'Think well about the future' - Culture Council comes up with most redundant advice in years.
How nice it would not be if the Culture Council really 'got its hands on' supporting freelancers and self-employed people! There is an opportunity.
ACTUAL
All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
There are also problems with the region in Limburg (and people suspect the advisers of being arbitrary and pre-emptive)
The cultural centre of gravity in Limburg has been in the south for years. However, to encourage southern institutions to programme outside the region, only 1 extra point is available. Examples of the problem of geographical spread also exist at the Council of Culture and the Performing Arts Fund.
On the myth of the 'attractiveness' of arts funding. (And What Now with debating theatre makers?!)
The VVD will not give away Mark Rutte's latest crown jewel, the arts subsidy cut, for free. The latest argument: suction effect.
Burn letter from festivals: 'It's going wrong with the performing arts in the Netherlands'
A fire letter from the United Performing Arts Festivals. One of more than a hundred lobbying organisations in the arts, but a very important one. After all, the festivals are the place where audiences were introduced to arts and entertainment in its full breadth. That doesn't happen anywhere else. And beautiful: they stand up for all performing arts, because, as loyal readers of this site know: they are quite the hare, and become even more the hare with every half-hearted rescue.
Milo Rau at opening Theatre Festival: 'Maybe we should deliver a little less and listen a little more'
Things need time and distance to become a story. Good, then, that in his 'State of Theatre,' the traditional opening of the theatre season, Rau did not take the floor himself, but handed it over to people who are now in the midst of the confusing time of austerity, coronasteun and political turmoil. Because the 100 international makers he asked for a book entitled "Why Theatre?" could not come because of the pandemic, six Dutch makers were invited.
Aid schemes authors: counter opened
Writers and translators hit by the corona crisis can now apply for three support schemes set up especially for them. They can apply for up to €5,000 for a project grant or income support. The first submission deadline closes on 30 September 2020. Membership of the Authors' Association or affiliation to Lira is not compulsory.
Cabinet comes up with 700 million for culture (and solves - temporarily - the problem for the Performing Arts Fund)
On top of the general support measures, the cabinet is allocating an additional 482 million euros for the cultural sector. The cultural and creative sector can also draw on the general support measures, so over 700 million is expected to be available for culture.
Update: 'When in doubt: mainly catch up' - Mojo shoots itself in the foot with research that deems deaths after Mysteryland acceptable.
Research firm Crisis Lab found on behalf of event organiser MOJO that events are quite safe in times of Corona. however, they are basing their findings on misrepresented facts.
Where did things go wrong between culture decision-makers and the region?
It could have been so beautiful. In a not so grey past, the Council for Culture, then under a different management, initiated a movement that would give more authority to the region outside the Randstad. That was three years ago. Now there is an (entirely justified) angry letter in the newspaper from the culture deputies of 9...
The city as we knew it is doomed. Long live rural art?
Disturbing reports, over the past few days, in various media. First, there was Patrick van IJzendoorn in De Volkskrant, who observed that life had moved away from London's business heartland. I saw a few confusedly delighted reactions come along from friends on my cultural timeline. After all, the article made a clear connection between the closure of museums and theatres and the...
Subsidy crisis: if the House comes up with a fix for region and saw line soon, we will be even further home.
That 8.6 million the fund is now minimally short of will probably be found somewhere, so the saw line will be shifted again. Then the sector can - virtually - continue for another four years. Another one and a half million may be added to shape the spread. Pleasing the art world is not that expensive, The Hague will notice.
And what about those codes of conduct? 'The Fund sees the tick marks as a baseline measurement.'
According to the minister, when applying for your grant this year, the Fair Practice Code, the Diversity and Inclusion Code and the Governance Code of Culture would be decisive. In several reviews by the Culture Council in the BIS and also locally, artists have been rejected on the grounds of poor substantiation of their following the code of conduct. If not at...
'It's important for Shai to make something again.' Ka Yan Tang and Shailesh Bahoran on Illusionary Rockaz Company in times of Corona
Illusionary Rockaz Company was due to release a new work by Shailesh Bahoran this spring. A new production for the first time in two years, after a time in which the Utrecht-based choreographer was constantly winning awards. And then Corona broke out. For Shai, reason to pause for a while: 'For Shakti, the performance that is coming up now, we have to...
