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ACTUAL

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

Rutteleaks

It started with Halbe Zijlstra shouting on TV that no one in the arts could be sure of his life. Then came Mark Rutte with his claim that there are 15 people sitting in the front row in 30 venues in The Hague every night. And then [wp_eStore_fancy2:product_id:1:end]

Originality rewarded at Oscars 2012

You can hardly claim it was a surprise result, because for weeks - what shall I say, months - The Artist had been mentioned as a surefire Oscar favourite. Still, the crowning of this largely silent French black-and-white film that pays tribute to the end of the silent film era in Hollywood is proof that originality still counts in... 

Amsterdam takes Netherlands Symphony Orchestra to court

We already wrote extensively about the name change of the Orchestra of the East in the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (NSO). The curious opera grant application based on a business plan that carries huge risks had our full attention. Regular partner the National Travel Opera was not amused.

Cultural balderdash or snake pit Enschede?

It looked like it was going to be something. With a church of huge Lego blocks and a programme that seemed to matter. But alas, Grenswerk, the festival that was supposed to bring the region around Enschede together, is no more. After three years. And it won't stop until 2013, like most arts institutions, but already in 2012. Too much had to change for that to happen. The municipality suggested... 

first reading of lost O'Neill piece

Connoisseurs know: often actors spend two months rehearsing a play with only one goal in mind: to recover the freshness and surprise of the 'first reading'. After all, at that first reading, actors hear the text for the first time from their colleagues, read the words aloud for the first time, and everything sounds new and unexpected.... 

Berlin 2012 - Dutch debut Hemel wins Critics Award

Dutch film Hemel was chosen as best film in the Forum section for young cinema by the jury of international critics at the Berlin festival. This is a fine success for director Sacha Polak who delivers her first feature-length film with this drama about a young woman who has lost her way in search of love. Heaven, after a... 

Berlin 2012 - Shakespeare knew it all

Would today's revolution makers even study Shakespeare? In Cesare deve morire (Caesar Must Die), the competition entry by the Italian Taviani brothers, we witness the preparation and performance of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Anyone watching this with the world's noise in mind will often feel a shock of recognition. The tragedy about a coup in ancient Rome shows... 

Culture Council given little leeway

He barely showed his face in recent months, rarely engaging in debate with artists or the public. Now that the mega budget cut on culture is law, and nothing can be changed about it until 2016, we can follow Halbe Zijlstra's victory lap again. Also on twitter.

Porn, movement and politics seek each other at festival Something Raw

For over a decade, Something Raw has been one of the few places in the Netherlands where the question of artistic and social urgency of the body is explored on stage, with all the fun and risk involved. Many performances struggled with the 'impasse of display': have people then become mere things to look at? Porn is the... 

Arts colleges hopelessly divided

It was a 'roundtable discussion', so that is extremely informal. Lower house members of the ministry of OCW's 'lead committee' listen to people from the field. In this case, all people who are involved in, or lead, arts education. It was an awkward meeting.

Cultural Press Bureau opens Arts hotline

It happens regularly that you see or hear something, in the tram, on the train, on the road, on holiday. But also on the street, in your own home. And that you think: what is that? Chances are you are dealing with 'Art'. And that can have all kinds of side effects: pleasure, chills, confusion, sadness, or even indifference, and depression. Art can,... 

5-hour marathon Roman Tragedies favourite with spectators Toneelgroep Amsterdam

We were somewhat mildly ironic about it, but hats off, meanwhile, to Toneelgroep Amsterdam's PR department and the audience, who responded remarkably well to the 'choose the reprise' campaign the company launched a few weeks back. We have the hard numbers we feared we would never see. And they are credible. We quote the press release: From 2 to... 

Berlin 2012: Christian Petzold scores high marks with haunting GDR drama Barbara

Can a filmmaker born and raised in West Germany strike just the right tone in a film set in the former East Germany? I hadn't given this question much thought, but the Berliner Zeitung raised it in response to Christian Petzold's Barbara, about a Berlin paediatrician who, after requesting to go to the West,... 

'Ajax states' in sudden war between Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and National Travel Opera

This week, the National Travel Opera begins rehearsals of Mozart's Le nozze di figaro. In the bin, the brand-new Netherlands Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend. Business as usual, as both companies have been working closely together for years and are united in the National Music Quarter Enschede. Only: orchestra and opera company have not been talking to each other since last week.

Horror story of theatre show Coast overwhelms its narrators

Exactly how Little Red Riding Hood was eaten by the wicked wolf, the fairy tale does not tell. Fairy-tale-telling parents limit themselves to the before and after. And that the evil wolf is cut open by the hunter, freed from Little Red Riding Hood and filled with stones eventually ends up in a well to die is part of the winding down of the happy ending. Enough... 

Berlin 2012: Finnish SF comedy and Nazi parody Iron Sky met with cheers

Timo Vuorensola has done it to him. Perhaps reading the name of this Finnish director and music video maker does not light up a light yet, but then you do not belong to the extensive internet fan club that has been closely following the genesis of the potential cult hit Iron Sky for several years. Its world premiere at the Berlin festival is now the... 

Liverpool GGD saves millions on antidepressants thanks to local philharmonic

It saves Liverpool's GGD millions on dispensing antidepressants. And it only costs them a tonne and a half. They spend that much hiring Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra musicians for workshops in addiction clinics. So, no idealistic preaching, as in the countless columns and reactions to Halbes culture cut, but hard pecunia and proven effects. In England,... 

Berlin Film Festival opens with a messy Versailles

The 62nd Berlinale opened tonight with Benoït Jacquot's Les adieux à la reine, a French costume piece that does not play by the rules. The dresses worn by Queen Marie Antoinette's servants get dirty and one of the main characters stumbles in her haste and passes out twice. As the film begins we write 14 July 1789, and the... 

B&G gets support from BMW

We don't know how many BMWs are involved in terms of countervalue, but the fact is that the German car conglomerate of search cars has taken another step away from the fast kid street racing circuit now populated by Audi and VW anyway. Although. The new generation that the company wants to engage is equally young, but thus considerably more cultured. They are the young... 

Ebook sales give publishers knowledge they would rather not have

We already noticed it in the daily twitter stream: when it comes to book reviews on twitter, the 'low' genres (at least according to connoisseurs) dominate the charts: fantasy, diaries of disease sufferers, 'regional work', howto's and erotica. No news, you may say, but there is more to it.

What exactly is going on at Stage Entertainment?

Last month, it was announced that Erwin van Lambaart, once brought in as heir apparent to his company Stage Entertainment by Joop van den Ende, is leaving as CCO 'to spend more time with his family'. Last week, a press release appeared in which the group reported that it had signed a so-called €75 million club deal with ABN-AMRO and ING.

Fact-free journalism plunges into arts sector.

    According to the Volkskrant, Rick van der Ploeg was state secretary of culture in the early 1990s (in reality, he was at the end of those years), and in Het Parool columnist Gerard Mulder claims that the fact that he "thankfully knows nothing about art subsidies" need not deter him from some wild speculations... 

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