All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
A shy, unassuming man, who transforms on stage into a brilliant clown and artist at the same time. You can't get more typically British than choreographer and dancer Jonathan Burrows. He has achieved cult status in the dance world, and it is actually strange that his performances do not reach a wider audience. Although he himself says he has no shortage of audience members...
It is nothing new that simple movements, close to the everyday, are given a place in dance performances. But the particular way they are constructed and highlighted in 'Studium' by Belgian group Busy Rocks makes you look at them with fresh wonder.
Three of the four dancers, darkly dressed, lie down on the floor against each other in carefully crafted poses. On this construction of bodies, a dancer, dressed bright white, takes her place in a horizontal position. The lighting makes the body lying above seem to float. The underlying figures push up the limbs in such a way that the white figure moves as if she is walking. The manipulation is done with great precision. Looking at it with tilted head, one sees perfectly natural steps.
Cesc Gelabert is a distinct figure in the world of modern dance. The Catalan with German roots makes a habit of keeping repertoire from the hot period of dance innovation alive, touring theatres and festivals with it for decades. So no Cinderella and Swan Lake for this engaging perfectionist, but dance steps from a Berlin...
We gathered the cream of Dutch dance journalism for these ten days of dance innovation. Fransien van de Putt, well known in Belgium and the Netherlands, Maarten Baanders, well known in the wide surroundings of Leiden and Daniël Bertina, well known in the wide surroundings of Het Parool were ij the opening of Springdance and were actually happy with what they got to see. ...
The opening of Springdance was a beautiful, continuous movement, from left to right across the stage of Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg theatre. Before the performance, Wijbrand Schaap spoke to choreographer Guilherme Botelho about this special dance piece.
From left to right, single people move across the stage, unceasingly and in droves sometimes, for an hour. It is addictive, this locomotion in Sideways Rain, the endless forward motion in one and the same direction of what appear to be ever-new people. Through subtle costume changes, a dark lighting scheme and Murcof's dramatic drones, it is very difficult at first to tell the 15 dancers apart. They become a fascinating stream of passers-by, on their way from somewhere to nowhere. Unlike the view along the public road, the dancers do not carry the usual bags, umbrellas and hats and, moreover, they move mainly on four legs.
Jens van Daele concludes his series of choreographies on the seven deadly sins with the performance Brides for Peace. The piece is based on the art performance Brides on Tour by Italian artists Pippa Bacca and Silvia Moro. Hitchhiking and dressed in wedding dresses, with a text 'Peace' on their chests, they travelled from Milan to Jerusalem in 2008. The journey went...
Rutger Hauer moet een gelukkig mens zijn, en niet alleen omdat hij vanavond op de openingsavond van het 27ste Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival Imagine een carrièreprijs krijgt. Ooit min of meer op goed geluk naar Amerika getrokken, nu een van de weinige Nederlandse filmacteurs met een brede en nog steeds uitdijende en waanzinnig gevarieerde internationale carrière. Blonde robot in Blade…
"Dear Mr Zijlstra, culture is an essential part of civilisation. It contributes to social cohesion and economic growth. The Dutch orchestras can make a major contribution, which, incidentally, is not synonymous with everything just staying as it was." Unlike the 'Table of Six', the talking shop of six arts bobos who, in their enthusiasm over an entrance at...
Ze is ‘stand-up filosofe’. Met die zelfbedachte term schiep ze een nieuwe vorm van theater, die het midden houdt tussen cabaret, een lezing en theater. Ze speelt met haar eigen rol, zet acteurs in of het marionetten zijn, maar blijkt uiteindelijk hun speelbal, zo goed als die van het noodlot. Kortom: Laura van Dolron is een geval apart. Ze maakt…
Ik ben geen kenner van de uitvoeringspraktijk van Bachs Johannes Passion en ken dat andere stuk, de Mattaheus Passion, vooral van een paar tv-fragmenten en verregaande bewerkingen zoals die bij Platels Pitié. Verwacht van mij dus geen oordeel over hoe goed de versie was, die op 5 april 2011 in het Concertgebouw te zien en te horen was, in verhouding…
We could say something derogatory about Belgians and arithmetic, but we won't. Firstly, because the Belgians have disbanded themselves and, secondly, because there is nothing wrong with the Flemings' ability to calculate. At least, those Flemings who have calculated at the Flemish Theatre Institute how the subsidy money for the arts is spent. In Flanders. And it turns out that.
