All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Since the Amsterdam Uitmarkt is no longer run by the Uitburo but by a separate foundation, things have become a tad more commercial. The folder-fair-with-bands that has become the national opening of the cultural season over the past decades has to. The government has found art scary for a while now, usual suspects are pulling out as sponsors, and malaise is hitting...
Declining visitor numbers, shrinking subsidies, impoverished programming: most Dutch theatres are struggling, research by NRC Handelsblad recently showed. Theatres welcomed 12 million visitors in 2012, according to NRC figures, a quarter less than in 2008. Festivals, on the other hand, are on the rise. More and more are being organised, and they are attracting more and more people - in total...
Culture minister Jet Bussemaker can again make up for the cultural devastation caused by her predecessor Halbe Zijlstra. As promised earlier, money will be freed up for talent development. That was a demand of the chamber and a wish of the country. Are we happy? Of course. Although happy, there are also a few things that remain troublesome. [Tweet "1 Develop...
Update: Meanwhile, the Culture Council has picked up the gauntlet. Melle Daamen posted his pieces on Culture Press, and Joop Daalmeijer has agreed to give a comprehensive interview. More news soon, then. 'Melle is a member of the Supervisory Board. You have nothing to do with that. So that's why NRC anyway?' Dixit Joop Daalmeijer, the man who since he became chairman there...
Suddenly they are gone: the Dutch Symphony Orchestra's twitter account and facebook page. Searching for the new ***** name also yields nothing. Must have something to do with all sorts of lawsuits. But if you type in nederlandssymfonieorkest.nl, you happily end up at symfonieorkest.nl. Incidentally, if you type in orkestvanhetoosten.nl, that's also where you end up.
We reported on it earlier. Because it was too crazy for words. Cable companies refused to pay writers since 2012. They did pay broadcasters, producers and men in suits like that with a BMW out front, but not writers. And neither did journalists. While a large part of those clubs' billions in profits comes from the very makers of the...
In various studios around the country, for almost a year, many boys took dance classes at the Billy Elliot sCOOL to qualify for one of the most coveted roles on the dance stage: Billy Elliot. Eventually, these participants were brought together for lessons at Stage Entertainment's beautiful new building at Zuidas in Amsterdam. Under the watchful eye of admirer Joop van den Ende, six young dancers were eventually selected by professionals from England, among others. Vanafrom 4 November in Scheveningen in the compelling ballet musical Billy Elliot with music by Elton John.
This is startling. On Friday, De Volkskrant reported that prices for cultural activities in Amsterdam have risen by a whopping 37.3% since 2009. Nu.nl picks it up immediately, soon followed by TROS Radar. Then it must be true. The news taken over unquestioningly by everyone refers to a report on the BBC site. That post...
I had promised to check out a session with Benjamin Zander. Me as a non-expert, together with someone who finds classical music downright soporific. To see if Zander works, as he promises to work: "Everyone loves classical music, they just don't know it yet". The man is in the Netherlands and that doesn't happen very often. Not so long ago...
With 6.4 million views on TED, you are somebody. And so Benjamin Zander is huge somebody, because a classical conductor who can pull that off: you don't make that happen very often. So since that legendary performance, Zander has also been a hireable speaker. And author of a booklet. [bol_product_links block_id=”bol_53f85f2c62b17_selected-products” products=”1001004001757262,1000004001281876,1001004010676431″ name="zander" sub_id=""" link_color="003399″ subtitle_color="000000″ pricetype_color="000000″ price_color="CC3300″ deliverytime_color="009900″ background_color="FFFFFF" border_color="D2D2D2″ width="250″ cols="1″...
So the building is a bit redundant, well considered. After years of drawing, tug-of-war and plans for a new venue complex in the city centre of The Hague, local politicians blew off the Spui Forum earlier this year. Now, I'm sure there will have been all kinds of criticisms of that building plan, but the consequences of the lokalos blowing it off are not...
The 300-strong audience stood up as one after Leonard Bernstein's infectious performance of Candide at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam last night. The performance of this 'pocket version' of Bernstein's cheerful musical/opera about the incorrigible optimist Candide, produced by the Nationale Reisopera, took place indoors, in the hotel's ballroom, due to the weather conditions. After all, the Grachtenfestival has to be...
