All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
The Every (The Everything) is the name of a successful and widely loved company, the world's largest combination of a tech giant and a commercial giant. Dave Eggers describes this in his latest novel "The Every", follow-up to bestseller The Circle. On sale from mid-November 2021 at Amazons and Bol.Coms, but those who wanted it earlier could already...
Friends call him brother. His children say daddy. One day he hopes to become a grandfather. Sam Bettens (49) was known worldwide as the lead singer of Belgian band K's Choice when he decided to transition. And now he walks the beach in swimming trunks: 'I never want to hide myself again.' Tomboy As a young girl, Sam Bettens was a tomboy and wore the...
The theatres are struggling to fill up, technicians have hung up their lamps, but tickets are not on sale for Het Nationale Theater's Trojan Wars. So in this long-awaited Nerd podcast (the AVROTROS thinks the tune is really terrible), we talk to Cees Debets, the director of that great theatre company from The Hague. Marijn Lems also happens to have a few...
It is thanks to support measures that the cultural sector did not go down in the corona crisis. But unfortunately, the pandemic is not over yet. Time, money and space are needed to prevent the cultural sector from collapsing after all. So writes the Council for Culture to outgoing minister Van Engelshoven (OCW). The council points out that many...
The Amsterdam Museum has been nominated for the Friends Lottery Museum Prize 2021 and has a chance to win 100,000 euros to realise its museum dream: to collect the city of today together with residents and visitors of Amsterdam. Besides the Amsterdam Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Volkenkunde from Leiden and Kasteel Hoensbroek from Hoensbroek (Limburg) are also nominated. The public can vote until 26 November 2021...
There is turmoil in the world of circus and open-air theatre as a major workshop cum festival in the famous artist town of Diepenheim loses its director. Ruth Semmekrot, director of Kunsten op Straat Overijssel since 2013, suddenly resigned her post last Friday. In a statement on Facebook, she stated: 'I have struggled. The administrative and political dynamics I was in...
Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven of Education, Culture and Science today presented the Johannes Vermeer Prize 2021, the Dutch state prize for the arts, to visual artist Natasja Kensmil. At Het HEM in Zaandam, Minister Van Engelshoven handed over the trophy to Kensmil. Natasja Kensmil was praised by the jury for her work that is healing, edifying and critical at the same time. Minister ...
A stormy journey full of virtuosity and drama marks the new work Odysseus by two Dutch artists: Calliope Tsoupaki (Composer of the Fatherland) and Awoiska van der Molen (visual artist/photographer).Odysseus confronts us with the consequences of our human actions. Odysseus - by Calliope Tsoupaki, premiere. - 10 Nov to 2 Dec What happens when we are in danger of losing control, when an action leads to irreversible...
Thinking up your own music, directing a group of musicians or playing with colourful synthesizers? There is also plenty to do for younger audiences during the November Music 2021 festival! Visit the very first edition of the KinderKunstmuziekRoute in 's-Hertogenbosch on Sunday 7 November 2021 and create your own music! The presentation of "So You Think You can Write a String Quartet?!" is on Wednesday 10 November. Or drop by for the...
The Dutch Slavery Museum has moved a step closer, now that the Arts Council (Amsterdam) and the Council for Culture (Rijk) have issued an opinion on the exploration of a direction group presented earlier this year. This satisfies official procedural due diligence, although establishing the necessary museum in this way seems likely to take at least as much time....
Put three neurotic sisters with their mother hen and errant brothers-in-law together in a parental holiday villa with beautifully translated text by Las Norén and you're bound to get some nasty Scandinavian family stuff. But luckily there is the wafting acquaintance Axel, a convincing role by Mark Rietman. Already at the start of the performance with the tableau de la troupe alongside...
The link between the Orpheus myth and Arnhem potenrammers is more obvious than you might think. At least, if your name is Peer Wittenbols and you are one of the country's best playwrights. That you can also think of accordions as part of that is, in turn, extraordinary. Still, Blood Coral, a performance by accordion duo Toeac, with a lead role for Jack Wouterse on a text that promises...
