All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
After 'saving' the Limburg Symphony Orchestra and securing a budget for the opera, the PVV had to once again explore the limits of its own opportunism. Indeed, the already disintegrated group was vehemently opposed to securing the unique private art collection of Wijlre Castle on the grounds that this collection of world-renowned artworks would not be understood by ordinary...
Has state secretary Halbe Zijlstra the Lower House lied or misled in June when he stated that rushing through the culture cuts was necessary to absorb friction costs? Or does it just turn out to be improper governance?
"I love westerns," says one of the African players. "Because you always know how they end. Clearly. With only one winner." On the playing floor are four smoothly twirling, stomping dancing, trained performers from the Ivory Coast. They are a stark contrast to their co-stars: two lumbering, yoghurt-pale and uncoordinated German actors. The Africans speak French, the Germans mostly English. The...
What art can accomplish. At least Enschede gained a church, thanks to the people of festival Grenswerk, which lasts until 2 October. Because, where there used to be a somewhat dull square next to Enschede's railway station, there is now a church made of colourful Lego blocks. Intended as a multifunctional festival pavilion. Temporary too, because the lego building blocks can...
"What we lose audiences massively with is that if we give seven shows a week, quietly three of them are so substandard that people say 'And now I won't go for three years'. What we need to do is put the performance level back on a structurally high level." One of the statements made by composer Jeroen Sleijfer during the lively roundtable discussion - with no table...
She bends over. A huge wooden shot thunders over film scientist Hilde D'haeyere around and smashes against the playing floor. She stays alive through a recess in the wood. Unperturbed, she springs up and continues reading from her essay: a scholarly treatise on function of slapstick in the silent films of Charlie Chapin and Buster Keaton, as well as in the work of visual artist cum theatre maker Miet Warlop.
"We are blind to the big changes in the world and meanwhile we are arguing with one-liners on Radio One." These words, penned by reporter Robbert van Heuven from the mouth of writer Abdelkader Benali during the Choice Debate on Tuesday 20 September perhaps best captures what The International Choice was all about. Artistic director Annemie Vanackere...
The Tuschinski Award for best graduation film of the Film Academy was awarded this afternoon at the Dutch Film Festival to Anne-Marieke Graafmans for her documentary If I didn't have you. What is special about the presentation of this award for up-and-coming talent is that the commercial cinema business and independent film criticism are here together for a while. The Tuschinski Award will be presented and with 5000 euro...
At the end of August came the figures. And what figures they were. Due to the stacking of extreme cuts by government, provinces and municipalities, the abolition of the successful Work and Income for Artists Act and the equally successful culture card, plus the VAT increase on the arts, the Netherlands' cultural sector would end up missing out on €1 billion in revenue. Berenschot had estimated that in...
Will classic cinema survive the digital iconoclasm of the future? The question is not new, but it comes to mind again upon seeing the programme of the Netherlands Film Festival, which opens tonight with André van Duren's De bende van Oss. Put that opening film next to Iconoclasm, the festival's main theme, and you see what...
Opinion pollsters take note: "People give the moderate answer to most questions they are asked in life. The characters in 'This is not a love story' are very ordinary, very average. In that, it clicks between those two. It's an ending where you feel an enormous satisfaction." Enthusiasm prevails after the opening weekend of The International Choice of the...
Let's start again with yet another sloppiness of the Rutte government: that damned VAT measure on the arts, which are the only ones to be bounced to the 'normal' rate of 19%. VVD doesn't like it, CDA isn't happy about it, but, because tolerance specialist Martin Bosma once had to play a red toadstool in the school play, he has forever...
Update: the poem in question was not meant to convince Voltaire of the Prussian thrust, but an Italian, Francesco Alegerotti. A scrabeus poem by Frederick the Great has surfaced. A poem, whose existence but content was unknown. Until now, that is. Today, the German quality magazine Die Zeit comes out with the full text. And Bild Zeitung has...
'The problem with art in public spaces is that you can't avoid it. At least with art in a museum, you can still choose not to go to the museum, but with these works, you are literally forced to walk a long way to miss them. That fact, and the fact that you can...
"My commitment to the city (Rotterdam) and the orchestra knows no end," Valeri Gergyev spoke on the occasion of the Gergyev Festival taking place in Rotterdam this week. This is good news, as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the former principal conductor still get along well. And to be backed by this global top-five conductor is...
On Sunday evening 11 September, the VSCD Drama Awards, the VSCD Mime Prize, the VSCD Youth Theatre Awards and the AVRO Toneel Publieksprijs 2011 were presented at the Gala van het Nederlands Theater. And that you then know that VSCD stands for the Association of Theatre and Concert Hall Directors and AVRO for General Free Radio Broadcasting. The award for the best male lead of the past...
With temperatures above 25 degrees, it will be a sweltering but also unique summer day, that 10th September. The Cultural Press Agency will be present that day and Sunday with four journalists at the former Soesterberg Air Base to report on festival De Basis. When you get there, you will make lots of nature, even more impressive war history and a theatre performance or two...
Ok. It is not Victory Boogie Woogie, the Mondrian painting that, in a distant and then cultural past, embarrassed ministry and municipality of Hilversum, because of the planned sale of the canvas to pay for the renovation of the town hall. Still. 'Schoolboys' by Marlene Dumas is also a canvas by a cherished painter, and you don't sell that either
Pim van Klink is his name. He has been popping up everywhere lately. Especially when the malicious subsidy orientation of the cultural sector needs to be pointed out, every medium calls Van Klink first. Last week, he once again threw his hobbyhorse into the henhouse in the NRC and was invited to join Buitenhof. And according to our trench-coat-clad...
Kunstinstellingen zijn subsidieverslaafd en dus trekken we de subsidies in. De insteek van de VVD is helder. Over het precieze hoe, daar blijken ze langer over na te moeten denken, nu er zoveel tegenstand uit het land komt. Cold Turkey, de behandeling die gedoogpartner (leuk woord in dit verband) PVV voorstelt, zou wel eens doden tot gevolg kunnen hebben. Om…
Het Nederlands Theaterfestival opende met strijdbare speeches van de directeur, de juryvoorzitter en de mecenas. Joop van den Ende riep op tot een grote lobbyist. Wij vragen ons af wie daar sterk genoeg voor is.
Nice, that secretary of state of hard rock and Tom Clancy. Mr Halbe Zijlstra-san has once again lived up to his change manager name in China. But in a slightly different way. In the land of eternally sealed mouths, he opened the Dutch stand at the book fair there, with a speech that once again rammed Dutch values into the Chinese. Anyway...
Ever known that 'The Wedding of Kloris and Roosje' was first performed in 1707, and that it is the forerunner of today's New Year's Eve conference? Thanks to the theatre encyclopaedia, which will be available online from 1 September, these and many more facts can be found. The Theaterinstituut Nederland (TIN) is the initiator and provides much of the content of...
'And why do all these art institutions have to open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and even Thursdays? I don't understand that. I'm far too busy working on those days.' Just a question during the Paradiso debate,
Every disadvantage has its advantage: Whoever steals a sculpture from a public garden frees up space for a new work of art. Residents of Utrecht's Willem de Zwijgerplantsoen looked at an empty pedestal for a year because 'their' sculpture 'Homo Ludens' had been stolen by bronze thieves. As no one expected the sculpture to be returned yet, the municipality organised a competition for a replacement sculpture....
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