All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Het is verrukkeluk wanneer grote kranten kleine media klakkeloos overschrijven, en dat ze dat gratis doen? Ach, ze hebben het ook moeilijk. Zo is het kleine niche-weblog Jazzenzo na ruim een jaar gerehabiliteerd dankzij een artikel dat de chef kunst van de Volkskrant vorig jaar had overgenomen van deze site. Waar het om ging? De recensent en columnist van het…
Op 24 februari 2025 is het drie jaar geleden dat Rusland Oekraïne grootschalig aanviel. Niet alleen het land werd aangevallen, vanaf het begin was duidelijk dat Rusland ook en juist de cultuur van Oekraïne aanviel. De recente geopolitieke ontwikkelingen brengen Oekraine grote onzekerheid, met mogelijk dramatische gevolgen. Met twee speciale filmvertoningen staan DutchCulture, de European Cultural Foundation en het International…
Het beeld was een beetje Da Vinci. Aan een lange tafel zaten ze in mooi licht en het ging over weemoed en dreiging. Dit was op 1 februari 2025 in het Amsterdamse Debatcentrum De Balie het toneel van Laatste Avondmaal. Ter kruisiging: een aantal theatergroepen waarmee ik ben groot gegroeid. ‘t Barre Land gebroederlijk naast De Warme Winkel, Orkater naast…
Gerenoveerde foyers, opnieuw ingerichte straten en nieuwe ingang open voor publiek Utrecht krijgt er een bijzonder culturele ontmoetingsplek bij. Aan het Vredenburgplein opent TivoliVredenburg dagelijks zijn deuren voor het publiek. De gerenoveerde foyers, de opnieuw ingerichte straten en de nieuwe ingang vormen tezamen een architectonisch eerbetoon aan bouwmeester Herman Herzberger. Overdag is hier vanaf nu bijna dagelijks gratis toegankelijk muziekprogramma…
The Council for Culture has launched an advisory process on supervision in the cultural and creative sector. With its Governance Committee, the council is examining how internal supervision can be improved so that organisations can function sustainably and strengthen their position. The advice is expected to be presented around summer 2025. Why this advice? Supervision in the cultural...
Mels Huige has joined the supervisory board of the Amsterdam Museum. The Amsterdam Municipal Executive Board recently appointed the new member. Last week, the first meeting of the supervisory board took place in which Huige participated. Mels Huige (1978) was educated in Maastricht (Master in Business Economics) and Rotterdam (RSM Erasmus University) and...
The book industry, or should we say the book field, will have shrunk at least 2 per cent by 2024. You just don't read that in the press releases about the industry's annual figures, which the CPNB director ance now tells us to call 'field'. Something about flowers. The ability to present all the news, including the bad, as something beautiful, good and cheerful....
On 2 December 2024, Kunstenbond and the Nederlandse Associatie voor Podiumkunsten (NAPK) reached an agreement in principle on the Collective Labour Agreement for Theatre and Dance for 2025 and 2026 and on the Collective Labour Agreement for Music Ensembles. Both collective agreements will run for two years: 1 January 2025 to 31 December 2026. Meanwhile, the constituencies of both social partners have also agreed to the CAO agreements....
On 1 April 2025, Josine Gilissen will take office as director-director of Theatre Festival Boulevard and Stichting BosseNova in 's-Hertogenbosch. Together with Dana Kibbelaar, she will form the two-headed directorship of both organisations. Kibbelaar has held her role since 2022 and previously formed a duo with Tessa Smeulers, who stepped down after the 2024 edition. The Supervisory Board of Theatre Festival Boulevard has...
The Nederlandse Associatie voor Podiumkunsten (NAPK) and the Authors' Union have agreed on adjustments to the Model Contract for writing a theatre text. The director of the NAPK and board members of the Auteursbond have just signed the new contract. The new version of the agreement incorporates recent developments in the regulations regarding the author's contract law, which the...
When the Rotterdam Theatre announced the programme for the year (2001) that the city would be European Capital of Culture, director Jan Zoet hosted it at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg. In the ongoing 010-020 struggle, quite a statement. Zoet knew that the national press sat in the capital and was rarely willing to look outside the city limits. He also knew that...
In a survey on aggression and harassment towards authors by Ipsos I&O commissioned by WritersSafe, 14% of authors said they had experienced one or more incidents in the past year. Half of these have even experienced multiple incidents. The majority faced verbal aggression (12%). Authors face by far the most verbal...
