All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Perhaps the COVID pandemic did not itself create unprecedented inventions and new things, but unexpected things that were already there suddenly came to the fore. Like podcasts, like online art, like new views on leadership and a different way of looking at the future. Very briefly, this is what you take away from the total of eight hours of...
Not a standard death mass, but an ode to life. Iraqi-Dutch composer Hawar Tawfiq has been commissioned by festival November Music and Ammodo Fonds to compose a brand new Bosch Requiem in which he opts for a very personal musical approach. With his Requiem des fleurs et des nuages, Tawfiq joins the ranks of earlier Bosch Requiem composers such as Kate Moore, Calliope Tsoupaki and Seung-Won...
Dance and ballet, drama with gory atrocities and clattering emotions, imaginative lighting, set and costume effects and, above all, enthusiasm bursting forth. HNTjong's 'biggest production ever' with 30 actors for 50 roles is overwhelming. Thanks also to the corona crisis: the National Theatre had to postpone the performance for a year and a half and lift it over two summer holidays, with all the misery...
A request came in from the University of Amsterdam. After all, they like to get in touch with independent artists. Only from Amsterdam, admittedly, but still. We share the main part of the request here. Research on self-employed artists in times of crisis The corona crisis has (had) a major impact on self-employed artists. The University of Amsterdam is investigating the impact of the corona crisis on...
A virtual gun, which, when you shoot it, does not fire a bullet but displays a pop-up with encyclopaedic information about what you have just fired at. Now if only we fought the next war with that. It was conceived by Iranian artist Ali Eslami, who was forced by the lockdown to use his international network to develop...
With Orkater, I grew into theatre as a student. In the house here is the DVD box with Alex van Warmerdam's first seven delightful films, which I still watch back regularly, now together with the youngest generation learning and enjoying. Then I smile daily at the spines of his curious books, such as the fine collection of poetry 'I created the world'....
Last Monday, 20 September, the Nederlandse Reisopera presented its programme for the upcoming season. The speaker was Josef Fuchs, who was introduced as the company's new artistic director by its general director a.i. Nina Hiddema. A festive occasion, which caused slight surprise in the small gathering (a few journalists and some colleagues). In an interview (below...
Jury and audience unanimous on new Dutch Poetry Slam champion Monique Hendriks has become Dutch Poetry Slam Champion 2021. After preliminary rounds across the country, eleven poetry slammers faced each other in the final on Friday evening 24 September, during the International Literature Festival Utrecht. Monique Hendriks took on Lucas Kloosterboer in the final battle and captured the national...
Mahat Arab (born 1996) is the winner of the second edition of ILFU's Storytelling Competition. He won with a spoken word recording titled 'Part-time fathers'. During festival day Exploring Stories, he received the grand prize of five thousand euros, from the hands of ILFU's organisation. More than 700 people participated in the ILFU Stories Competition; 723 stories were entered in five categories. Apart from Mahat...
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...
Admittedly, I was never a fan, but how I hated those planes last night. I was walking through a dark, nocturnal forest between Lage Vuursche and Hilversum. Where, in the silence, I could have listened extra carefully to creaking twigs, shuffling insects, whispering trees and the occasional owl, I mostly heard how happy we all are that after corona we have another...
FOODCHAINZ is an intermedial project and evening-long programme consisting of a tomato dinner with special guests from the food chain, the exhibition HARVEST FROM THE HOOD, the audio tour From Farmer to Plate and the theatre performance FOODCHAINZ! To be seen on 7, 8, 9, 14 and 15 October at Plein Theater in Amsterdam Oost! Tickets include dinner and bonus programming and are available at...
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...
There are some people, who would prefer to tinker all day with soldering irons and circuit boards. I once had such an uncle who sometimes did not entirely safe things with a 220-volt electric train, so I limited myself to battery-powered Lego. That you can also do something with electronics and music was, of course, already known, but what I saw in...
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...
'As for many people, the theatre festival really does mean something. Like the Fringe, it is impossible to imagine without it. I've been able to make artistic friendships there, I've been able to have arguments there, I've met people who I thought were adversaries who turned out to be comrades-in-arms. Because there are not only performances, there is...
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...
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lale Gül, Roberto Saviano and Alfred Birney, among others, make their appearance in Utrecht On Saturday 25 September, the first edition of Exploring Stories will take place: a special festival day at ILFU dedicated to the 'hot topics' or topical issues of our time. At Exploring Stories, topics such as climate, inequality, old and new colonialism, feminism and the...
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...
Yes, it is true, also this year's tryout of the New Year's Eve conference at Concordia.
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