All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Ron Jagers has been providing playful commentary on culture in Amersfoort and elsewhere for 45 years. His latest find is the 'Prince Bernhard Fanclub'. But the 63-year-old absurdist and multi-artist also made a gripping book about East Berlin before the fall of the wall. 'hop, two-three-four!' He walks along in the Silent Fanfare, an orchestra that marches forward with much fuss
In a chock-full DeLaMar theatre, deputy director Robert Guijt presented the 2014 Dance Audience Award and Dance Photo of the Year on 23 February 2015. This fitted well with the festive premiere of Crazy Blues by winner International Dance Theatre. Many acquaintances from the dance world performed at the DeLaMar. 'Hans van Manen is sitting beautifully on Princess Beatrix's chair,' joked Guijt. The same...
Clark Terry was a legend and is no more. The American jazz trumpeter died on Saturday at the age of 94. He began his musical career with jazz greats Count Basie and Duke Ellington, who soon recognised his extraordinary talent. He said of the two: "Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was graduate school." [Tweet ""Count Basie was college, but Duke Ellington was ...
Theatre De Nieuwe Doelen in Gorinchem will close its doors on 31 May, due to lack of support in local politics. The city council, which earlier also closed the music school, would like to continue using the building as a Village Hall for amateur artists. For professional theatre, a CDA party leader reported, those few enthusiasts can just go to Dordrecht. Theatre director Rob van Wijk...
The Netherlands is one of the few countries where Science Fiction plays no role in mainstream media, let alone in the arts. If we look upwards at all, it is through Govert Schilling's disarming Duplo bricks, or Vincent Icke's mildly ironic commentary in DWDD. Or turning 'Mission Earth', a failing soap opera with bickering comedians, into...
According to Rotterdam alderman Visser, the current subsidy system is unsustainable. The system, in which cultural institutions submit a plan every four years and thus have to look years ahead, no longer fits with the times. Nowadays, there is a need for flexibility and change, not rigidity and certainty. The alderman said this during the presentation of the sector analysis by the Rotterdam Council
No foreign performances at the sixth PopArts festival. Are the budget cuts making themselves felt? The festival programmes internationally every other year, and this year it is staying close to home. With Nicola Unger, there were the other Dutch 'usual suspects' like Duda Paiva and guest artists from the Ulrique Quade Company. But the De Krakeling and the Ostadetheater also featured young makers...
Like children, sometimes you have to educate your audience a little. If they do something you like, you reward them for it. Behaviour that you like less you want to discourage. Yet many theatres do exactly the opposite with their booking fees and last-minute promotions. It has been a trend for years. Visitors are deciding later and later that they want a...
The General Court of Auditors, a high college of state that independently audits government spending, is blowing the whistle on Culture Minister Bussemaker. Indeed, in an interim opinion, published on 12 February, the Court of Audit states that nothing at all is yet clear about the real consequences of the previous cabinet's cuts. That cabinet, with the widely beloved Halbe...
This Saturday, 14 February 2015, Reinbert de Leeuw will conduct the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Polish composer Henryk Górecki's (1933-2010) Fourth Symphony at the NTR Saturday matinee. Górecki established his name overnight in 1992, when the CD of his Third Symphony shot to the top of the classical charts like a flare. The recording of this Symphony...
In Amersfoort, one art hall is empty and one art hall is full. KAdE, only recently completed and already successful, was dismantled five years after opening and moved to another, even newer building, across the railway line. However, the city council does not appear to have been properly informed about the financial consequences of this move and is now stuck with and noose of at least 10...
Always thought art was something of creative wildlings, obsessed autistics, genius tinkerers in spite of themselves? Wrong. Art is something where 'strong communicators' call the shots. At least if it is up to minister Jet Bussemaker, and her oh, so progressive idea of letting art be useful above all. For society. Just watch the horror video above. What we fear...
You can watch television again without guilt. After a two-and-a-half-year conflict, television broadcasters, producers and cable companies are coming to terms. This is going to make for a lot of happy TV, because after two years of waiting, the makers, actors and writers of television programmes will finally get the money they were entitled to all this time. And more. So does the lobby just make sense...
Last week, the Metaalkathedraal was celebrating. This 'creative breeding ground' in the picturesque no man's land between Utrecht and Leidsche Rijn can, thanks to a loan from a bank, grow into something that might become great fun for the neighbourhood, but also for people on the other side of town. The Metal Cathedral is an initiative of two artists. They...
#1 Salzburger Festspiele / Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz / Katie Mitchell, The forbidden zone (theatre/performance) - Dutch premiere 11 February, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam British director Katie Mitchell is this month's 'arsonist' at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg. With performances that are as scintillating as they are transgressive. The forbidden zone is about areas long off-limits to women: science and war. The...
Contemporary choreographer Sibi Larbi becomes the new director of Ballet Flanders in Antwerp. A striking and unorthodox choice. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, meanwhile, may stay away from De Munt in Brussels. What's up Belgium?
A few months ago, the Council for Culture advised Minister Bussemaker to maintain the law on fixed book prices. And that while the functioning of the law has not been proven at all. For enterprising booksellers, this law is a block. This law earned erotic department store Christine le Duc a €15,000 fine. They came up with a playful...
Ingres, Cimabue, Memling, Tiepolo, Goya, Van Eyck, Constable. Pure top names in art history and many of them hardly ever hang in Dutch museums. But now they do. The Mauritshuis in The Hague is showing no fewer than 36 works from the famous Frick Collection in New York from 5 February. And that museum has never before lent so many art treasures. Therefore, the Mauritshuis has...
After a nerve-wracking final and precise assessment of votes, the winners of the 2014 Dance Audience Award have been announced. Favourite Dance Performance is FADO of International Dance Theatre, Favourite Dancer is Merel Janssen of Introdans Ensemble for Youth.
Municipal cultural politics are often about 'bricks and mortar'. People put up a cultural building and then pray/hope that great things will happen there, which the city council in turn has no money for/power over. Take Enschede. In a council meeting in which it was decided to reinvest in cultural bricks by means of a €475,000 loan, there was actually some unrest. No, not about those bricks, but about...
Just over a month earlier than usual, the Holland Festival is presenting its new programme this season. There is every reason for this. With the arrival of Ruth Mackenzie as artistic director, a fresh wind is blowing through the festival. Annet Lekkerkerker talks about the changes in the video below. The presentation of the brochure - finally readable thanks to a new design - shows...
Radio Netherlands World Broadcasting no longer exists. The subsidy was withdrawn because no one in the VVD knew what it was: shortwave. And because the PVV, which was also in government at the time, finds everything scary that contains the word 'world'. Bad for those who miss calls from the ANWB emergency centre at breakfast for the Alpenkreuzer, even worse for...
We write day 6 of the IFFR and take an intermediate view. In the deluge of films, the short films (1 to 60 minutes) always fall away a little in attention. This is a shame, because there is a lot to discover within this format. We list for you. 1 - The IFFR is the festival with one of the...
Film and film criticism. Image versus the word. But what happens when the critic starts using visual language too? Well, something like this, for example: Transformers: The Premake, by Kevin B. Lee. Romance or amour fou It seems so obvious in today's digital online world. Is the video essay an answer to the crisis, perceived or otherwise, in art criticism? Film critics...
How do you get back home mentally after a war? David van Reybrouck in conversation with Stefan Hertmans and Ian Buruma Carrots, potatoes, maybe some celery and a dash of lard, this was the monotonous winter diet of the underclass in rural Flanders in the late nineteenth century. But, outlines professor and guest speaker Louise O. Fresco in her opening column, these days it is the...
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