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Anyone who sees anything other than irony in the work of the painter Rein Dool, completely unknown to me until now (as the painter also described it in an item on TV), has not been paying close attention in literature and art history lectures. Rein Dool painted a portrait of the then Board of Governors of Leiden University in 1974. We see...
For Melle Daamen I cherish sympathy. And for a long time: from the time he visited me as a young VPRO director on his round of people from the world of culture. He came to ask for advice: how could he enter the sector? Because a job in culture was his ambition. So many years later, he passed me in the proceedings
We grew up with it: live tweets from the heart of our democracy. Now, of course, debates on culture in recent years have been a bit different from what we expect now. There is no longer a need to fight over the reputation of the arts, as there was during all debates until a year ago. What is it about now? Energy, thinking...
Not everyone thinks music is also something to look at. Not a crazy idea, considering that some music is so layered and complex that you need all your attention for listening. So modern electronic music largely takes place in the dark, I experienced during two evenings of FAQ Festival in Den Bosch. There, I discovered that I...
Patronisation! Woke terror! These were some of the reactions from the film world when there were calls for the appointment of an intimacy coordinator at Dutch film productions. As if anyone could allow or display sexually transgressive behaviour in a studio with 40 other staff around it. Impossible! Yesterday, the book Wat de Fak! by award-winning actress Maryam Hassouni was published and in it, it states...
Light is the name of the latest production by NUT, a theatre company with close ties to Utrecht's Leidsche Rijn district. It is theatre in a bubble in Utrecht's largest city park, and it starts with good food and drink. I went to see it, and again became even more of a fan than I already was. A few reasons, why that came about.
Tilburg-based chamber orchestra Kamerata Zuid, with dancer and choreographer Inez Wolters, performs Igor Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat as a family performance. The performance will premiere this week at Festival Circolo, Holland's largest circus festival, also in Tilburg. Wolters is an all-rounder. With Swarmers, she stages dance on location, with audience participation. She also leads with her wild and...
I had coffee, tea and snacks ready. I had also asked my son, the designer, to sketch an example of a future logo for 'Cultureel Nederland'1. Although the Federation of Culture (FC)'s heyday took place at the chairman's house and not on the heath, it was meant to be a heyday. That is, an informal conversation about...
Nick van der Heyden, queer circus performer, garnered approving laughter from a room full of circus students in Tilburg. He just explained that he had found a new lease of life by doing his performances as an acrobat from now on as a drag queen. 'They thought something of that here at school. There, the new circus was mainly a matter of making it as simple as possible...
When, at the end of his performance, he stands on top of a five-metre high pole, struggling to keep his balance, the audience holds its breath. As does Jesse himself, but he does not do so voluntarily. We watched him struggle for a performance with oxygen hoses and blood meters, pausing regularly to get air again. What if...
We die too late. Most of the time. After all, nobody wants to spend the last years of life leaking in a nursing home, cared for by ever-changing staff who do their stinking best but are incapable of the love that children, or close friends for want of it, could give. Better a pill than dementia, we say, but then you have to say 'Yes!
One might, when visiting the Venice Arte Biennale 2022, immediately shout 'woke' or 'wokism'. It's not that difficult, since the curator's choices emphasise female and non-Western artists.1 But I would find that too easy and ultimately unjustified. When you try to look fresh - forgetting all the reflections beforehand - it falls...
Stop or keep going until you drop dead? And can you build on the other? Serious life questions that the occasional duo Peter Blok and Bas Hoeflaak will answer from a trapeze on the ridge of their circus, joking and snarking. The dry humour and mugshots of Peter Blok (experienced stage, film and TV actor) and actor-cabaret artist Bas Hoeflaak (Snipers) are...
Saying sorry seems to be difficult, if the songs about it are to be believed, and if we measure the time it takes Dutch governments to do it. But sorry is also very easy, if you consider how often you are not pushed aside in the queue for something or other, after the word 'sorry' has sounded behind you, or -...
It is not an everyday topic: where were you when the Bijlmer disaster occurred? But this disaster, of 4 October 1992, is discussed every year, especially by eyewitnesses. For me, it is a grim memory that comes back every year. And now for the 30th time. 'The Bijlmer disaster is the name given to the air disaster that took place on Sunday evening, 4 October 1992. A...
Since the budget cuts from 2011 onwards, policymakers have been setting the so-called 'creative industries' as a model for the arts. Industrial design, architecture, graphic design and the gaming industry: the creatives have been nuked as a 'top sector'. This, I believe, is the deeper cause of the unease expressed in this newspaper's Cultural Supplement: the increasing instrumentalisation of the arts by policymakers. The piece 'Why the...
The Netherlands Film Festival Conference also addressed the theme of diversity. How do we really make Dutch film for everyone? There is no ready-made answer. But there is the incentive to keep raising it. Speak out!
Rare re-screening of Olow Seunke's highly acclaimed debut 'The Taste of Water' on the occasion of 40 years of Kring van Nederlandse Filmjournalisten. Gerard Thoolen and Dorijn Curvers are breathtaking as the cynical civil servant and the girl in the closet. As if Seunke had foreseen the problems in youth care.
"Over the past two-and-a-half years, I have started making choices. Where ten years ago I thought of going into life as a dance teacher, now the question is: do I really want to? What makes me happy, what do I want to share with the people around me?" For Lotte Willemsma, the first two years of the Corona pandemic were...
Almelo has been on the map for a few years now thanks to theatre. I went to see Van Katoen en Water on Thursday, an open-air spectacle with well-timed downpour and a full-moon rise like you can only experience in the almost gentrified old-industrial heart of Twente's poorest city. Mashed potatoes were served beforehand, with a johmas salad. Wine flowed profusely. In...
Next to the industrial complex was another large hoisting plant. Inside were some reminiscences of past activity. The factory hall in Amsterdam-North where Stork made its machines was now completely deserted, cold, bare and quite dirty. Here we stood, director and chairman of Dansmakers Amsterdam, Ger Jager and me. Was this going to be the new home for Dansmakers? And was much scepticism among our...
Her life has become what Ellen ten Damme (54) once dreamed of: free, exciting and she can make a living from her music. Like a troubadour, she is touring the country in the coming months with her new show Barock. 'Only in my French home do I do normal things.' 1. I can take myself seriously 'As a 3-year-old, I was already hanging from the highest lamppost. I...
Alex Mallems, the artistic director who put Zeeland on the map in this century (since 2001), has left both the Zeeland Nazomer festival and its associated production house Zeelandia. This is the outcome of a protracted conflict with the business director appointed since last year, Sylvie Dees. According to a report in Theaterkrant, according to Dees, he would 'without permission make commitments...
Some things that used to be fun cannot be done now. Things like smoking in class, posters of David Hamilton in the dorm room, underpaying women, driving a car with a bottle of gin behind it, you name it. This week, an interesting riot was added. The Amsterdam Fringe Festival, the naughty sister of the Dutch Theatre Festival, chose a campaign image that, to...
Of the 122 stage texts read by the jury of the Dutch Toneelschrijfprijs, just under 30 were written by female authors. In a field where the number of female workers is huge, this is striking. Because, the jury rightly stated, in written Dutch theatre, the male gaze is still dominant. While the theatre audience percentage-wise more women...
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