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Hope for liberation during a dark period of war threat and political oppression; a masterpiece by Beethoven sublimely expressed in dance by Toer van Schayk. Everything gets into an uproar Creating an abstract and layered classical ballet for a large ensemble of a top company to a Beethoven symphony: few can do it and Toer is one of them. His ballet stems from...
The Belle van Zuylen lecture at this year's ILFU literature festival will be written by Italian success author Elena Ferrante and spoken in three languages by Anna Bonaiuto, Olivia Colman and Olga Zuiderhoek. Ferrante herself never appears in public and has kept her true identity a secret for 30 years. Her lecture is titled "A tangle of written words" and promises to be in line...
Festival Circolo takes place from 22 to 31 October in Tilburg. With the festival centre in the Leijpark and various satellite locations in the city, it will be one big circus party in Tilburg for ten days. Although, ten days... This year, Festival Circolo has secretly added six days. Because Les Choses de Rien's show L'Absolu - in a towering...
Last weekend's #unmuteus parades might lead you to believe that, as soon as the weather allows, the cultural world will be out of its misery in less than no time. The tens of thousands who took to the streets are quickly populating the halls again, and with a little more water with the beer, and slightly more expensive mints, the night and event industry - which is also there for the...
Art, and certainly avant garde art, thrives on the frayed edges of society. Especially in the second half of the 20th century, industrial heritage and as yet unrenovated urban foam were the places where art could escape the norms of the ruling class. The NDSM wharf in Amsterdam North, Hall 4 or the Submarine Wharf in Rotterdam, Ceramique in Maastricht, Sterrebos in...
22 Sept: Prinsjesdaglezing - Stalmeester Bert Wassenaar Two special lectures will be held on Wednesday 22 September from 14.00 - 14.45 and at 15.00 - 15.45 by the King's Stalmeester Bert Wassenaar especially for Prinsjesdag. On the rituals and symbols surrounding Prinsjesdag. The Golden Coach is a recognisable part of the Prinsjesdag ceremony. H.M. King Willem-Alexander and HM Queen...
Plays often end in chaos. An overturned liquor cabinet, a blood blade among royals, we are used to a few things. Jetse Batelaan's latest play, baroque and sharper than he showed before, also ends in beauty, but then that is actually the beginning. Indeed, the ending is sterile and stripped of any life. But that is where the performance begins. The artistic director of...
'A beautiful gift to the city'- this is how the Hartwig Art Foundation describes on its website the plan to initiate a new art museum on the Zuidas. It is a private initiative by entrepreneur, art collector and philanthropist Rob Defares. The Amsterdam Arts Council has advised positively on the plan, with the municipality deciding soon. It sounds promising: an art hall - there will be no...
Those who fear - by virtue of being white men or women - that the descendants of enslaved people are coming to punish them for being grossly at fault for the consequences of the now infamous VOC Mentality, can sleep a little more peacefully again. During the first day of the Dutch Theatre Festival, Thursday 2 September in Amsterdam, surprisingly conciliatory noises rang out when it came to...
'We thought it would be a good idea, after a year and a half of misery, not to start immediately with the most critical perspective, but rather to emphasise how good it was to be together again.' In this podcast, Marijn Lems and Wijbrand Schaap look back with Guy Weizman at his 'State of the Theatre', the traditional opening of the...
On Thursday 23 September, Italian writer Elena Ferrante will deliver the thirteenth Belle van Zuylen lecture at the ILFU International Literature Festival Utrecht. She will also receive the Belle van Zuylenring, an international honorary award of the ILFU in cooperation with the municipality of Utrecht. Elena Ferrante is the author of, among others, the four-volume bestseller De geniale vriendin (Edizione e/o; Wereldbibliotheek). Unique event...
'If you want to navigate in unfamiliar waters, it is good to take a map with you. My father was a fisherman, he hardly read, but that's what he told me. Now that I come to Amsterdam, that's also the first thing I do: make a map. What museums are there, is there a cool restaurant, is there new architecture?
The Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC) is a collaboration between Indian writer, lawyer and activist Radha D'Souza and Dutch artist Jonas Staal, produced by Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The project consists of a large-scale installation in the form of a tribunal prosecuting intergenerational climate crimes. The tribunal's inauguration will take place on 24 September 2021. From 28...
According to Linde van Schuppen, philosopher and linguist, medics do not really listen to people with psychosis. At least, they do listen to someone suffering from obvious delusions, but that is to establish that the person is indeed off the track. 'But, how then?" is the question a psychiatrist or neurologist is not trained to answer, she argues. That is why she is doing her PhD.
If you get the urge to run your finger through the candle flame for a moment, then a VR installation is already almost successful. Not just because of the technical feat, but also because it convinces as a place to bivouac for half an hour. I am standing at the bar of a seventeenth-century Amsterdam pub. There are murmurs, music, a bartender who is...
Writer and publicist Henk Pröpper had only just moved to his beloved Paris when the city came to a standstill, and so did his heart almost. Once fitted with a pacemaker, he took to the city in the one hour a day Parisians were allowed. A new world opened up to him. Writer Henk Pröpper walked during the...
This summer, the Netherlands' first Verhalenmachine (Storytelling Machine) will again tour Utrecht hotspots. From the ILFU Verhalenmachine you don't pull out a croquette or a can of soda, but one of hundreds of free short stories. In the coming weeks, the Verhalenmachine will tour busy Utrecht locations, such as the Neude Library, the Uitalage on Steenweg and TivoliVredenburg. This tour is...
The vast majority of Dutch adults never go to the theatre. Interestingly enough, the question among theatre people is never really about why people don't go to the theatre. After all, our arts sector is a supply market. At an art school, you are not trained to please the public, but to express your most individual emotion. And then preferably...
Bosses start to look like their dogs. Or vice versa. Or owners like dogs who look like them. Or vice versa. Either way. If you want proof of this statement, hurry to Theatre Festival Boulevard where John Buijsman plays the gem 'Cosmic Cowboy', assisted by Kees, a labradoodle. Or something that should pass for that. John Buijsman is one of the...
Better to die standing than to live kneeling. The statement is fresh in memory after the murder in the Lange Leidse Dwarsstraat, as a mantra in praise of Peter R de Vries, his fearlessness, non-conformism, straightforwardness and honesty. This same statement jumps out even from the first paragraphs of the introduction to the biography of poet Jef Last, written by Rudi Wester.1....
It was supposed to be Ivo van Hove's big break on Broadway. And it was meant to be, but fate decided otherwise. It was announced today via US show news Variety that West Side Story, in Ivo van Hove's modern, raucous version, will not be revived. Despite a jubilant reception and virtually sold-out theatres,...
Young artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers and other new thinkers are drowning in the effects of the Corona crisis, as a cry for help from Jett Rebel in de Volkskrant again showed. Assignments are falling away and there is little room for new initiatives. A whole generation of creative talents seems to be lost in jobs in the hospitality industry or at the GGD. The European Recovery Fund...
Guilherme Miotto is artistic director of Corpo Maquina, an extraordinary dance company based in Breda and Tilburg. This year, among other things, he is at Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch with the performance Tak. A performance, stemming from an earlier project in an urban district of Den Bosch. Six women he worked with there now form an ensemble with whom he...
White balls are quite in the news, lately. For instance, they molest compatriots as a holiday pastime. Or they shout 'Snollebollekes' at a black champion. So the fact that white balls can also be fine is news. You can experience it at Festival Boulevard, where in a small, narrow tent, thousands of white Styrofoam balls, driven by huge fans, give you a fine massage shower,...
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