Reports of the collapsing music industry have been rife. Apparently, as a musician, you no longer survive on the basis of record sales (alone). In niche genres, however, it is easy to survive. So proves the band Current 93, which performed in Stadtgarten, Cologne, last week. Playing live a lot and selling merchandise seems to be the golden rule for...
We waren even diep in de Amsterdamse grachtengordel. Immers, prominent inwoner van deze stad Rudi Fuchs kreeg een nieuw boekje aangeboden, door hemzelf bij elkaar geschreven op de pagina’s van De Groene Amsterdammer. Dit weekblad, in alle opzichten het oudste van het land, biedt de kunstkenner en voormalig museumdirecteur onderdak op de pagina’s. Hij maag daarop schrijven over kunstwerken die…
After the cry, now the official piece. With a fitting, tad Den Uyl/Van Agt-like title: 'Less where it can be done, better where it must be done.' But let's not laugh too hard. It is quite brave what they have done. Gitta Luyten, Marianne Versteegh, Joke Hubert, Henk Scholten, Siebe Weide and Ben Holvast, together as bosses of arts umbrellas and cultural sector institutes also...
Amsterdam-based company Dood Paard itself translated Shakespeare's 'Othello' and waves goodbye to the bard with 'Bye Bye'. The quirky collective performs a one-and-a-half-hour topical comedy of manners and soul mirror, in which pointing at 'The Other' is central. Shakespeare's plays are quite often performed quite reverently. . Moreover, the adored 'bard' from Stratford-upon-Avon has bestowed on the English language countless expressions that have come to...
The festival for short film Go Short in Nijmegen is not quite over yet, but last night the winners of the various competitions were announced at the Award Show in LUX. The award for best short fiction went to Incident by a Bank by Swedish director Ruben Östlund. He took a failed 2006 bank robbery as the starting point for...
To protest against the cuts in culture, you can of course shout loudly, but as an artist you can also just do what you are good at - make something really beautiful. Dutch film director Danyael Sugawara (Alles stroomt) chose the latter and in a day and a half, with the best Dutch actors, shot Na U, a small drama about unconditional love and...
De Nederlandse theatermaakster Adelheid Roosen, die op dit moment samen met regisseuse Merel de Groot aan een theaterproject werkt met Syrische kunststudenten, ziet haar project gehinderd wegens studentenprotesten, al weten we dat niet helemaal zeker in het totaliteire land, waar we maar zelden nieuws uit ontvangen. De universiteit van Damascus, waar ze aan het project To tell You I call…
Of course we are being horribly abused. By the coughing chain-smoker with his trench coat in that Hague car park. Is there a bigger plan behind it. Which again we know nothing about, but which will become clear on 23 May. So be it. Until then, we can do nothing but slavishly write down what the coughing oracle coughs at us. Well: We already knew that...
Trouble with your voice? You don't talk about that. Because competition is so high in the music industry, there is a taboo on showing weaknesses. While the consequences would be much smaller if attention was given to it sooner. Time for the Muziek Centrum Nederland to ask the question at its music café on 3 March where...
Bettina Masuch (1964) has been artistic director of Springdance since 2008 and presents its third festival programme this year. We asked the woman behind this leading festival for innovative dance about this season's highlights. One of the performances she describes already makes us very curious: the Japanese street fighters of Contact Gonzo. Could just happen that somewhere between 14 and...
Art costs money. The current Rutte administration has hammered that into it: it's expensive, no one but a small club of insiders goes there, and either way those are leftists or pseudo-leftists who can easily pay for it themselves. So much for the government's opinion. The opinion of the art world can be guessed: it is...
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra currently has an unprecedented luxury: it is releasing CDs on two labels at the same time. How is that possible? The orchestra signed under its own name with BIS Records, the label with which the eccentric owner Von Bahr releases one extraordinary recording after another, while chief conductor Yannick Néze-Séguin is old-fashionedly under contract as maestro with EMI....
This message has since been confirmed by the Halbe Zijlstra on 14 March. We thank our source for being accurate. We once again visited our trench-coat-clad coughing chain-smoker in his Hague car park. Because there had been no news from The Hague for another week, and with the elections so close to the door, that's always...
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