All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Ten years ago, I got new glasses. Two weeks later, a retired ophthalmologist drove his car through my left leg and a month after that, from a wheelchair - fortunately temporary - the idea for the Cultural Press Bureau was born. Partly because the arts editorships of the Associated Press Service and NRC were decimated. So September 26 is just a date,...
Dutch theatre is remembering less and less. This was evident last Friday during two meetings at ITA, the building that once housed the Stadsschouwburg. During Nieuwe Grond, part of the Dutch Theatre Festival, the topic was heritage. One meeting will possibly be remembered by the six attendees: the two guests plus presenter, and their three audience members. The other...
1On 6 September 2018, Chokri Ben Chika left his sense of humour behind in Belgium. He trekked to the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg with a filled jerry can and committed a criminal offence. He threatened a Rabo Hall filled to the brim with an indistinguishable fake weapon. He said he admired the anonymous Tunisian who, with his self-immolation ...
Less supply of subsidised art is good for the country. Antoinette Laan, culture spokeswoman for the governing VVD party, has thought so for at least eight years. Back in 2011, then still as alderman in Rotterdam, she stated that she did not understand why art institutions were open on weekdays. After all: everyone was at work then and so couldn't come and have a look anyway. Listen here...
Good news from the cultural funds: 'diversity' is becoming a serious condition when deciding whether or not to get funding for your cultural thing. Of course, this will lead to discussion. To prevent people from falling back on the Jeroen Pauw argument (we want women on air, but there aren't enough good ones who want them too), the group suggests...
Last Tuesday, 24 July, in a week when the whole of the Netherlands is voluntarily lying down for pampus or any other island, the Culture Index came out with an important piece. In 'Five questions about volunteering answered', the Culture Index does indeed answer five questions. The question, however, is how relevant these questions are to the state of professional culture in the Netherlands. And, more importantly, does...
It did not require a manifesto, nor a fist-thick art-critical treatise in which a learned committee arrives at an all-defining verdict. No, it was a slip of the tongue by an artist, this time defining a new art movement. Olaffur Eliasson, the architect/artist rapidly gaining popularity in the world of design and architecture in recent years, says it in a...
Human rights organisations from around the world and thousands of filmmakers and artists express support for Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years by Russia. This Ukrainian filmmaker has been on hunger strike since 14 May. His life is in serious danger, according to the European Film Academy.
This is an extraordinary story about crowdfunding avant la lettre and an urban 'bourgeoisie' that for once does not vote by refendum against throwing money at modern art. In Switzerland, no less. Kunstmuseum Basel made a small, fine, penetrating exhibition about it, still on show until 18 August, 2018. Ideal for a stopover on the way to Italy. If you do have a moment...
Last week, while walking the dog, my neighbour Stefanie asked, "What is that anyway, this Holland Festival?", and I almost caught myself wearily going to explain that it was the most important performing arts festival the Netherlands and its environs and that everyone with a bit of education should know it. But I held back. And wondered: how...
Menno Pols, reporter for De Gelderlander, was denied accreditation (free ticket and other benefits) for the three-day Manana Manana festival in Vorden this year. Reason: an article he wrote last year about the money flows within the club behind the festival. That club earns millions mainly from Zwarte Cross, the biggest festival in the Netherlands with 220,000 tickets sold. The accreditation...
The cultural sector is sometimes behind, but more often ahead. In the - otherwise very much to be welcomed in terms of content - advice issued by the Amsterdam Arts Council on the future of the local Stedelijk Museum, you can read that job security in the art sector is once again under pressure. Especially for young entrants from 'diverse' backgrounds: 'Preferably, the museum will make greater use of...
At the film sector's traditional Spring Consultation, the panel at the Ketelhuis shed its light on the video on demand explosion, among other things, and on the advice of the Council for Culture. Will operators support the film sector with levies on sales?
Grandpa tells. In 1989, a committee of experts chose a different theatre course in my city, Utrecht. The just-risen festival Theater aan de Werf would get more money, the marching theatre would disappear from 't Hoogt and the rest would have to take care of the newcomer with fewer days of programming. Then we took to the streets against the so-called 'festivalisation',...
Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven will 'do something' for the Metropole Orchestra this autumn. She made this known in a letter to the House of Representatives today. Literally it says: 'I will include the solution to the Metropole Orchestra's problem in my consideration around the deployment of the 2019 coalition agreement funds tranche. My consideration in this regard is that in the coalition agreement,...
More operas and classical concerts are offered in Dutch theatres and concert halls. More theatre was also offered for young people. Nice developments, but the increase in supply (3 per cent) did not directly lead to a proportionate increase in audiences. That increased by only 1 per cent. The number of spectators for theatre and cabaret even fell. Therefore.
Thursday 17 May opens SPRING Performing Arts Festival in Utrecht with, among others, Sic Transit Gloria Mundi by Dries Verhoeven and to come (extended) by Mette Ingvartsen. Over ten days, over twenty-five international dance and theatre productions, installations and performance works will be on show in public spaces and urban environments. A week earlier, festival director Rainer Hofmann looks relaxed. 'Until now...
'I recently spent a day working with municipal administrators. It was about bureaucracy. Well, if anything is about bureaucracy, it is the work of Samuel Beckett. So I also invited theatre people to illustrate what I was talking about with Becketian texts.' Philosopher René ten Bosch, currently Denker des Vaderlands, is one of the three curators of the...
This was the email from the editors of Trouw, dated 9 May 2018: "Mr A. Bakx has had the phone number and email address we now have from him under this name since 2014. We therefore assume that he is A. Bakx." Was supported by an email to Erwin Roebroeks, which mentioned a telephone conversation with...
Uproar. A widely recognised and by his own admission always attacked opinion maker with a slight preference for strong men in Russia and America has discovered that art is leftist and elitist. Indeed, Wierd Duk, Russia expert since he spent a few years running around Moscow for various media outlets, writes in the Telegraph that art is often left-wing kitsch[ref]N[ref][/ref]Wierd Duk has since revealed...
'With my performances, I always try to make people feel that they are really going to miss a happening. 'The first performance with personal stories of four Moroccan-Dutch actresses in the big theatres of the Netherlands, the newest this, the most surprising that.' Daria Bukvić is one of the most exciting creators to enter the theatre world in recent years. She is not only...
'I have knocked on the door of the Congress of Performing Arts a few times in recent years on my own initiative, really from the idea that we can do a lot more as venues in the Netherlands. But yes, every time I was there, people got enthusiastic, but does it stick?' Composer Merlijn Twaalfhoven is happy that he now serves as 'curator' of SPOT Live, the new...
If you went to Rome before the 17th century you were a pilgrim. If you went to Rome the century after that you were a searching artist. Did you go to Rome from the 19th century onwards then you were an honourable 'Tourist' on Grand Tour, seeking inspiration and moral uplift. Going to Rome anno 2018 you are a...
Whether the artists performing on DWDD got paid for their performance. Esther Ouwehand of the PvdD did not know. She was not the only one, at the roundtable session on Wednesday 25 April on the labour market in the cultural sector. None of the MPs, fund managers, trade unionists present knew. So we asked on facebook and twitter how it was even done....
Performing arts policy greatly determines what can be seen and heard on Dutch stages. It underpins government funding of theatre and music. This policy pays a lot of attention to the quality of performances, but it hardly discusses the choice of pieces played, let alone what kind of repertoire landscape...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.