Legislation follows at an appropriate distance from technological developments
What does a dissertation on a forgotten Victorian novelist have in common with a rushrelease from multinational Sony?
ACTUAL
All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Rotterdam Theatre: more music, more visitors
Everywhere, arts attendance is falling dramatically, except, for now, in Rotterdam. There, the Rotterdamnse Schouwburg managed to keep the number of paying visitors the same, or even increase slightly to over 147,500, in its first real cultural disaster year 2012. In its own press release, the management (currently in the hands of Jan Zoet) attributes this to sharper programming and revivals of successful productions, and an increase in the number of concerts:
2012 cinema year: attendance stable, Skyfall and Intouchables top the list
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the 2012 cinema year was that two completely different films were the biggest crowd-pleasers. First, the new James Bond Skyfall, of course, with almost 2 million visits. But that the number two (1.2 million) is a
A world of strange wonders where nothing is right making everything right
Einstein on the beach: a five-hour minimalist opera with no plot, no intermission. An opera with an almost mythical status, with images that have become theatre icons, but which hardly anyone has actually seen.
Culture Press ratings: thick 300,000 minutes of attention
With paper, you never know ('0.3% of newspaper readers read the reviews on the art page'), and with TV it's always a bit of estimating and extrapolating too, but the internet is rock hard. We know how many times you read one of our pieces, and how long you lingered at our videos. Well: we were already proud last year, now we are well over 200,000
Disbanded Tilburg dance innovators go into fitness for parkinson's patients
Sat another note in the post. One of many, these weeks. About a club that had only just been set up by the government. With the accompanying millions, which because of the PVV's vindictiveness have now been dumped in the local ditch. Its creators have already found a new purpose for themselves a few months ago: to improve the well-being of Parkinson's patients. But Dance House Station South is now thus a thing of the past. We quote:
Rejected for a missed rule overturn?
Unrest in poetry land. By a error 'obscurity' in the website of the National Turing Poem Contest several hundred poems disappeared from the competition probably for the wrong reasons. Alexis de Roode, herself a multiple prize winner, raised the issue on facebook.
Well-timed gift from Bussemaker
Rijksmuseum Twente can probably stay open now that culture minister Jet Bussemaker (PvdA) has promised the chamber to halve the planned 50% cut in operations. Moreover, she is going to fight hard to keep the Cultural and Artistic Formation subject in secondary education as a compulsory examination subject 'left or right',
Dutch opening Film Festival Rotterdam 2013, which this year also embraces television
Fifteen years after Peter Delpeuts Felice, Felice the International Film Festival Rotterdam gets another Dutch opening. The 42nd edition of this leading event will kick off on 23 January with the world premiere of The resurrection of an asshole by Guido van Driel, festival director Rutger Wolfson announced this afternoon.
Another necro. Sort of: Theatre Institute Netherlands to continue as TIN Foundation
We are just reporting the press release in full. For your information. Every now and then, more news like this comes along. We don't post them all, because that would make the world very bleak. The world as many people knew it, and thought it was the pride of the Netherlands, is coming to a squeaking halt to make room for. Well. We will report on that in the years to come. Of what comes in its place.
First post Culture Press at Press Group
Developing new models on the internet takes time. We have found that out with the Cultural Press Agency by now. With more than 7,500 followers on Twitter and 400 visitors a day to our website, we have now become a factor of importance in cultural journalism. But we are also very happy that four years after the first plans took shape and one year after the start-up subsidy from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science ended, our first publication can be read on the sites of De Persgroep, publisher of Trouw, Volkskrant and Parool.
Spuiforum: copy of 181 million?
While the city has to make huge cuts in music schools, libraries, a few drama clubs and other nice things for the people, like public transport and healthcare, The Hague does build a new art building. Rather, the municipality is putting 181 million into demolishing and renovating the theatres on the Spui, because the architect who built the complex 20 years ago apparently did not do his job properly.
Jeroen Willems (1962 - 2012)
The Netherlands' greatest artist is dead. Can happen. But can I then also curse heartily? Because Jeroen Willems is irreplaceable. As a journalist, you know the drill: of actors over 60, or of otherwise fragile stature, you have a necrootje ready. If you are well-known and meet the requirements, count on your friends and acquaintances to...
