All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Isn't avant garde dance too lofty? Is it still viable in these harsh cultural times? I Like To Watch Too aims to clear up this misunderstanding. The festival brings experimental dance closer to the public than ever.
"Let's move on people! I would like to introduce you to Frans van Montfoort. One of the very first buskers in old Hoog Catharijne and almost a living statue." Guide Ton van den Berg, today in the guise of his alter ego Koos Marsman, slaps Van Montfoort on the shoulder. "Good to see you again boy."
We already wrote about the name change of the Orchestra of the East into the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (NedSym). The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra (NedPho) was not amused and felt that the Enschede-based orchestra was infringing its trademark and trademark rights and demanded that the orchestra choose a different name. Summary proceedings followed and in April 2012 the court ruled that the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra could only not use the abbreviation NedSO, but did not have to change its name.
69,500 visitors, at least 5,000 fewer than previous editions, but the halls were fuller. With 82% audience occupancy, the Holland Festival organisers are satisfied with the 2013 festival. Whether that higher occupancy rate, apart from the smaller number of performances (14 fewer than last year) is also due to smaller halls, is impossible to find out from here, but the fact that the large Theater Carré, with its many unsellable low-visibility seats, was also hardly used this year will certainly have helped.
You don't really give it much thought, how weird standing still in a shopping centre like Hoog Catharijne is. At least: if you don't stand still with your head towards a shop window or your fingers in a bowl of fast food. The code for glancing around a shopping mall is so common that it takes some getting used to even for yourself when something forces you to suddenly
Holland Festival
'The Pyre', the latest show from internationally rising star Gisèle Vienne, initially seems less disturbing than her previous work. Pieces like 'Jerk' (2008), based on the true story of a young serial killer, and 'This is how you will disappear' (2010), starring a dark forest, were only seen in a few places in the Netherlands. Hopefully, this performance at the Holland Festival will change that. Gisèle Vienne once studied harp, then philosophy and eventually trained as a puppeteer. But Vienne sees herself primarily as a visual artist working with time, on a stage, where different rhythms, motifs and figures come together.
Jet Bussemaker, minister of culture since last autumn, is slowly but surely starting to repair the damage done by the previous cabinet, supported by the Dutch culture-hating party PVV.
5 million back for culture card, 2 million for museums, something more soon
Holland Festival
Is the kingdom of the dead in the opera Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa a 3D garden full of brilliant colour, director Peter Sellars chooses in Desdemona by Toni Morrison and Rokia Traoré for sober black and white. On the stage of a sold-out Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ are glass bottles and jars, sometimes lit from below, sometimes from above, with hanging light bulbs like flickering candles. On the left are a number of ngonis (Malian lute) and two koras (Malian harp lute), played by black musicians.
Is it because of the ice age? Is it a question of money or guts? Last night, the Amsterdam cinema Het Ketelhuis hosted the so-called Spring Consultation for the tenth time.
Ah, what the heck. We can, of course, study the piece for ourselves first and then come up with a peppery response and interpretation to it, and it will certainly come. But why
We saw it in March already been coming, but now it is official: culture minister Jet Bussemaker is ignoring the Museum Council's advice. So the advisory panel led by Joop Daalmeijer has not done its homework properly: its idea
Holland Festival
From the mild, everyday cacophony around the Muziekgebouw in the afternoon, on the terrace by the IJ, you'll get into the silence of the concert hall in a few steps. For three and a half hours (with over two hours of breaks in between), Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag and Capella Amsterdam will play and sing your ears off. Steven Schick (a.o. once Bang on a Can), not only conducts, but also takes charge of the middle part of the concert, at the Bimhuis, as a percussionist. Under his inspired direction, 'Nine Rivers' navigates between spectacle and purism: a battle between complex form and the simplicity of raw sound matter.
Holland Festival
This month is all about the Holland Festival. Culture Press reports almost daily. What are we most looking forward to?
With a real gala, the Reisopera 2.0 presents itself. And immediately strips the gala of its stuffy image. With thanks to the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble.
Today, the Dutch pavilion of the Venice Biennale was opened by culture minister Jet Bussemaker. And she did so with a speech that the culture sector will appreciate. No longer the harsh and cold tone of Halbe Zijlstra's neo-conservative vacuousness, but a
Tjitske Reidinga, our favourite actress, who is in the middle of her golden years, is coming up with a new summer comedy: 'An Ideal Woman'. The blonde who theatre people have known for a long time, but ordinary people only got to know through the TV series Gooise Vrouwen, gets to decide what she does at the New Delamartheatre for three years, and so she is now going for Mad Men....
Het boekingskantoor stuurt enthousiaste mails rond, en sommige Britse kranten schijnen het maar niks te vinden, Maar toch. Martin en Mariëlle zijn door naar de halve finale van de ITV-show Britain’s Got Talent. En dat schijnt een hele prestatie te zijn. Oordeel zelf.
Putting a man and a boy on stage together - upper body bared; in today's times, that means asking for trouble. Our gaze, saturated by paedophilia scandals, leaves little in the way of intimacy between what could also be father and son, brothers or friends. But 'Victor' by choreographer Jan Martens and director Peter Seynaeve is no good, politically correct repartee. In their search for a loving look at the relationship between husband and child, they also consistently push the boundaries of what is permissible.
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