All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Amsterdam, 12 september 2023 – De collectieve arbeidsovereenkomst toneel en dans is door zowel de achterban van de NAPK als van de Kunstenbond akkoord verklaard. In de cao is een algemene salarisverhoging afgesproken van 5% plus een verhoging met een vast bedrag van € 150,–. Deze salarisontwikkeling betekent een gemiddelde loonstijging van 9,44%. Op 6 juli jl. hebben de Kunstenbond…
Zondag 10 september opende Podium Klassiek het seizoen in een wel heel uitgeklede versie. Floris Kortie stond er helemaal alleen voor. In de wereld van publieke omroep en klassieke muziek, waarin dingen meestal drie jaar van tevoren al vastliggen, was er iets aan de hand. Ik voelde een einde naderen. Podium Witteman was hier in huis een vaste waarde geworden.…
The hardest part of going back to work after the summer holidays are the holiday stories from colleagues. Or from yourself. That fantastic view, that unique campsite, that beautiful beach, that restaurant where you got the best food in the world for no money, that indigenous people you visited first with your tour bus. That moment of climate embarrassment that you had a few more...
The Netherlands is a country of culture. Not an art country. Because the word 'art' appears in almost none of the election manifestos we have to choose from on 22 November. Only the VVD talks about 'art in depots'. It does talk about culture all the time. About whether we shouldn't once again start making a rock-hard distinction between art and culture,...
Salman Rushdie geeft op 30 september tijdens het ILFU (Internationaal Literatuur Festival Utrecht) zijn eerste interview in Nederland na de aanslag op zijn leven, vorig jaar. Journalist Chris Keulemans en schrijver Abdelkader Benali spreken Rushdie in TivoliVredenburg via een livestreamverbinding over zijn nieuwe roman Victoriestad en zijn uitgebreide oeuvre. In 2018 stond Rushdie voor het laatst live op het podium…
The VPT (Vereniging voor Podiumtechnologie), VSCD (Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouwdirecties) 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...
Het grootste hedendaagse circusfestival van Nederland met meer dan 100 voorstellingen naar Tilburg Open monden, samengeknepen billen en gesperde ogen. Van 13 tot en met 22 oktober 2023 strijkt Festival Circolo neer in Tilburg voor ontroering, waaghalzerij en grensverleggende performances. Op het grootste hedendaags circusfestival van Nederland zijn tien dagen lang meer dan 100 voorstellingen te zien op het snijvlak…
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 bedraggled...
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...
Grootste festival voor hedendaags circus strijkt neer in Tilburg van 13 tot en met 22 oktober Van 13 tot en met 22 oktober 2023 staat Tilburg in het teken van Festival Circolo, het grootste festival voor hedendaags circus in Nederland. Hier zie je grensverleggers, doorbijters en artistieke topsporters die onze verschillen uitlichten en vieren in performances waar iedereen zich in…
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 tense 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 major 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 these, 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...
Programma Op Porto Circolo zijn iedere dag meerdere gratis voorstellingen te bezoeken. Het programma bestaat uit voorstellingen van Close Act, Lapso Cirk, Zinzi en Evertjan, EAEO, Skypunch Collective, Fabuloka, Hendrick Jan ontmoet Merel Kamp en House of Circus. Wil je meer weten over het programma en de speeltijden? Check de website! Locaties Porto Circolo speelt zich af in en rondom de Piushaven. Zowel…
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 follows 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...
De 76e editie van het Holland Festival opende op 1 juni met Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead van Simon McBurney en sluit op 1 juli af met Requiem for Nature door Tan Dun, Pierre Audi en het Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest. Het festival werd met ruim 80.000 bezoekers, een gemiddelde zaalbezetting van ruim 80% en vele uitverkochte zalen…
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