All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
For more than a decade, Something Raw has been one of the few places in the Netherlands where the question of artistic and social urgency of the body is explored on stage, with all the fun and risk involved. Many performances struggled with the 'impasse of display': have people then become mere things to look at? Porn is the...
It was a 'roundtable discussion', so that is extremely informal. Lower house members of the ministry of OCW's 'lead committee' listen to people from the field. In this case, all people involved in, or leading, arts education. It was an awkward meeting.
It happens regularly that you see or hear something, in the tram, on the train, on the road, on holiday. But also on the street, in your own home. And that you think: what is that? Chances are you are dealing with 'Art'. And that can have all kinds of side effects: pleasure, chills, confusion, sadness, or even indifference, and depression. Art can,...
We were somewhat mildly ironic about it, but hats off, meanwhile, to Toneelgroep Amsterdam's PR department and the audience, who responded remarkably well to the 'choose the reprise' campaign the company launched a few weeks back. We have the hard numbers we feared we would never see. And they are credible. We quote the press release: From 2 to...
Can a filmmaker born and raised in West Germany strike just the right tone in a film set in the former East Germany? I hadn't really thought about that before, but the Berliner Zeitung raised that question in response to Christian Petzold's Barbara, about a Berlin paediatrician who, after requesting to go to the West,...
This week, the National Travel Opera begins rehearsals of Mozart's Le nozze di figaro. In the bin, the brand-new Netherlands Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend. Business as usual, as the two companies have been working closely together for years and are united in the National Music Quarter Enschede. Only: orchestra and opera company have not been talking to each other since last week.
Exactly how Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by the wicked wolf, the fairy tale does not tell. Fairy-tale-telling parents limit themselves to the before and after. And that the evil wolf is cut open by the hunter, freed from Little Red Riding Hood and filled with stones eventually ends up in a well to die is part of the winding down of the happy ending. Enough...
Timo Vuorensola has done it to him. Perhaps reading the name of this Finnish director and music video maker does not light up a light yet, but then you do not belong to the extensive internet fan club that has been closely following the genesis of the potential cult hit Iron Sky for several years. Its world premiere at the Berlin festival is now the...
It saves Liverpool's GGD millions on dispensing antidepressants. And it only costs them a tonne and a half. They spend that much hiring Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra musicians for workshops in addiction clinics. No idealistic preaching, then, as in the countless columns and reactions to Halbes' cultural cut, but hard pecunia and proven effects. In England,...
The 62nd Berlinale opened tonight with Benoït Jacquot's Les adieux à la reine, a French costume piece that does not play by the rules. The dresses worn by Queen Marie Antoinette's servants get dirty and one of the main characters stumbles in her haste and passes out twice. As the film begins we write 14 July 1789, and the...
Om hoeveel BMW’s het qua tegenwaarde gaat, weten we niet, maar feit is dat het Duitse autoconcern van zoefauto’s een nieuwe stap heeft gezet, weg van het snellejongetjesstraatracerscircuit dat inmiddels toch al bevolkt wordt door Audi en VW. Hoewel. De nieuwe generatie die het bedrijf aan zich wil binden is even jong, maar dus aanzienlijk cultureler. Het zijn de jonge…
We already noticed it in the daily twitter stream: when it comes to book reviews on twitter, the 'low' genres (at least according to connoisseurs) dominate the charts: fantasy, diaries of disease sufferers, 'regional work', howto's and erotica. No news, you may say, but there is more to it.
Vorige maand werd bekend dat Erwin van Lambaart, ooit door Joop van den Ende bij zijn bedrijf Stage Entertainment binnengehaald als troonopvolger, vertrekt als CCO ‘om meer tijd te besteden aan zijn gezin’. Vorige week verscheen een persbericht waarin het concern meldde een zogenaamde clubdeal van 75 miljoen euro te hebben gesloten met ABN-AMRO en ING.
We tweeted it, but that doesn't yield much. That's why we're just showing it here. That they can handle social media very well in the government. Because social media, that's like email for the advanced.
According to the Volkskrant, Rick van der Ploeg was state secretary of culture in the early 1990s (in reality, he was at the end of those years), and in Het Parool columnist Gerard Mulder claims that the fact that he "fortunately knows nothing about art subsidies" need not deter him from some wild speculations...