Boudewijn Koole receives European film award for Kauwboy
Nice of course that Amour by Michael Haneke was not only crowned best film at the European Film Awards ceremony in Malta last night, but also received the director's prize and prizes for best actor and actress. But a bit boring is starting to become this paean to Haneke's latest. Enough of this, then.
Nominate now for the Dance Audience Award
Dance fans can submit their nominations for the most outstanding dance performance of 2012 online from 1 December. The winner will then be able to receive the Dans Publieksprijs early next year. New this year is
Wry-poetic Alzheimer's doc First Cousin Once Removed best of IDFA
Two opposites had emerged. Would the VPRO IDFA Award for best feature-length documentary go to a personally coloured auteur's film, or to a thoughtful account of a major issue? To Alan Berliner's remarkable portrait of Alzheimer's-affected poet Edwin Honig, or to Dror Moreh's fascinating insight into the Israeli secret service?
Jet's letter: 'alas, peanut butter'
The previous Secretary of State for Culture, Halbe Zijlstra, made his draconian cuts cast in concrete. The 35-40 per cent cut in the budgets of orchestras, theatre companies and some museums has become law. The new minister of culture, PvdA star Jet Bussemaker, cannot change that at all an iota. And if she even wanted to: the architect of the cuts she has to allow sits in the chamber as the ruling party's group leader. No chance that he will allow his policies to go down the drain.
NDT in motion: on stage, the silver screen and behind it
Being active on social media like Facebook or Twitter is now a must for any dance company. But broadcasting a dance performance (live) via 600 cinemas worldwide is no mean feat either. NDT (The Hague) has been chosen by Pathé theatres to join the illustrious list of The Metropolitan Opera (New York), The National Theatre (London) and the Bolshoi Ballet (Moscow) as a partner in high-level performing arts.
Theatre tour Eefje de Visser: tears, looks of love and seated dancing
The music of Eefje de Visser comes in. In the silence of the theatre even more so than in clubs, where enthusiastic fans sing along to her words out loud. One spotlight and her guitar, that's all this 26-year-old singer-songwriter needs to touch the room. I see tears, gazes of love and attempts at seated dancing during the official premiere of her theatre tour in the Melkweg.
Getting there, right now! DNO retakes Das Rheingold
They were almost thrown away: George Tsypin's immense sets for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Not because his staging was unsuccessful or would have become obsolete by now, but simply because the storage was too hefty a cost for the Netherlands Opera.
Wrong Time Wrong Place opens IDFA - documentary as dance with chance
In John Appel's new documentary Wrong Time Wrong Place features survivors of the shooting on the Norwegian island of Utoya and the preceding bombing, which killed 77 people.
Are we saying 'No' to EU culture money again?
If the Netherlands consistently sticks to previously adopted PVV positions, the second chamber will say 'No' to a European investment in culture, innovation and media on 21 November 2012. However, if the current Rutte government sticks to the pro-European stance included in the coalition agreement, the Netherlands will cease its opposition to the 1.8 billion euro contribution to strengthening culture, which has now been approved by all other European member states.
Germany investing in culture? Not really.
We too retweeted it: "Germany increases culture subsidy by 100 million". And we thus fed a half-truth. That half-truth is, that Germany is a heaven for culture lovers, a haven for people fed up with the chilly austerity of the Rutte governments. Germany may seem nice, but, As Volkskrant correspondent Merlijn Schoonenboom noted in March this year, cuts are being made there at least as hard as here.
Death Grips is 20 min of breathtaking frenzy
The experimental hip-hop / noise band Death Grips plays frothy twang noise. But very exciting, interesting branch noise with paranoid, surreal lyrics. Live, it was a breath of fresh air. In their concert in Bittersweet (presented by Paradiso), vocalist MC Ride (Stefan Burnett) and drummer Zach Hill unleash a 20-minute hurricane of breathtaking fury.
Disquiet TV takes classical music out of a straitjacket
Classical music on television always has something boring about it. Often a short introduction by a neat gentleman or lady, followed by the concert itself. Close-ups of the conductor and soloist, a longshot of the entire orchestra and applause afterwards. As if the medium is trying to emulate concert hall etiquette as scrupulously as possible. Even the webstreams that more and more large orchestras are increasingly turning to barely deviate from this formula.
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