Dutch Film Special (6): Golden Calfs, new talents and Morgan Knibbe's handstand
Golden Calfs awarded at Gala of Dutch Film. What are the new talents this year.
ACTUAL
All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Emperor Constantine and the great upheaval in Rome
The man with the firm jaws and vacant, upward-looking eyes is not particularly attractive. His face does appear on all the posters around town. However, it is something other than this robust stone head against the black background that triggers you, on the poster of the exhibition at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. That is the tilted O of the...
HET Symphony Orchestra won't get its 2016 budget done
THE Symphony Orchestra does not have a balanced budget for 2016. Without additional money from the province, it can no longer perform its core task, nor can it fulfil all the commitments it made earlier. That is the gist of the letter CDA deputy commissioner Hester Maij sent to Provincial Council, ahead of its meeting on 7 October. The subject of the letter: "progress business plan/redemption subsidy HET Symfonieorkest"....
Dutch Film Special (5): What we can learn from Hollywood
Stop rehearsing, Yorick van Wageningen advises Dutch makers at the National Film Conference. It doesn't always have to be intelligible, either.
Flemish Level or GeenPeil? Civic cabinet redirects Flemish government's cultural policy
While in the Netherlands hate blog GeenStijl swayed the votes of 400,000 concerned Dutch people to its own anti-European tune, Flanders came up with something new: the citizens' cabinet. A thousand ordinary Flemings spent three months working online and offline on recommendations for culture minister Sven Gatz's cultural policy. In the end, a group of one hundred and fifty citizens was chosen to come up with a text. These were submitted yesterday to the...
Dutch Film Special (4): Gooische Vrouwen, 458 refugees and frikandellennostalgia
Dutch Film Festival 2015 opens with road comedy J. Kessels and honorary award for Gooische Vrouwen 2
Soviet design - does it exist?
The first thing I think of when I think of Soviet design are the magnificent posters showing muscular men with bared bodies and sturdy women in wide skirts harvesting immense fields of grain, or enthusiastically operating heavy machinery in huge factory halls. So the first question that the Moscow Design Museum asks in its press release is right on target: why do we know so little about design...
Ryan Adams' 1989 is the best concept album of 2015
Early this year, alt.country darling Ryan Adams posted a short snippet of a Taylor Swift cover on twitter and facebook. More was said to be on the way. A joke? A clever ploy to get the tens of millions of 'swifties' as Taylor's fans call themselves to listen to his music too? Neither, it turns out, now that Ryan Adams' 1989 is on the digital shelves: there will be...
Spotlight on Chopping Board and Psalms Pump
Cimbalom and harmonium are not the first instruments you immediately think of when you think of classical music. Yet, the ever-adventurous Ludwig collective puts precisely these mavericks at the centre of two concerts, on Saturday 26 September at the AVROTROS Vrijdagconcert in Utrecht and on Sunday 27-9 at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ in Amsterdam. In 1915, Igor Stravinsky and a friend visited a...
Farewell and nostalgia define 33rd Night of Poetry
Listening to a short poem is sometimes hard work. This was evident during the Night of Poetry, held for the 33rd time on Saturday 19 September. At a poem that ends in brief toneless silence from the poet after four short sentences, the experts separate themselves from the amateurs in the audience. Clap quickly, before the next poem is over. Or.
Italian grandfather of arthouse cinema
With Michelangelo Antonioni - Il maestro del cinema moderno, EYE has once again managed to put together a flawless and solid film exhibition. George Vermij visited the exhibition on the Italian master filmmaker and looks back on his influential oeuvre. In Dino Risi's road movie Il Sorpasso (1962), the passionate and extroverted Vittorio Gassman takes on a young and reserved Jean-Louis Trintignant...
Cooking for Richard III: 'Of course we tie off our sauces with a little blood'
Eating on stage. That's the standard 'Theatre Dinner', but more exciting. Especially if Shakespeare's Richard III is played during dessert. Toneelgroep Oostpool, the Arnhem-based company that has been going strong in recent years with striking performances, goes one step further again in exploring the ultimate audience experience. Sjim Hendrix, not only a cook, but also an artist and...