For RTL-Boulevard reporter Ruud ten Wolde (29), these weeks would be dominated by his book Ill Happy, which comes in at number 1 in the Bestseller 60 this week, in which he writes about his illness and the insights it has brought him. Although he had been ill for six years, he still died suddenly recently. We spoke to him five...
A campfire, primeval hamburgers and flammkuchen with bacon and cream, as well as coffee with oat milk and remarkably many loose buns in Tilburg's Leijpark. White wine, kombucha and speciality beer. Some people get pimples from such combinations, but it felt remarkably good, last Monday at Festival Circolo. The hipster folk, considered super sustainable, mixed effortlessly with the burgundian Brabanter, so in...
After two years of dreaming and planning, today is finally the day: Festival Circolo - the largest circus festival in the Netherlands - is back! From 22 to Sunday 31 October, Tilburg's Leijpark will transform into an oasis full of spectacle, acrobatics and humour. Framed by the beautiful autumnal colours of the park, visitors will be treated to modern circus of international top level....
'Every time I go to a beach, I see the sea through a filter of all the texts written about the sea.' Writer Joachim Robbrecht, at the request of Romain Bisschoff and together with writer brother Artun Alaska Arasli, created a sound poem for Ensemble Silbersee. During November Music, the work will finally premiere, after it had been a year...
Jan-Peter de Graaff (b. 1992) is and thinks big. As an islander, raised on Terschelling as a child of musicians, he also perhaps perceives things a little differently from the peripheral city. The height of the sky, the nothingness of a strip of land surrounded by the movement and power of water; they suggest infinity and the mystery of higher powers. That perspective...
Mons (Mons), a Walloon pinhead on the French border, became European Capital of Culture in 2015. To everyone's surprise. The city presents its umpteenth major exhibition this autumn and winter: Fernando Botero, beyond the forms. 3 questions are addressed in this story: 1) How does a small city like Mons get all that done? 2) Why never say:...
At the end of July, we posted an appeal by the UWV on this site. The benefit agency sounded the alarm because few cultural organisations had yet completed their final application for corona support. If they had not submitted the application corresponding to the advance received earlier before 31 October, they would have to repay that advance anyway. Every reason to take a...
'A sorcerer's apprentice? It is really not the case that Josef Fuchs could and would single-handedly bend an entire application process to his will. That is pertinently untrue and I even find it damaging to his person.' Nina Hiddema reacts vehemently to our article on Josef Fuchs' remarkable job title, and the change in it. Hiddema explains: 'I am...
For those who love acrobatics and existential questions of life, Boris Gibé's L'absolu is a valhalla. The extraordinary spectacle can be admired during Festival Circolo in Tilburg. In an empty silo at a height of 12 metres, acrobat (and metaphysician) Gibé confronts the audience with the big questions of life. With his act, he shows that circus and art can go hand in...
'I often wonder why I keep doing what I do. I do circus, but I don't just want to tell stories, I want to act, I want to live up to my beliefs and my values. And by acting, I don't mean eating organic food, sorting my waste and donating to Greenpeace, no ; I really want to contribute to all those issues I...
'They come from two worlds, but work together towards something that is one. Jolanda Spoel has done that perfectly'. Katinka Reinders, head of education at the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, is enthusiastic after one of the first play-in performances of Melomaniac at Maas Theatre & Dance. Just now, a room full of somewhat timid secondary school students turned into a churning group of lovers of...
During Tilburg circus festival Circolo, you can experience it, if you want to, and certainly if you can't help it: audio description. Especially for the blind and visually impaired, the festival offers the services of Komt Het Zien, a company specialising in live description of what is on stage in front of you. Founder Arlette Hanson, is one such...
Back Home, the new novel by Spanish writer Jesús Carrasco (49) is not only a portrait of a family and two generations, but also a portrait of Spain itself. 'Today's literature gives social groups a voice they didn't have before.' Three years of work and two complete novels ended up in the dustbin before Jesús Carrasco wrote his new novel Back...
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