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

Especially for our subscribers: the great Holland Festival 2017 e-book

The advantage of being a subscriber to Culture Press is, of course, mainly that we can exist thanks to you. So our independent sound remains audible, so you get the interpretation of the news as you get it nowhere else. In June, a total of 14 authors hit the road for you to see as many Holland Festival performances as possible.... 

Why it is beyond stupid of the NPO to move Radio Kunststof

Radio Kunststof is one of the most successful early-evening programmes on our national disaster channel Radio 1. That success is partly due to its great formula: a long conversation with a more or less well-known figure from the arts and media corner. However, much more important reason for that success is the broadcast time. Between seven and eight in the evening, very... 

Why it's good that the Holland Festival gets this general manager #HF17

Annet Lekkerkerker is one of the few women in the cultural sector for whom the glass ceiling is no longer an obstacle. That she is now, after several years as 'business director', formally becoming top woman of the country's most important performing arts festival is wonderful for more reasons. She is not only the first woman at that high position. Her appointment also makes clear why... 

Inclusive Dance Event Fontys Tilburg

Dancers don't want a second career! In search of the dance artist's 'transferable skills'.

Many dance students have a one-sided view of what a successful dance career entails. Namely: dancing with the dance company of your dreams, in a theatre, on a stage. This is what Ulrika Kinn Svensson, artistic advisor at the Fontys Dance Academy in Tilburg, tells Inclusive Dance Event. But because of the weak labour and income position, partly due to disappearing subsidies, that dream does not always come true. There is... 

Culture Press needs real members. Here's why you want to join

Culture Press is an indispensable addition to the cultural news in your newspaper, on the internet or on TV. Independent, quirky, rebellious and above all: useful. After all, there is already enough nonsense about art. You'll understand that we don't serve the millions of readers that the big publishers and their advertisers exist on. Which is why everyone else does so little about art.... 

Dramatic increase in volunteering in theatres and concert halls.

One of the highlights of the year is always the presentation of 'the figures' by the Association of Theatre and Concert Hall Directors (VSCD). As it happens, these are unabatedly positive. For years. And so for years it has been a challenge to find out why those positive figures are so difficult to reconcile with the picture of reality. That not at all... 

Don't miss anything from the Holland Festival with our special #HF17 subscription!

We are real Holland Festival specialists by now. We go and see performances beforehand, interview makers, actors and walk around the halls, in the foyers, just about every day. We hear a lot, we see a lot and we share it here. Cultural journalism as it should be, in short. Cultural journalism that should also be there. And it totally succeeds if you take out a subscription. Then you get... 

Why young men (and the Gemeentemuseum) make me happy.

The other day, this einzelgänger joined a group event here in The Hague. For the first time. With buses full of local residents heading for the Gemeentemuseum. Wondering with which neighbours I would go to see art, experience again what a museum feels like after closing time and attend a workshop or lecture. For inspiration. It worked out. Experiencing What an awful lot of fun to run into neighbours at the museum,... 

Your city's future hangs by a steel thread

Does your town suffer from vacancy? Is the city centre poorly accessible? Are you looking for a tourist attraction or a unique logo? A cable car solves all your problems. Your municipality can still benefit despite the great interest from all over the Netherlands in this new means of transport. But above all, don't listen to me, but to everyone before me. Clean and sustainable alternative In Groningen... 

5 hidden gems in Holland's top literature festival #ILFU

Of course: Hugo Borst, Suzanne Vega, Herman Koch. Enough reason to travel to Utrecht between 11 and 13 May. But there is much more to experience at the International Literature Festival Utrecht. And it doesn't even always have to do with books. I will show you a few things I am definitely looking forward to in festival palace TivoliVredenburg. The... 

Zvizdal - Tsjernobyl so far so close, door Berlin/Het Zuidelijk Toneel

Do you want the audience back, Sarah Sluimer? Then give it back to the actors.

In the Volkskrant of 8 May 2017, Sarah Sluimer lets loose. The opinion maker (for Volkskrant and De Correspondent, among others) used to be a theatre maker and now wonders aloud why she is a bit done with theatre. Because she actually writes that down. I quote: 'I breathed theatre. I ate performances and was convinced that what was there,... 

'In five years' time, you won't hear anyone talking about black Pete' (podcast)

Sheila Sitalsing went to work as a journalist after studying economics. After the weekly Elsevier, she joined the Volkskrant, in which she now has a column three times a week on page 2. Sitalsing won the Heldring Prize for best Dutch columnist in 2013. She also appears with some regularity in the foam & ash section of the TV programme Buitenhof.... 