The VAT increase on culture and sports is off the table (VAT increase on culture, media and sports off the table: coalition struck deal with opposition). However happy everyone is, and however holy the cabinet's promise sounds: that message is only half true. During the parliamentary debate on the Schoof?Wilders tax plan, the rather intransigent and laconic minister Heinen...
Today (9:00 - 10:00), representatives of a broad alliance of organisations from culture, sports, events, media, books and accommodation will hand out an embarrassing receipt to members of parliament. These confrontational financial figures show what every Dutch person will soon pay extra if the VAT increase goes through. "This bill will soon literally hang over the head of every Dutchman," the alliance warns. The...
OCW Minister Eppo Bruins hopes citizens will buy more books, read more newspapers and go to the theatre more often thanks to the extra spending power hidden in the tax plans of the Schoof?Wilders Cabinet. This would offset the negative effects of the intensely 'ugly' VAT increase on vulnerable culture. During the Legislative Consultation OCW budget, Culture section, held on Monday,...
On Thursday 7 November, a spin-off campaign from the cultural sector will be launched: Don't Tax My Audience. In this campaign, we ask creators, artists, performers, and everyone working in the cultural and creative sector to tell us why they do not want to burden their audiences with 21% VAT. In a promo video, Huub Stapel, Sanne Wallis de Vries, Jeangu Macrooy and Gijs Scholten van Aschat call on everyone to...
Large spinning steel behemoths, mowing blades or relentless hands of a clock, which grind you as a human being if you don't duck, or jump, or roll away in time. There were two of them during Festival Circolo in Tilburg, this year, and it always impresses. It happened at Un Loup pour l'homme in the Spoorpark and at La Chute des Anges in...
Supreme court rules: renovation to start The Council of State has given the City of Amsterdam the green light on appeal to renovate the main location of the Amsterdam Museum on Kalverstraat. The Amsterdam Museum will have more and much better space for collection and public, become more sustainable and fully accessible. The renovation, which is due to this ruling by the Council of...
Amsterdam, 8 October 2024 - The "Don't let the curtain fall" campaign has successfully collected more than 30,500 expressions of support from loyal audiences. The initiative was launched by 59 members of the NAPK (Dutch Association for Performing Arts), which are in danger of closing down due to the lack of multi-year subsidies. Campaign results The signatures were presented on 8 October to the culture spokespersons of...
It was a remarkable report, this morning. According to newspaper Tubantia, the new cabinet was still willing to make extra money available for regional museums in Twente. It would be a sum of 1.5 million euros, earmarked to set up a joint presentation of Twente's history by De Museumfabriek in Enschede and Techniekmuseum Oyfo in Hengelo. According to...
Decisions Cultural Basic Infrastructure 2025-202817 September 2024 | 15:39 Bruins adopts the Council for Culture's advice to grant 117 applications, from a total of 115 institutions, for the Cultural Basic Infrastructure (bis). At 13 institutions, the council gave a conditionally positive advice. Those institutions must meet the required conditions by 1 November 2024. The national cultural funds jointly honour 306...
- 20-metre-long 'receipt for society' rolled out on Budget Day- many experts and experience experts present including Splinter Chabot and Marit Bouwmeester. A broad alliance of organisations from culture, sports, events, media, books and accommodation will campaign against the VAT increase on 17 September. Two venues affected by the VAT increase, on and near the Royal procession, will be...
Thirty-five euros an hour for a space that can just fit a piano or a drum kit. That is the rent charged by the municipality of Utrecht to music teachers who wanted to continue their practice on Utrecht's Domplein after their cooperative went bankrupt. For many of the teachers who thus became victims of their board's mismanagement, that means a cost increase
Dear members of the House of Representatives,Dear cultural spokespersons, On 3 July this year, it was D-Day in the cultural sector. The Performing Arts Fund and the Cultural Council both issued their advice for the next four years. A celebratory moment, you might think. But it wasn't, after all. Of course: institutions whose applications are honoured are relieved. But happy?
Increase in VAT and gambling tax + reduction in municipal and government subsidies disastrous The cabinet's proposed cultural policy will result in a €350 million haircut and a negative domino effect in the arts and culture sector. This is shown today in an analysis of data from private funders, municipalities and the arts and culture sector. "Just before Budget Day, we as a consortium are sounding the alarm....
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