Anton Webern shot dead 70 years ago
He had gone out to smoke a cigar that evening, 15 September 1945, but curfew had already begun. As he lit his smoker, a US soldier subitively fired three bullets. Fatally hit, 61-year-old Anton Webern stumbled into the home of his daughter and son-in-law, where he collapsed and died. The bullet was probably...
Initial plans IFFR 2016. Will Rotterdam film festival take sharper course under Bero Beyer?
Bero Beyer, the new director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, announces initial plans for edition 2016.
Museum The Ship sticks its neck out financially
'We are already working on the restoration of museum The Ship. But it still takes a lot to get the funding. That's something that could give you nightmares, though.' Museum director Ton Heijdra of Museum Het Schip exudes no stress at these words. He and his staff are driven by idealism. The Amsterdam municipality...
Alexander Khubeev wins Gaudeamus Award 2015
This year, too, the Gaudeamus Award went to an Eastern European. In 2014, Ukrainian Anna Korsun won the coveted competition for composers under 30; this year, the €5,000 prize goes to Russian composer Alexander Khubeev* (1986, Perm). This was announced on Sunday 13 September in TivoliVredenburg by Henk Heuvelmans, for many years the driving force behind...
Matthijs Rümke (1954 - 2015): inspired and committed theatre talent will not go to waste
'Young people can very well decide for themselves where they want to go or not go. And it just so happens that most of the time it is not to the theatre. So what? That will come naturally. Young people make their own choices, and that more often includes a house party than a play. Dragging them inside is counterproductive. And above all, no compulsory book-list performance,...
The figures are in. And they don't say anything at all.
We had already announced it. This period is all about positive framing by the arts sector. Good news has to be spread, although people don't really know why. After all, there are no shareholders to be kept happy, only concerned art lovers. Enfin. On Wednesday 9 September, NRC journalist Daan van Lent presented the result of an investigation into the...
The 5 concerts not to miss at Musica Sacra
From Thursday 17 September onwards, Maastricht will be dominated by four days of arts festival Musica Sacra. Started in 1983 as the European Festival of Religious Music, other art disciplines are now also presented, in atmospheric churches and other historical venues. This year's theme is 'The Way', loosely inspired by the pilgrimage route to pilgrimage site Santiago de Compostela, with the central question of whether...
Muziekgebouw jubilees - Ten years of music on the IJ
Next weekend, from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ celebrates its tenth anniversary with a jam-packed festival three-day event. From a cruise on the IJ with music by John Cage, a sleep concert by bassoonist Bram van Sambeek, a world premiere by Dutch Composer Willem Jeths, to a musical picnic in the entrance hall. No fewer than eight...
Regulatory greed from distrustful government hits creative sector in the heart
It is most visible in the performing arts. Recently, a striking number of vacancies for 'business leader' have been appearing in the cultural sector. We put on some ears during the theatre festival, and then you hear something. Nobody wants to respond openly, the interests are too big and the reputations too vulnerable. We therefore sum it up here only roughly...
Dutch Film Special (2): pushing boundaries with Directors' Forum
The Netherlands Film Festival has tinkered considerably with some programme elements. New is the scintillating competition Forum of Directors with films that explore boundaries.
And the 10,000 euros goes to... my brother!
It is prize season again in the cultural sector and that always brings fuss. Suspicions of rigging, nepotism, bribery. It's part of it, as is everyone doing their best to tell you that the jury chose completely objectively and independently. There is also a Cultural Governance Code for a reason, to prevent the small art world from having too little...
Castellum culture park in Leidsche Rijn opens doors
It was world news in 1997. In one of the first building sites of Vinex district Leidsche Rijn, archaeologists found remains of a Roman boundary line, walls of forts, a cargo ship and all kinds of utensils. Digging it up and building houses was no longer an option. In 2007, it was decided to build a cultural park: a castellum. A modern version of a Roman fort bringing together various functions....
The organ is missing! No renowned concert hall for Hague cultural complex
Last Thursday, there was another consultation in The Hague about Jo Coenen's new cultural complex. Opponents wanted to get the plans off the table, which at this stage could no longer be done. But a striking argument was that this cultural palace would never be among the renowned concert halls because it lacks an organ. A fallacy or a major problem? The construction of the Education and Culture Complex...
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