All about politics, policy, society and how those things relate to culture and art.
Halbe Zijlstra is proud of his policy, and keen to come and tell it in front of the entire cultural sector. So on Sunday 26 August, he appeared on stage during the annual 'Paradiso Debate' to reiterate how well things had gone with the 200 million cut in the arts sector. He praised the resilience of the affected art world, and would be happy to do the same again.
The major research and management consulting firm Berenschot has calculated that, on balance, the cuts to the arts turn out to be not too bad. Client of the study, De Volkskrant, then headlined that big. And indeed, it is kind of good news that the pile-up of cuts (the state 24% less, the provinces 20% less and the municipalities only 9 % less) is so low in net terms. We were surprised for a moment, but when we asked around, we found out
Lots of bobbing on boards. That's what drama on television is mostly. And actors with weird reverberations in intimate scenes. That too. It is easy to shoot at attempts to bring successful performances to the TV or cinema screen. They almost always make viewers feel that their medium is shooting back 80 years in development. This is also why every attempt by the Dutch Public Broadcasting Corporation to make our fairly highly regarded stage art attractive to a wider audience via TV fails. Theatre or opera on screen is especially suitable for
In the small Dutch art world, it is impossible to put together a committee of experts which is entirely independent. Anyone with knowledge of business also has knowledge of people, or has worked at an institution that is now to be judged. Or works there now. Reason enough, then, for speculation and conspiracy theories.
Yet money for the National Academy of Visual Arts, money for an orchestra merger in the south of the Netherlands and 4.7 million for a knowledge institute for amateur art. The clear-cutting of the Dutch cultural sector has become a little less extreme thanks to a second advice from the Council for Culture. Besides the aforementioned positive assessment, there is also money for a knowledge institute for the creative sector
On 12 August 2012, during the worst watched Summer guests-broadcast of all time (343,000 viewers) told trend forecaster Lidewij Edelkoort about The Johnny Cash Project. A great example of what crowdsourcing can do for creativity: in 2010, everyone was invited to add a drawing to an animated music video to Johnny Cash's latest song. We now know what and who is behind this:
Maastricht is going to do things differently. Starting next year, the city council will determine what art is needed, and art institutions will be allowed to submit plans that fit within that framework. If their plans do not comply, they will not get any money. Sounds nice, but the capital of Limburg is treading on thin ice.
The Guardian, de krant die voorop loopt met crowdsoursing, heeft een interactieve kaart beschikbaar gesteld waarop de bezuinigingen op cultuur zichtbaar zijn die regeringen in heel Europa doorvoeren. Dat Nederland voorop loopt, weten we al, maar in Spanje gaat het ook niet best, zoals we hadden kunnen verwachten. Je kunt zelf meewerken aan de opbouw van de kaart, en dat…
I would like to take a moment to put this one to you. Quote from this morning's volkskrant, where editor Harmen Bockma makes a valiant attempt to list all the figures of culture carnage, but fails a little in doing so. It also remains difficult to identify the breakdown in the basic infrastructure add to the dropout at the fund, but it is proving altogether difficult to discern what
On Wednesday 1 August 2012, the Performing Arts Fund will announce the results of the lottery that granting arts subsidies has now become. Huge cuts are looming: companies and creators that by now seemed to be a permanent part of the Dutch arts landscape will disappear. Exactly what it will look like, we know
While YouTubesurfing, I stumbled upon these razor-sharp sketches of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Descended from the heyday of their genius programme A Bit Of Fry & Laurie. Watching this beautifully parsed windbag, a nasty feeling came over me that damn little has changed in the mindset of art critics since this skit was broadcast. Complacency is always lurking.
I Like To Watch Too: abundance of performances shows that dance and performance are powerfully connected to modern society. The dance moves rain down on you even before you have entered Paradiso. Tim Boerlijst tap-dances on the pavement. This infectious welcome immediately draws visitors into the atmosphere of 'I Like To Watch Too'. This festival showcases dance and performance from...
With Black Box / Chambre Noire the Jewish Historical Museum presents the first exhibition by South African artist William Kentridge in the Netherlands. A multimedia artwork On the first genocide of the 20th century. Now on display at the Jewish Historical Museum.
It was the issue on which he lied the hardest, as we demonstrated a year ago, but the country's most hated secretary of state did not care. Despite its great success, the culture card for schoolchildren had to be killed off, and on spurious grounds. Now the card has been saved by the chamber. A majority voted in favour of a motion by CDA and PvdA,...
Martin Barden realises that an old model works, where everyone is always clamouring for new forms. As marketing boss of the Tate museums in London, he created a large network of friends. So that museum has more than 100,000 members. people who feel part of the club, and whom you have to pamper.
EYE is pulling out all the stops. This year, the final exam papers of the students of the Netherlands Film and Television Academy will get an ideal presentation in the largest auditorium of this new film centre. What is also new is that yesterday, immediately after the screening for press and relations, awards were handed out for best commercial (The End, Soon), best documentary (A Twist in...
People asking for clarity often clamour for "names and (back) numbers", but in classical music, that fuss with names and numbers is precisely why nobody understands anything anymore. So, according to ex-marketer and now storyteller Nancy Wiltink, it's not only about your story, but also whether that story is
Two years ago, a number of artists from collective FUCK and production company Finger.co.uk the roof of Kraaiennest shopping centre in Amsterdam Southeast, and stomped FATFORM out of the ground. An elusive art project, rooftop party and free state. Now they have moved up a hundred metres.
It is now becoming clear where the laissez faire-laissez mourir (let it be done, let it die) policy of Halbe Zijlstra, Martin Bosma and Mark Rutte will lead. Of the dozens of institutions that will close, downsize or die off in the coming months due to vacancy of quality staff, the demise of Theatre Institute of the Netherlands (TIN) is starting to take on very tragic proportions.
The message below has since been confirmed. But we like to cherish our firsts. Hence. Of course, the merger event in and around Amsterdam's Muziektheater, where ballet, opera and theatre will work in unison, also produced a game of musical chairs. Stijn Schoonderwoerd, for instance, announced a month or so ago that he was going to do something else, and so the Dutch National Ballet was looking...
He is a professor of it, so if there is a problem in the economics of culture, Arjo Klamer knows about it. He says there has been growing resentment against subsidies for years. So the arts sector will have to get used to making a living in a different way from now on.
There are funny answers in the way people sometimes try not to answer a question. Dirk van Delft, as director of Museum Boerhaave bring in a sloppy €1 million from the market.
Classical music audiences have been declining by 1% a year for 20 years. Structurally. That means that since 1992, 1/5 of the audience has already disappeared, without anything else taking its place. According to Johan Idema, strategist and author of a useful book on new methods for early music, the sector is entirely self-inflicted.
That Pierre Audi does not shy away from religious symbolism is well known, but the true miracle in The Netherlands Opera's Parsifal is in the pit. There, in the hands of master conductor Iván Fischer, the Concertgebouw Orchestra sets a new Wagner standard. Despite a gigantic orchestral strength, almost chamber music-like lightness, extraordinarily transparent and, thanks to careful tempo choices, with wonderful dramatic tension. Five hours long.
The press presentation of the open-air opera Orfeo ed Eurydice at Soestdijk at the time attracted just under a hundred people press and sponsors. At the presentation of the performance 'Much ado about nothing', The Utrecht Games attracted only a handful: someone from weblog cultuurpodium.nl, two people from the Stadsblad Utrecht and an indeterminate camera crew who had come exclusively for Suzan Visser....
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