All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
3 to 13 November in 's-Hertogenbosch Never before have so many new works been heard as during the upcoming edition of festival November Music. With no fewer than 50 premieres by makers and performers from home and abroad, 21 composition commissions and more than 100 different concerts, the 30th edition of November Music shows how diverse and vital the latest music is. November Music...
Expectations are high for Stations, the latest work by dancer and choreographer Louise Lecavalier. She has been a household name in the dance world for decades, first as dancer and muse of Edouard Lockes La La La Human Steps, and since 2006 with her own Fou Glorieux. Her intensity and athletic abilities are impressive, she terrifies the limits of her body. Also.
Nice scoop from the Noord Hollands Dagblad today. Rick Engelkes, the perpetually wobbly soap opera actor who learnt the trade as a successful producer at Joop van den Ende, devised a musical that was never performed because of coronasteun. It earned him millions. Read the story here. Tl;dr: Engelkes announced in 2020 that he was working on a musical to...
There has been quite a lot going on around Rotterdam's Arts and Culture Council recently. For instance, based on a ramshackle investigation, to say the least, the alderman had rather bluntly decided to abolish the independent advisory body. It is too self-serving for his officials. His decision was debated at length at a City Council meeting in late June. Redundant debate...
Seven new, very different animated films coming to cinemas this summer showcase the richness and power of this genre.
It was announced today that the great theatre innovator Peter Brook has died. He was 97 years old. In those years, he became one of the world's most influential directors and theatre innovators. He sought world-wide stories and told them through actors who were as diverse as the stories he told. I visited his theatre a few times,...
"Miss, please give me the minister!". Henk Vonhoff's voice sounded as commanding as it was eloquent as he addressed his secretary over the intercom. Vonhoff was commissioner of the Queen in Groningen, but also chairman of the supervisory committee of the Groningen State University of Applied Sciences, the only college still directly under the minister. We, faculty directors, were at... for the umpteenth time.
4 million Dutch people have a brain disorder. The Brain Foundation comes up with that figure in a campaign to make people more aware of the consequences of brain injury. Often that injury leads to extreme sensitivity to stimuli. Then loud noise, bright light or sharp smell is suddenly a big problem. People affected by these can find it difficult to go outside. That is why ...
When he was appointed chairman of Rotterdam's Arts and Culture Council in December 2021, nothing seemed wrong. But less than six months later, he is virtually on the street now that Arts alderman Said Kasmi (D66) has decided to disband the Rotterdam advisory council. After 17 years. Gonçalves is baffled, certainly...
Cross-border behaviour in the culture and media sector is a persistent and urgent problem that cannot be solved easily. The rising number of reports in recent times shows only the tip of the iceberg. So says the advisory report 'Across the border, towards a shared culture', which the Council for Culture today presented to state secretary Gunay...
If humanity goes extinct, there has been a woman somewhere who was the last not to have a child. To whom does that honour belong? At the Holland Festival, an ensemble of 12 performers now perform a requiem for that last non-mother. Actress and singer Joy Wielkens is the extraordinarily disarming high priestess in this at times quite heavy evening, in which the end of...
It shows either enormous guts, or boundless naivety, to make a musical in which a slave trader in Africa is converted by a song to a life of love and respect for fellow human beings. Yet Yemandja, the play that was performed in a setless performance at the Holland Festival, is actually just that. I could also explain...
In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: international solidarity. When Hans van Manen does want to receive Russians Scene 1. White House lawn On the lawn in front of the White House, first lady Pat Nixon1 walks past the assembled choirs singing to her. Suddenly, during a silent moment, the...
Various continents, at least three world languages and some seven centuries cover the unexpected nominations for the Filter Translation Prize 2022, which will be awarded on 28 September during the International Literature Festival Utrecht (ILFU). They are all striking and exceptional achievements, according to the jury, which also scoured the world for scents and forgotten languages. And it hangs...
From Thursday 1 to Sunday 11 September 2022, the Nederlands Theater Festival will show the finest productions of the past theatre season. The Netherlands Theatre Jury, headed by jury president Hadassah de Boer, selected the 12 most impressive theatre productions of the moment. Today, the jury announced its selection. Ten of the twelve productions from the selection can be seen during the upcoming edition of the festival....
With its publication in the Government Gazette of 8 June 2022, the collective labour agreement for theatre and dance 2022-2023 has been declared universally binding (AVV). This means that all professional Dutch producers producing theatre and/or dance performances must apply this collective labour agreement for their staff. CLA parties Nederlandse Associatie voor Podiumkunsten (NAPK) and Kunstenbond applied for the AVV to regulate working conditions for the entire theatre and...
The Amsterdam Museum is calling on makers and artists to submit a proposal on the theme of War & Conflict. The selected proposals will be presented, among others, in the second edition of the exhibition Refresh Amsterdam, from May to October 2023 at the Amsterdam Museum on the Amstel. The second edition of Refresh Amsterdam is about the impact...
Holland Festival has been forced to cancel the opera production The Murder of Halit Yozgat, which was to be played on 15 and 16 June at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The cancellation is caused by an outbreak of Covid in the Holland Festival's technical team preparing and creating the production. Audiences will receive from the Holland...
Benin singer Zeynab Abib had some making up to do. And she did. As a guest artist in the opening performance of the Holland Festival last week, she performed in the limelight with Holland Festival associate artist Angélique Kidjo, but didn't quite pan out. This time, not in the big Carré but in the more intimate Great Hall
How do you play a rainforest? I was once told that the rainforest makes deafening noise especially at night. On 7 June, I got to hear the same thing in the installation Altamira 2042, thanks to the Holland Festival. In that performance, Brazilian artist cum documentary filmmaker Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha managed to make the sound of the tropics tangible. In a...
It's quite something, what Sami Yusuf brings to the stage: his own accompanying group of seasoned pros, the heavenly voices of Cappella Amsterdam and the traditionally Mediterranean sounds of the Amsterdam Andalusian Orchestra. Together, this results in a sound experience that moves from calm ponds with a gurgling fountain, to dry steppes winds, raging seas and overwhelming mountains. There could effortlessly be a...
The Turfsteker rejected The mayor was angry. The councillor was angry. Everyone was angry because the A municipality wanted to put up a work of art by a locally highly regarded sculptor as a tribute to the peat cutter, but was denied a grant by the province. The Cultural Council had advised negatively. The relevant advisory committee lamented the artist's figurative work; it left nothing to...
'My show touches, incites self-reflection and is already getting quite a lot of press attention; a substantive review was unfortunately not among them until now. After all, what reviewer comes to see a wildly unknown 58-year-old debutant?' Rata Kloppenburg- theatre maker, cabaret artist & cellist- immediately bursts out at her table in Zwolle. While I have yet to ask a question...
Yemi Alade. What a woman. Never heard of her until 3 June, the opening of the Holland Festival's anniversary edition. She was one of the guests of Angelique Kidjo, the Benin-born African singer who is one of the two associate artists of the country's most prestigious festival this year. And Yemi Alade, star from Nigeria, threw her full...
'We met only pleasant, committed people with their hearts in the right place for Rotterdam culture.' So reads the last sentence of a report by Utrecht-based consultancy Rijnconsult on the future of Rotterdam's Arts and Culture Council (RRKC). Based on that study, alderman Said Kasmi (D66) decided this week to replace the RRKC from 1...
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