time. Some people think you lose that when you grow up and/or have children, but nothing could be further from the truth, of course. And in case you had any doubts, I'd give it to us if more theatre-makers for adults would once again revisit the magic you still had in your childhood... 

What Lies Beneath - photo Niels Knelis Meijer

The future is moving, the question is: how?

When the difference between the performer during the performance and afterwards is at least a thick metre, you know you are dealing with a great artist. Australian dancer Olympia Kotopoulos is a great artist, because on stage she fills the space, while in real life she barely counts one and a half metres. Art is, literally, larger than life.... 

Author's photo - Niccolò Ammaniti

Niccolò Ammaniti on his new book and protagonist: 'I had actually fallen a bit in love with her'

In his new novel, Italian bestselling author Niccolò Ammaniti (56) wittily holds up a mirror to modern man. His protagonist, the wife of the Italian prime minister, is afraid of being blackmailed with a sex video. "I don't know if I would have the same courage as her in such a situation," he says. Storytelling fun With novels like I Pick You Up, I Take You and I... 

lottie Hellingman. Photo: Karin Jonkers

'Broos' impressively exposes frustrations in intensive care unit

'Broos' opens as a kind of cruel game show, with lead actress Lottie Hellingman in the centre of the stage, sitting on a chair above which hangs a large, grey rock. "I took happiness for granted," she begins resignedly. Hellingman's words are by director Madeleine Matzer. She wrote them down for 'Broos' after hearing a mother of a 17-year-old daughter with Down syndrome say 

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