All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
The VPT (Vereniging voor Podiumtechnologie), VSCD (Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouwirecties) and NAPK (Nederlandse Associatie voor Podiumkunsten) are joining forces to publish a Dutch version of the Theatre Green Book. The reference work is being used in more and more countries within Europe to structurally shape the achievement of sustainability goals. In our sector, too, the...
The Netherlands' largest contemporary circus festival with more than 100 performances to Tilburg Open mouths, squeezed bottoms and squinted eyes. From 13 to 22 October 2023, Festival Circolo descends on Tilburg for emotion, daredevilry and groundbreaking performances. The largest contemporary circus festival in the Netherlands will feature more than 100 performances for ten days at the cutting edge of...
The counter stood at 8 minutes and 45 seconds when it went wrong. Pretty fast for a three-hour interview programme like Zomergasten, but Theo Maassen grabbed the record with verve. His guest Alida Dors, the woman who, as a self-taught dancer, grew into a forewoman of Dutch hip-hop culture, and who is now tasked with managing the mismanaged...
I had - in a previous house - a neighbour who gave a young tree in front of our apartment complex a bucket of water every day. He had a thing for trees, as he had brought back some Sequoia seeds from a trip to the US, back in the day. He had put these in the ground in various places. One near the house, and that one, because of possible...
A lone madman? An unsuspecting visitor would think so, and when I arrived at the Theaterplatz in Weimar yesterday afternoon, I was that unsuspecting visitor. During the opening speeches of Kunstfest Weimar, a man shouted insulting texts at Bodo Ramelow, the prime minister of 'Free State of Thuringia'. The man dressed in a yellow vest was taken away by the police. Later, during a very oppressive...
The 39th edition of Theaterfestval has concluded successfully. The 11-day festival in 's-Hertogenbosch attracted around 90,000 visitors. This Boulevard was a celebration of what binds us as human beings: our desires, our bodies, our emotions. This Boulevard was about radical empathy. About learning to live together, understanding wordlessly, caring for each other and enjoying ourselves together. Strikingly frequent in this was the relationship between generations...
Biggest festival for contemporary circus descends on Tilburg from 13 to 22 October From 13 to 22 October 2023, Tilburg will be home to Festival Circolo, the biggest festival for contemporary circus in the Netherlands. Here you will see boundary-breakers, go-getters and top artistic athletes highlighting and celebrating our differences in performances that everyone can relate...
Fascinating television, for sure. Cabaret artist Theo Maassen, who is emerging as an excellent interviewer in this Summer Guest year, went 'full Paxman' on Khadija Arib. Following in the footsteps of famous BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, he pulled out all the stops to elicit a confession from the former Lower House Speaker. It didn't work, and at half past 12, after a very exciting hour of interview television, it stood...
Yves Degryse is one of the people behind the extraordinary Flemish company Berlin. Between 2011 and 2015, Berlin worked on the performance Zvizdal, largely shot in the 'forbidden zone' around the exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. I saw the performance in 2016 in Den Bosch, during Festival Boulevard, and was 'blown away'. This year, it returns to Boulevard
Louis Janssens is a young, ambitious theatre-maker from Flanders. With a string of rave reviews behind his name, he seems to have effortlessly found his place in the theatre world. This year, he is a prominent guest at Theatre Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch. His latest play, 'Desire', will premiere at the Verkadefabriek on 3 August. The play highlights the delicate...
At a little before half past eleven, Sunday evening 30 July, cabaret performer and gifted interviewer Theo Maassen asked world-famous cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema: "What's the question you don't get answered?" Hoyte: "Shit, are you going to close with that?!" It was in the telling finale of an extraordinarily impressive second episode of Zomergasten 2023. An episode, too, in which we talked a lot about cinematography...
The creative sector is pushing for a radical change in the arts subsidy system. This is evident from the lobbying documents (position papers and suggestions) sent to political parties' election programme writers. The largest and most important of them, the theatre boards (VSCD) and Kunsten 92, want the national government to give municipalities a clear and specific culture budget ('earmarked') from now on. By doing so, they want...
