All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Three days of classical music among the trees and cows. Festival Wonderfeel presented a unique classical music festival last weekend from 24 to 26 July, under the smoke of 's-Graveland. Top musicians from home and abroad gave dozens of concerts. Lectures were given and, as befits a festival, there was also plenty to eat, drink and...
It is a lovely summer book: Harem, the new novel by Ronald Giphart. And for the first time in years, a good dose of sex appears in a book by the Utrecht-based writer. 'Just the other day at a reading I was announced by a librarian: "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the man who knows all about sex!" Interview so with...
Brilliant marketing strategy: call your new record Star Wars at the time that trailer is the most viewed ever, put a cute cat on the cover, temporarily give the album away for free and then let social media do the work. 'If you can't beat them, join them' squared away. And meanwhile merrily mixing old Bowie with Captain Beefheart with a...
The CD Sax avec Elan! is the latest project by the ever enterprising Amstel Quartet. The four saxophonists made their name with impeccable and inspired performances of contemporary music, but do not shy away from the beaten track. For this CD, they joined forces with French chansonnier Philippe Elan. To my pleasant surprise, the...
Those who apply for grants but do not receive them must be given insight into the applications of others who have been honoured. That is the most remarkable ruling by the Council of State in the case Holland Opera won against the Performing Arts Fund. Much more important for the company itself, of course: according to our highest court, in 2012 the Performing Arts Fund decided Holland...
Laser projection opens new vistas for digital film screening. On Wednesday, the JT cinema in Hilversum had the European premiere of Dolby Cinema with the screening of Inside Out.
Following the euro crisis, Culture Press focuses on Greece in a series of articles. In the first part, George Vermij looks at how film has influenced our image of the Mediterranean country. Is there not a more striking image of Greece than Antony Quinn as Zorba dancing the Sirtaki and finding resignation despite the harsh setbacks life offers? The...
Watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by the Dutch Comedy in 1964, or Live, the 1979 video ballet by the Dutch National Ballet. You can now do so at the Theatre Encyclopaedia. Thanks to the crowdfunding campaign Being/Not Being. Theaterencyclopaedia had wanted for some time to put videos of a number of crown jewels from Dutch theatre performances on the internet. A nice start has now been made on that. Through a Voordekunst action, even more money has been raised...
It could just be a solution to Greece's problems: investing in culture. For Britain, at least, the softest of all sectors has proved a fertile cash cow. The cultural sector added 15 billion in value to the economy there last year, almost 3 billion more than two years ago. In other words: for every pound the government put in...
The fall of Muslim enclave Srebrenica on 11 July 1995 is still occupying minds. On Saturday 11 July next, the Democratic Europe Association will commemorate the genocide of more than seven thousand men who were under the protection of a Dutch UN battalion, with a symposium and a commissioned composition by Pablo Escande, The Killer and the Piano Player. Immediately after the shocking event, the...
In 1969, Reinbert de Leeuw et al's opera Reconstruction caused a huge uproar because of its anti-American tenor and glorification of Cuban freedom fighter Che Guevarra. Journalist Henk van der Meijden started a smear campaign in newspaper De Telegraaf, parliamentary questions were asked, but the production went ahead despite - thanks to ? - all the commotion and Theatre Carré was...
Concert & Congress hall De Doelen in Rotterdam will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. That is, 50 years ago, the current venue was festively opened. The building by architects Kraaijvanger and Fledderus was the first major public building of the reconstruction after German bombs destroyed the city on 10 May 1940. However, its name goes back much longer. The at...
The Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra is getting a new main hall. Questions about exploitation were carelessly brushed aside in the Arnhem city council last night. And so construction-minded Holland is happy. Moreover, Arnhem will save half a million a year on its culture budget by immediately making the yet-to-be-built new hall independent. Another headache file closed. Until huge budget deficits arise at the independent halls....
Three years ago, the suspicion was already expressed in America, now it is also penetrating Europe. People are reading far more than bookshops and publishers think. And this is not even due to the illegal downloading of bestsellers that everyone is so worried about. Logical, because what people are reading so fanatically is not the book you buy in a bookshop,...
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The second chamber was also keen to know what exactly Culture Minister Bussemaker meant by that 'cash shift'. After all, it was that cash shift with which she could festively announce that she would put an extra 18 million into culture, after 2017. In a letter to the chamber, the minister has now shown how creatively she can bookkeep. A few costs...
Five hours of talks with more than 30 invited guests. That's what the Round Table discussion on the 'Principles of Cultural Policy 2017-2020' offered. There was hardly any debate. It consisted mainly of repeating one's own views, but very carefully so as not to offend anyone. The chairman mainly watched the clock. The debate in five quotes. "How do we do it? Very simple: about the...
Last night Nazmiye Oral, together with a large group of Turkish colleagues, played the performance Niet Meer Zonder Jou for the third and, for now, last time. It is an intimate and overwhelming theatre production by Adelheid Roosen, Female Economy & Zina, co-produced by and performed during the Holland Festival at Broedplaats De Vlugt, far west in Amsterdam-Slotermeer. Tearing die Nazmiye Oral calls...
Had Anton Chekhov lived now, he would have written for television. Not drama, and certainly not film. Indeed, innovative as the great Russian playwright was during his short life (1860-1904), he would now have done something with selfie sticks and contact microphones. The result would probably have been something like what Brazilian artist Christiane Jatahy has now created. She took the text...
Eye organised a Lulu Marathon as part of the William Kentridge exhibition at the Holland Festival. Kentridge directed Alban Berg's opera Lulu. As part of that, Eye screened the two main Lulu films that inspired him. The first was Leopold Jessner's Erdgeist (1923) and the second was G.W. Pabst's Die Büchse der Pandora (1929). Two iconic Weimar...
Over 70% of the talking heads on TV are men, Simone van Saarloos told us in the introduction to her own talk show. Niña Weijers and she thought that surely something like this could be done better, without talking about glass ceilings and other women's topics. And so, in October 2013, they launched their sexist talk show series with guests from the arts, literature, politics and...
There is something crushing about the massiveness. Choreographers Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten have brought the dancers of the Ballet National de Marseille and of ICK Amsterdam to the stage in Extremalism, thirty in all. A huge 'corps de ballet'. Greco and Scholten and the dancers take root in classical ballet, but also break away from it. The classical footwork with...
Every company 50,000 euros more. Youth theatre in the Netherlands should be very happy with the letter culture minister Bussemaker sent to the chamber last Monday. After years of squeezing under Halbe Zijlstra, finally more air for the makers. But the investment of 4 tonnes a year turns out to be a cutback. In fact, Bussemaker only gives a gift to eight companies. Company...
Where minister Bussemaker tries to sell the same overall budget as "an extra investment of 18 million" with the new "cash shift" and municipalities like Amsterdam use the old-fashioned cheese slicer to make cuts, the municipality of Enschede uses the blunt axe. Despite fierce opposition and 27,000 signatures from concerned citizens, the city council agreed to an additional annual cut of 600,000 on the library and...
It is a niche sector in marketing, but cultural marketing is fast becoming mature. In recent years, cultural organisations have had to be creative and inventive with increasingly limited budgets. This often manifested itself in sensational marketing of performances, exhibitions and festivals. Not without results: these five marketing cases have bravely drawn attention last cultural season....
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