The living proof can be seen just before it knocks you off your socks, or lands under a bus before your eyes: people with headphones on in traffic are not on the same bike path as where you are riding. Not even in the same universe. Even if their eyes are open. We don't realise ourselves how effective sound is
Gloating is a beautiful and deeply human thing. Director, screenwriter and film producer Paul Ruven - known for one Dutch film blockbuster after another, we call it Het Bombardement - recently received an impressive bowl of critical shit poured over him following his new bake The Surrender. So many, in fact, that Amsterdam cinemas didn't want to get burned by it.
Still, Ruven does not let himself be cowed.
The great theatre maker Johan Simons has made it known that he wants to come to Rotterdam, to set up a major European theatre. He sees his chance now that a spot will become available in two years' time in the artistic direction of the Maasstad's city theatre company, the ro theatre. When they appoint Simons, they can think big, Simons says. And.
He is the greatest director in the Netherlands. But also the least honourable theatre-maker we know: Johan Simons. The man whose star has been rising since the 1980s is now in Munich. But he is not staying there. After putting the local company Kammerspiele even more firmly on the map internationally, he is looking for new challenges. Den Bosch earlier reported...
This is rather fantastic. The Tate Museum in London offers the opportunity to wander the halls at night, in the dark. To view everything on your own time. By controlling robots from your couch. Viewing artworks online in museums has been possible for a long time. We have the Google Art Project, we have our own Rijksmuseum that...
Culture Press follows cultural policy closely. Culture Press dares to put its finger on the sore spot where it is needed. Culture Press is the indispensable source for cultural reporting. Culture Press provides interpretation with daily background articles, reviews and opinion pieces on theatre, dance, film, theatre, music, opera, visual arts, literature and cultural policy. All affiliated authors are specialists in their fields, deeply...
Reviled and adulated. In perhaps the best episode in years, it revealed why Zomergasten is such a good TV programme. Thanks to guest Reinbert de Leeuw and host Wilfried de Jong. 5 quotes we need to show why.
Nerd theatre with electric dings and funny little mechanisms. I love it. Seen something on a construction scaffold in the last century with a starring role for taunting bench sanders and droning derricks. I was hoping for something like this with Studio Gebroed's 'Days', but was a little disappointed. The premise is fun, of course: we follow a creator who, in a few days like this, creates a very nice...
There were people who simply looked in the kitchen cupboards even though the guide expressly forbade it. That type of person, who probably also asks for ketchup at every meal, was one of the more interesting discoveries during the walk you could take in den Bosch, titled 'Peeping'. The performance is an example of 'experiential theatre': theatre without a clear storyline or message,...
Culture Press has a new site. The old site was over two years old. And that is very old, in Internet times. We couldn't be left behind by De Correspondent, Dutch Cowboys and Medium either. After all, who still reads the internet from a PC screen? Right. Nobody. Analysis of our visit data showed that the number of mobile readers of our site was growing hand over fist....
Being able to write nicely is fine, but the journalists at Culture Press can do more. They have studied to be art experts, have spent thousands of hours in rooms and halls that even you did not know existed and possess enormous drive. How else could this website exist?
He could have become an important director, but was at the wrong time, in the wrong place. In the end, his illness fatally bothered Matthias Mooij. Yesterday, this still young theatre-maker died of lung cancer, more than a year and a half after the premiere of his first large-venue production: Mogadishu. With that performance, of a play written by the English writer Vivienne Franzmann, Mooij put a new tone in the theatre: no longer did he fall back on theatre-familiar, mainly German and Austrian repertoire, opting instead for British authors.
About the same time as the train from Donietsk to Kharkov arrived in my mailbox yesterday, a press release from the Manifesta. Our cultural pride in St Petersburg. These weeks, the Dutch festival is organising an audio tour of Rimini Protokoll, the renowned highly political company from Germany. Oh. And, as a third item: there is a conversation tonight about what the Biennale is capable of in times of political turmoil.
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