Culture Council marginally updates opinion, but sticks to controversial decisions
The National Opera had made a mistake in preparing its application. According to the Culture Council, the multi-million-dollar national institution had failed to break down performance data between dance and music. As a result, the company had to come up with an entirely new application before 1 November. Now it turns out that was not so bad. As it turns out, the data...
Bright Richards remains combative in times of Corona: 'Why don't we use art to bring about inclusion?'
'Of course Corona has an impact on me, but the impact of Black Lives Matter is much bigger. I want to get to work activating young people. They need to feel that this is our country. I think it's important to always use every stage to make that clear.' Bright Richards is twenty years after graduating from the Arnhem...
In the UK, a huge outflow of self-employed people from the cultural sector is looming. What about here?
That they came up with a one-and-a-half billion support package for the arts in Britain last month seemed like very good news for a while. For a country of almost 67 million people, such a rescue package, which also consists of three quarters of loans and advances, is proportionately much smaller than what there is in the Netherlands in terms of support for the arts. How keen...
Halima El Ghamarti started her new job just before Corona: 'The new normal? That's my normal here.' (Podcast and video)
Barely three weeks into her job when the corona pandemic and lockdown came. So, for Halima el Ghamarti, who started as director of the Jongeren Cultuurhuis Kanaleneiland and Overvecht in mid-February, there is no other normal than the new normal: working from home, and doing so with an organisation whose main purpose is to connect young people in Utrecht with...
NPO brings a debate about a debate. Let that sink in.
I have long put myself on the 'listen first, talk later' mode when it came to how we all deal with the festering sore of racism in the Netherlands. There's so much we don't know about each other, and there's especially so much I can't know about my fellow Black people, because for a long time I felt too little...
Council calls minister's plan to let Museum Association audit itself 'questionable' and contrary to 'good governance'
Just over a year ago, Culture Press carried the story that Wim Hupperetz, director of the capital's Allard Pierson, had resigned his post as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Culture Council. The reason was Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven's decision to hand over control of national museums' policies to...
Vincent Wijlhuizen is working on a coronaproof What You See Festival: 'a very large group of people are now much less visible.'
Immediately after the lockdown was declared in March 2020, Vincent Wijlhuizen, co-founder (along with Annette van Zwol and Ieme Soes) and director of the What you See Festival, set to work to come up with alternatives for the festival, which takes place in the autumn. 'We made several plans. We already had an ordinary plan, which went to all the funds...
Paradiso announces reorganisation, 60 jobs to disappear this year
Last night we received the following press release, requesting that it be posted only at 06 o'clock, out of piety to those affected. We are posting this, even though Paradiso is not a member, because of the social importance. follows here is the text of the press release Due to the ongoing corona crisis and the limited opportunities offered by a 1.5-metre society in the coming period...
Cultural big earners: jump through your karma for once
My story about cultural big earners turned out to be the talk of the town in the cultural sector. Not publicly, i.e. mainly behind the scenes, I was approached. One of the few people who did speak out publicly was Henk Scholten. On Facebook, he responded to a column by journalist Aukje van Roessel about the questions raised by The Hague city council
Eurosonic/Noorderslag and Scapino possibly saved. But at the expense of new art acquisitions. #tkculture
Creativity expresses itself in Dutch politics mainly in bookkeeping. On 29 June, just before the start of the three-month summer recess, the Lower House actually found money to save pop festival Noorderslag and dance company Scapino from collapse. That demise would become a reality in the new arts plan, which takes effect in 2021, as the Culture Council...
Culture Start-up Loan available from 29 June for cultural and creative sector through Culture+Enterprise.
The Ministry of Education, Culture & Science is making €30 million available through Culture+Enterprise for the Culture Start-up Loan. This loan is part of the €300 million package of additional support for culture from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. The loan enables cultural and creative organisations to invest in the start-up of the new season. Applications for...
The Lower House will only make the disaster for culture worse. (Unless it chooses to change.)
On Monday 29 June, the Lower House will discuss the advice of the Council for Culture. An advice that, as the Volkskrant rightly noted on Friday 26 June, receives much more criticism than previous advice. In doing so, the newspaper reaffirms what we already wrote down immediately after its release on 4 June: there is a total lack of transparency, a...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 