Don't leave respect to the free market

The SER report published on Friday 21 April rubs it in nicely: the cultural sector is on the verge of collapse. It is even worse than a year ago. This shows that the patience of a PvdA culture minister over the past four years has not helped. Indeed: Halbe Zijlstra's multiplier of misery is doing its job entirely as expected.... 

Philosopher Henk van der Waal: 'The mystical experience is empty.' (podcast)

Henk van der Waal is a philosopher and poet. His collections have been awarded several prizes and nominated for several awards. In 2012, his philosophical essay Denken op de plaats rust. Design of a philosophical attitude to life, and now the philosophical dialogue Mysticism for the Wicked has been published. [bol_product_links block_id=”bol_58f89055ec618_selected-products” products=”9200000060486849,9200000075985970″ name="vanderwaal" sub_id="huydinck" link_color="003399″ subtitle_color="000000″ pricetype_color="000000″ price_color="CC3300″ deliverytime_color="009900″ background_color="FFFFFF" border_color="D2D2D2″ width="250″ cols="1″ show_bol_logo="0″ show_price="1″... 

Culture outside the Randstad: Amersfoort's struggle

Displaced paintings by Armando. Artists fleeing the city. A tinpot that brought financial disaster and summer festivals that attract tens of thousands of visitors every year. And you thought Amersfoort was boring? A footnote along the A1 motorway? Forget it. Let me tell you about this city struggling with its cultural identity. A story in eighteen impressions. Guilty landscape In his youth... 

Baudet's art vision blamed for old battle between Rotterdam and Leiden

For those who like to be around art, politics has become a bit more fun again, since 15 March. Since the 2017 elections, Thierry Baudet has been in the House of Representatives. Thierry Baudet knows a lot about art, he thinks, and we will come to know it, too. In fact, Thierry Baudet is the best thing about art these days... 

Nice, right? With our help, you reach culture lovers, decision-makers, and more.

A submitted message puts your organisation in direct contact with all Culture Press readers[ref]Status April 2017: 5900 on facebook, 16,130 on twitter, 2000 in the mail, 26,000/month on the website[/ref]. Just like a regular message, your message comes along in the news stream, and newsletters. It is also shared on facebook and we connect you there with every... 

Art criticism in times of Facebook and Blendle. (A survival guide.)

In a discussion (on facebook, where else) about NRC Handelsblad's departure from Blendle, an editor of that newspaper made very disparaging remarks about a reader who had paid 30 cents for one of his articles. In a recent article on Frankwatching, an expert concluded that investigative journalism could only survive if we started subsidising newspapers.... 

How fuss in theatre can lead to intercultural dialogue

A dance performance for youth (6+) recently caused a stir. Pupils from groups 5 to 8 of the Islamic Aboe Daoedschool in Utrecht visited IJspaleis (6+) by dance theatre group plan d-. At a dance of two penguins in love, one of the teachers requested that the performance be stopped. This scene was not considered suitable for the pupils, the explanation said. It... 

Modern dance only allowed with clothes on Facebook now

The first bare female breast I consciously observed in my life was the happily swishing boob of the girl in the Fa advertisement. It must have been sometime deep in the 1970s. The same time the Pacifisties Socialistiese Partij also did something similar with a cow in the background. Now, a good forty years later, the... 

No party really shows heart for art, so vote for a human being #TK2017

By now, we are a little surrounded by voting guides and electoral compasses. There is one for every area of policy. What to vote for if you have a beating heart for art? The Correspondent gave a nice little overview the other day. It showed that art is indeed a hobby of mainly left-wing parties, at least when it comes to subsidised art. Art... 

Diversity, schmiversity (my reservations about the CCD Award)

Brief summary. On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the presentation of the important award (actually two: audience award and jury award) called Code Cultural Diversity Award. I did not see a single fellow journalist(s). What I did see were lots of professional advocates speaking on behalf of people who were barely present themselves in the Galaxy. NB: the author is of Aruban-Chinese-Dutch descent and in no way wants to undermine the urgency of the issue of diversity... 

15 February: CCD Award ceremony 2017

On 15 February 2017, the 2017 CCD Award ceremony will take place in De Melkweg. Jury chair Mariëtte Hamer will pronounce the redeeming word and tell who will win the €5,000 prize. It is a dazzling programme with unique performances by the five nominees. From rap to film, from song to dance, everything will be in... 

Artists, get out into nature, before it's too late (and other reasons for hope)

There are those, including in the arts, who still think the world has not changed for good. Who suspect that a vote for a culture-friendly party will at a stroke turn back the clock eight years. Those people will wake up after 15 March to a new world, even if the Netherlands has suddenly chosen whether or not... 

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