Dutch museums, partly due to the recent digital Museum Week, have been able to retain a large part of their audience. There is - reports the Museum Association on its website - a slight turnover though. And the hitherto loyal public will not find their way to museums automatically and to the same extent. But the picture is that the...
Many avid readers will dream of their favourite author sitting at their table one day, talking about her work. Perhaps just as many avid readers will take their dream author on a stroll, want to drink lamb on a café terrace or take them to a darkroom. Or to a classical concert at the Concertgebouw. All can be done. Some will even just...
TivoliVredenburg is a building like a festival. countless stages, bars, a café and a restaurant, hundreds of people at work, thousands inside on a night. I always came there too little. But when I did get there, it was a party. A building run by and attended by super-motivated people with only one goal: as much music as possible for as many people as possible. Until...
Everyone balks. Let's put that first. And a lot of people are badly affected. Hospitality, retail, schoolchildren and especially students: everything that is not necessary for survival balks. So does the arts. Not all art, of course, especially larger institutions are coming through the corona crisis reasonably well so far. Quiet and closed, but not bankrupt. We can't take that from...
Saturday, March 6, the annual Inkspotbattle took place at Concordia. The theme was "Elections (in Corona time)". 10 Dutch cartoonists participated. The only female participant, Renée van den Kerkhof, walked away with the prize. Online visitors could watch the participating cartoonists translate a topical subject into cartoons. An expert jury chose at the end of the...
A good friend calls me, sounding like he wants to share and check something important. He was talking to his sister this week about the Nieuwsuur headline: Black Lives Matter: Was it a turning point or a hype? His sister stumbles over the title and notices that important parties are left out of this item and that stings. On the...
If every ballet is about discipline, it is certainly something that applies to Hans van Manen's ballets. Discipline in the music, in the beat, in the simplicity. How ballet creates order in movement, measures space, establishes relationships: you will find it all in the works of Holland's most renowned dance maker. The six parts of the programme Variations...
Wopke Hoekstra, would-be boss of the Netherlands, stood on the ice of an ice rink closed to all but Sven Kramer last week. Because of Corona. The CDA frontman received a justified storm of criticism. After Grapperhaus, the country's second top executive who thinks his own rules only apply to others. Last week, Laura van Dolron, played...
Did you know that one in 10 Dutch people suffer from severe loneliness? The subject is more topical than ever due to the corona crisis and yet we find it hard to talk about it with each other. On Wednesday 31 March at 20:00, TivoliVredenburg and city lab RAUM present a candid interview with Flemish psychiatrist Dirk de Wachter by Rachel Rosier....
That Shakespeare is still relevant after four centuries doesn't even require putting him in modern clothes, but of course it helps. The worldwide success of Ivo van Hove and his 'Internationaal Theater Amsterdam' is therefore partly due to his Shakespeare adaptations 'Kings of War' and 'Roman Tragedies'. Marathons, hours of theatre with food in between. Valentine's Day 2021...
On social media, and in mainstream media for that matter, it is not helpful to be overly clever. The adage of my father, who was a journalist and taught me not to be afraid to ask stupid questions, has been elevated to a code of honour. You only have to watch 15 minutes of Op1, or WNL on Sunday, and you make...
For a while, not making performances as if nothing happened, but developing concepts, experimenting, boldly going where no one in this sector has dared to go so far (sorry, I watch a lot of Star Trek during the lockdown). That strikes me as an excellent use of grant money and could also bring back some momentum in these crappy times.
Yesterday, I finally saw 'Away with Eddy Bellegueule', the theatre hit of the previous broken and devastated theatre season, and saw that its creators had effortlessly bridged the gap between youth and grown-up theatre. The show is a nineties grunge concert with brilliant actors and intense visual direction by rising star Eline Arbo.
With these five tips, we are sure to come up with a wonderful programme, in this bizarre summer we are facing, in which we will hopefully be allowed to hit the streets again at all. My fingers are crossed for both.
With The Home Show, we want to provide our visitors with a cool programme no matter where or with whom they are. TivoliVredenburg is a place that connects people. If that's not possible in real life, we do it virtually. A moment like New Year's Eve, especially after a bizarre year like this, is then extra important'.
For a while, corona seemed to throw a spanner in the works, but thanks to the flexibility of the makers, speakers and artists as well as the crew, we recorded the Night Mass coronaproof. With extra intimate footage and beautiful atmosphere, for the Night Mass feeling at home on the couch.
These actors sit at their kitchen table and we fly through space with them. Art can be that simple because we, the viewers, actually make the story.
My tip to the bonzes in Het Gooi: forget young people. Focus on the wandering forties and fifties, who yearn for disruption. This broadcast of VPRO's Mondo was unforgettable.
From over 100 entries, 24 young composers have been selected for the semi-finals of the Netherlands Wind Ensemble's (NBE) composition competition Towards the New Year Concert with the grand prize of a performance with the NBE at the New Year Concert on 1 January (19:00 NPO 2).
Today opens IDFA's The DocLab, perhaps my favourite part of the festival. With its own competition, commissions and exhibition, this is the realm of digital experimentation.
Weismann strikes me as too brilliant and intelligent a director to throw himself into an adventure that could break him for good. An alpha male, a big ego, it was well known. And couldn't keep his paws off young women.
I started temp work at a time when you were somewhat of a dickhead if you were a student or had just studied, because the corps ball imitation of Jiskefet was so unprecedentedly popular. So a common greeting among regular employees who wanted to be nice was 'Hey dick! Fucked?'
The Dutch Wind Ensemble's (NBE) traditional New Year's concert at The Concertgebouw on Friday 1 January 2021 is going to look completely different from all previous editions. As it is currently unclear whether, or how many, visitors The Concertgebouw is allowed to admit because of RIVM measures, the difficult decision has been taken to play the New Year's concert entirely without an audience.
In her programme Night Animals, Ryanne van Dorst again goes in search of night owls, night workers and other insomniacs. It is a fascinating and beautiful TV programme, and Van Dorst seems to have a patent on extraordinary encounters.
'Writing this book has made me realise that I cannot prepare my children for the world in which they will be adults. I cannot teach them now what they will need later in a society that does not yet exist.'
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