Utrecht - With the performance Good Gold Money, theatre maker Greg Nottrot (artistic director of the NUT) managed to raise €101,332.80 from his audience this spring. This production was received with high praise by both the press and the audience and responds to that strong feeling that ''something has to change'' from both the creator and the audience...
The latest Aluin production Boudica will premiere at Theatre Kikker in Utrecht on 29 September 2023. In this production, actor Jilles Flinterman tells the story of Boudica, the Celtic queen and Iron Age Warrior Queen, who to this day is seen as a symbol of female rage. If anything is written about women in...
Programme Several free performances can be visited at Porto Circolo every day. The programme includes performances by Close Act, Lapso Cirk, Zinzi and Evertjan, EAEO, Skypunch Collective, Fabuloka, Hendrick Jan meets Merel Kamp and House of Circus. Want to know more about the programme and performance times? Check out the website! Locations Porto Circolo takes place in and around Piushaven. Both...
During the 7th edition of the Brabants International Children's Festival (BRIK), our latest performance Voor de Draad Ermee premiered and we presented Mankind with Paul van Kemenade and Stevko Busch for the last time. For the Wire With It premiered On Saturday 24 June, For the Wire With It premiered to a full house in the Chassé Theatre!....
Above all, we must continue with the favourable arts policy initiated by the fourth Rutte cabinet. That is what the arts umbrella organisation Kunsten ´92 says in a letter in response to the fall of the last cabinet under that name. This is a remarkable turn of events after 13 years in which most of the art world wanted nothing more than to get rid of the...
The Netherlands is returning 478 cultural objects at the request of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. During the colonial period, these objects ended up in the Netherlands unjustly, through looting or coercion, for example. State Secretary Uslu (Culture and Media) has decided on the return. In doing so, she is following the very first recommendations of the Colonial Collections Committee chaired by Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You. The works...
Respect for the many resistance fighters against slavery connects Romana Peace in 'Time will teach us' with anger at 'the system' in which exploitation continues, and with the pains in her personal life. Lokay, a teenager still, flees from the plantation on St Maarten, is caught again and physically punished by the white owner: a breast cut off, she bled almost to death in hellish...
The 76th edition of the Holland Festival opened on 1 June with Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Simon McBurney and closed on 1 July with Requiem for Nature by Tan Dun, Pierre Audi and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. With over 80,000 visitors, an average audience attendance of over 80% and many sold-out venues, the festival was...
Searching for information on persons who lived in slavery on Aruba and Sint Eustatius has become easier with the online posting of two indexes and corresponding scans of colonial archives. The indexes can be searched from 30 June on the website of the Archivo Nacional Aruba (ANA) and on the website of the National Archives. In the index Aruba: slavery...
On Thursday 29 June, a Tryater delegation will travel from Leeuwarden to Bautzen, Germany, where a robust three-day conference between international theatre companies will take place as part of the European minority language association phōnē. During the three-day event, politicians, linguists, minority language experts and theatre-makers talk to each other about the language situation, goals and challenges in diverse minority language areas. These days, companies from all over the world meet in...
If you want to do research out of curiosity, you should especially not apply to the government for money. Whether you are a scientist or an artist: in The Hague, they want you to know in advance what you are going to find and what it will yield. Anoek Nuyens, who caused a furore with her performance 'De Zaak Shell' (The Shell Case), could therefore produce her next...
It's time to get puzzling: the full programme of Boulevard 2023 is available from now on. In addition, Boulevard Magazine 2 is also out, containing background articles, filters to help you choose and, of course, a look at this year's programme. Brain gymnastics Earlier, we already announced thirteen names and now you can find the complete programme....
The Casady sisters, since they went through life together as CocoRosie in 2003, have developed a totally unique sound. Yesterday, they were guests at the Holland Festival, at the invitation of their friend ANOHNI. The latter, as associate artist, introduced this year's festival audience to the female and queer side of the New York art scene. CocoRosie are with...
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