Smiling, she lets a boy film her with his mobile phone and she happily wriggles into lascivious curves in the process. But when he really wants to see her breasts she flinches. Yet later she will go much, much further and she gets staggeringly little in return. Jasna, the rebellious protagonist from Cliff (Clip), is a Serbian teen...
We got another press release, and wondered: top or flop? How does quirky artistry rhyme with audience-determined repertoire choice? Andne: do all those people who chose the winning piece also get a free-or at least discounted-ticket to the performance of their choice? Andne: who checks the results, as there is no notary. Enne:.
That Martin Scorsese's mesmerising Hugo was number one in the audience rating for a while at the Rotterdam festival is not so surprising. What is surprising, however, is the film that emerged as number two yesterday and has now ousted Hugo from first place: the documentary Back to the Square in which filmmaker Petr Lom looks at how things stand in Egypt after the...
Last night, Rotterdam festival-goers in Pathé's Hall 4 witnessed a small miracle. Some film fragments from 1906 by the legendary Georges Méliès were now shown in stereoscopic 3D for the first time. So that you could, as it were, imagine yourself present on the set of this French pioneer who was the first to understand that cinema is not there...
Compared to previous editions, you could almost call the choice of opening film that kicks off the Rotterdam Film Festival tonight almost un-Rotterdamian. No wild young debut, exotic Asian or artistic crossover this time. The French book adaptation 38 Témoins, which has its world premiere in Rotterdam tonight, is the seventh feature by Walloon actor/director Lucas Belvaux and has already been acquired...
In het debat Burger King & Burgerschap geven Patrick van der Hijden, David van Reybrouck, Chris Keulemans and Samuel Vriezen hun visie op de staat van de burger. Publiek mag, maar hoeft niet, meedoen. Hieronder de column Staat van Verwenning, voorgedragen door Patrick van der Hijden – als aftrap voor het debat.
“Ons leven is in de achttiende eeuw uitgevonden.
De leden van de hogere klassen – de elite – hadden een eigen huis, vaak met tuin. Ze stuurden hun kinderen naar school en die begonnen daarna een vervolgopleiding. Ze hadden vrije tijd en kwamen over het algemeen op tijd op hun afspraken, door de horloges die ze droegen en de trekschuiten die op tijd vertrokken (ze klaagden bij vertraging). Burgers die buiten de stad woonden, forensden – met de koets, dat wel. Ze dronken koffie om wakker te blijven. Ze bezochten restaurants met menukaarten. Ze werden ingeënt tegen de pokken en hadden huisdieren. Een geweldige bron over dat leven vormt het dagboek van Otto van Eck, die daar op tienjarige leeftijd onder druk van zijn door de Verlichting bezielde ouders aan begon, in 1791. Daar ontleen ik bovenstaande voorbeelden aan.
Dit leven wordt aan het begin van de eenentwintigste eeuw niet door een kleine minderheid geleefd, maar door een groot deel van de Nederlanders. Die moeten het wel zonder personeel doen. Dat is namelijk vervangen door technologie.
Dinaw Mengestu deelt zijn achternaam met de voornaam van één van Ethiopië gewezen dictators. “Vooralsnog ben ik schrijver, maar aspireer een carrière als dictator.” Dictators ontstaan niet in een vacuüm, stelt Mengestu. “Wij als burgers scheppen onze leiders.” In zijn voorgedragen verhaal geven de burgers al hun dromen uit handen. Ze schuiven al hun verantwoordelijkheid af richting de machthebbers. En…
Lief en best lekker, al gaf een aantal van de gasten aan minder gecharmeerd te zijn van de hutspot met jus die de Haagse Hapjes voor hen hadden klaargezet. De meeste gasten hadden liever wat meer kruiden gehad bij hun welkomstmaal. Vanavond staat Afrika op het menu. De lokale peperboer zal wel een feestje hebben wegens omzetverhoging, vermoeden wij.
"The cultural sector employs many part-timers. It is conceivable that they
We do not have much to comment on Halbe Zijlstra's explanation. Other than that the state secretary of formerly culture breathes an almost legible sigh of relief now that he can almost close the 'arts' headache file. His "masterpiece", the amendment to the Specific Cultural Policy Act, is before the chamber and if it is approved (hammer piece), the state secretary does not really need to do anything more.
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