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ACTUAL

All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.

Russian soul dissected: religion and vodka create moral dilemmas

photo Sl-Ziga

By Willem Jan Keizer

Rotterdam - Thanks to conductor Valeri Gergyev, we get more insight into the huge reservoir of Russian composers. Rodion Shchedrin for example. Last year a piano concerto of his was performed, Sunday night in de Doelen it was his opera for the concert stage 'The Enchanted Wanderer', after the book 'The Enchanted Wanderer' by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is dedicated to conductor Lorin Maazel, who also conducted the premiere in New York in 2002.

RPhO's gift to the resurrected city falls short at opening Gergiev festival

tim hugh
Tim Hugh

By Willem Jan Keizer

Rotterdam - The fifteenth edition of the Gergjev Festival officially kicked off Friday evening in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen in concert hall de Doelen with a concert by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Valeri Gergjev. Although the festival takes place at some 20 locations in the city - not only in de Doelen but also in the Laurenskerk, the conservatory, museum Boijmans van Beuningen and numerous other unexpected locations - the festival is virtually invisible in the city.

John Moran experiments with thousands of bits of sound you hear every day

Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg is velvet red. Theatre Bellevue, the beating heart of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, whorish pink. The Amsterdam Fringe, that means performances in more than 25 places. In theatres, but also on location. From 2 to 12 September 2010 Henk de Jong for The Dodo and performing arts trade journal TM in search of the pearl of the Fringe. Here he keeps a diary, and a longer article by him will appear in the next issue of TM.

Tirza is Dutch Oscar entry

Tirza by Rudolf van den Berg based on Arnon Grunberg's novel of the same name has been chosen as the film that will be sent to Los Angeles as the Dutch entry for the Oscars in the best foreign film category. Holland Film announced today. In this grim drama, Gijs Scholten van Aschat plays a man who, after a failed marriage,... 

The downsides of a Twitter success: trending topic spam on museum action #askacurator

It was a wonderful idea, but it is already, halfway through the day, in danger of falling victim to that same success. #askacurator, The Twitter campaign of more than three hundred museums from around the world, whereby internet users can ask questions to museum directors, is suffering from an onslaught of viagra, porn and other nonsense sellers. After all, that type of internet entrepreneur is figuring out what topics... 

The only governing party with a coherent vision on culture is the PVV, reports the Green Left at the Paradiso Debate.

Sound recording available to listen to here!

You will hear successively Axel Rüger, director of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, responding to the assertion made by VVD member Mark Harbers that the art world is not entrepreneurial enough. This is followed by responses from former CDA culture spokesperson Nicolien van Vroonhoven (consistently called Nicolien van Vroemhoven by presenter Twan Huys) and former NNT actor Boris van der Ham, now culture spokesperson for D66.

Maxima opens new home for youth opera house Holland Opera on 3 October

Indeed, the name Xynix was somewhat outdated. And since, thanks to the efforts of its own company and Yo! Opera, which started as a youth opera festival, opera nowadays turns out to be suitable for young people too, a more adult name is appropriate: Holland Opera. The company settled in Amersfoort in a former company building near the railway station: De Verensmederij. The building, after a renovation, is... 

The Dodo spreads its wings in dire times for subsidised art

Then you just have to have Twan Huys. The presenter of Nova who managed to kill all Job Cohen's election ambitions in a few schoolmaster questions. He will be able to pull the same trick on Sunday 29 August with a few left-wing politicians and arts bobos in the traditional Uitmarkt debate in Paradiso.

Museum Belvedere: 'Floods in Pakistan, forest fires in Moscow, a cabinet tolerated by Wilders. How lousy can a landscape be?'

'In this museum, we so often extol the landscape, that for once we wanted to show the destruction, upheaval and impending change of the landscape.' According to Han Steenbruggen, director of Museum Belvedere in Heerenveen-Oranjewoud, it was time for an exhibition that shows what war, natural disasters and climate change do to the landscape: 'With this exhibition, we reflect and respond to... 

Museums' first global Twitter action: The Cultural Press Agency is there and reports

1 September is 'Askacurator day'. Already more than 100 museums in now 14 countries are putting their curators at the computer on that day to answer questions from internet users. It is a first. Never before has such an askacurator day been available worldwide, and never before have internet users been given access to the people behind museums such as the Tate Modern, Van... 

'What is that turd doing on your plinth?' Museums again take lead on social networks with 'ask a curator'

Paul McCarthy - Shit pile (2007)

Back in February this year, you could add museums worldwide to your Twitter lists thanks to #followamueum, and now they have come up with another new thing. It's unprecedented, and very simple. On 1 September next, anyone, anywhere in the world, can ask questions to people who know about art. Only condition: that you are on twitter sits and knows where the 'hashtag' button is. Because with the 'hashtag' #askacurator ask your question to a museum conductor or exhibition maker, and by using the search function on the twitter website, or in a twitter program like Tweetdeck, searching for that same #askacurator, you can follow anyone with such a question, and also keep track of their answers.

Spectacle group Vis à Vis gives every space to the imagination and outdoes itself in dream show Silo8

Flying nurses. We don't look up to that anymore. We have all seen Mary Poppins. The fact that at Vis a Vis, near Almere beach, instead of invisible strings they deploy a 50-metre-high construction crane for such a special turnout is spectacular and fun then, but nothing more. Matter of money and resources. The next show does have... 

Uncle Boonmee at festival World Cinema Amsterdam

By Leo Bankersen

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, this year's surprise Golden Palm winner, will get its first Dutch screening at the new festival World Cinema Amsterdam next weekend. The Cannes jury had caused some noise with this choice even among critics. After all, was this ghost story by the Thai filmmaker with the unpronounceable name now a dull and obscure film, or rather a cinematic masterpiece?

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