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ACTUAL

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

La Fin Du Western is screaming, stomping and spitting tirade against the absurd power struggle in Ivory Coast #dekeuze

"I love westerns," says one of the African players. "Because you always know how they end. Clearly. With only one winner." On the stage floor are four smoothly twirling, stomping dancing, trained performers from the Ivory Coast. They are a stark contrast to their co-stars: two lumbering, yoghurt-pale and uncoordinated German actors. The Africans speak French, the Germans mostly English. The... 

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Enschede population wants legoblocks church preserved. Support asked for twitter action @stoanloatn

What art can accomplish. At least Enschede gained a church, thanks to the people of festival Grenswerk, which lasts until 2 October. Because, where before there was a somewhat dull square next to Enschede's railway station, there is now a church made of colourful lego blocks. Intended as a multifunctional festival pavilion. Temporary too, because the lego building blocks can... 

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Musical makers critical of future musicals in the Netherlands: "It's really going wrong in our industry because of touring!"

"What we lose audiences massively with is that if we give seven shows a week, quietly three of them are so substandard that people say 'And now I won't go for three years'. What we need to do is put the performance level back on a structurally high level." One of the statements made by composer Jeroen Sleijfer during the lively roundtable discussion - with no table... 

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"Talkshow" by artist Miet Warlop and film scholar Hilde D'haeyere is an overly noncommittal slapstick collage #dekeuze

She bends over. A huge wooden shot thunders over film scientist Hilde D'haeyere around and smashes against the playing floor. She stays alive through a recess in the wood. Unperturbed, she springs up and continues reading from her essay: a scholarly treatise on function of slapstick in the silent films of Charlie Chapin and Buster Keaton, as well as in the work of visual artist cum theatre maker Miet Warlop.

Read More ""Talkshow" by artist Miet Warlop and film scholar Hilde D'haeyere is an overly noncommittal slapstick collage #dekeuze

The International Choice does, what The International Choice has been doing for years: divide opinion and loosen tongues.

"We are blind to the big changes in the world and meanwhile we are arguing with one-liners on Radio One." These words, chronicled by reporter Robbert van Heuven from the mouth of writer Abdelkader Benali during the Choice Debate on Tuesday 20 September perhaps best sums up what The International Choice was all about. Artistic director Annemie Vanackere... 

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Netherlands Film Festival - Tuschinski Award for If I didn't have you

The Tuschinski Award for best graduation film of the Film Academy was awarded this afternoon at the Dutch Film Festival to Anne-Marieke Graafmans for her documentary If I didn't have you. What is special about the presentation of this award for up-and-coming talent is that the commercial cinema business and independent film criticism are here together for a while. The Tuschinski Award will be presented and with 5000 euro... 

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"1 billion loss? There are other figures." Halbe Zijlstra refers Berenschot report to trash.

At the end of August came the figures. And what figures they were. Due to the stacking of extreme cuts by government, provinces and municipalities, the abolition of the successful Work and Income for Artists Act and the equally successful culture card, plus the VAT increase on the arts, the Netherlands' cultural sector would end up missing out on €1 billion in revenue. Berenschot had estimated that in... 

Read More ""1 billion loss? There are other figures." Halbe Zijlstra refers Berenschot report to trash.

31st edition Dutch Film Festival - Cinema or iconoclasm

Will classic cinema survive the digital iconoclasm of the future? The question is not new, but it comes to mind again upon seeing the programme of the Netherlands Film Festival, which opens tonight with André van Duren's De bende van Oss. Put that opening film next to Iconoclasm, the festival's main theme, and you see what... 

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Rebellion and resignation hand in hand during beautiful opening weekend The International Choice at Rotterdam Theatre. #hechoice

Opinion pollsters take note: "People give the moderate answer to most questions they are asked in life. The characters in 'This is not a love story' are very ordinary, very average. In that, it clicks between those two. It's an ending where you feel an enormous satisfaction." Enthusiasm prevails after the opening weekend of The International Choice of the... 

Read More "Rebellion and resignation hand in hand during beautiful opening weekend The International Choice at Rotterdam Theatre. #hechoice

Budget note: We put together the cultural haircut percentages

Let's start again with yet another sloppiness of the Rutte government: that damned VAT measure on the arts, which are the only ones to be bounced to the 'normal' rate of 19%. VVD doesn't like it, CDA isn't happy about it, but, because tolerance specialist Martin Bosma once had to play a red toadstool in the school play, he has eternal... 

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Die Zeit comes up with text from porn poem Frederick the Great. But we are earlier.

Update: the poem in question was not meant to convince Voltaire of the Prussian thrust, but an Italian, Francesco Alegerotti. A scrabeus poem by Frederick the Great has surfaced. A poem, whose existence but content was unknown. Until now, that is. Today, the German quality magazine Die Zeit comes out with the full text. And Bild Zeitung has... 

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Superbly performed opera by Rimsky Korsakoff provisional highlight of changeable opening weekend Gergiev Festival

"My commitment to the city (Rotterdam) and the orchestra knows no end," Valeri Gergyev spoke on the occasion of the Gergyev Festival taking place in Rotterdam this week. This is good news, as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the former principal conductor still get along well. And to be backed by this global top-five conductor is... 

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Jacob Derwig en Elsie de Brauw ontvangen de hoogste toneelprijzen van 2011

Zondagavond 11 september zijn tijdens het Gala van het Nederlands Theater de VSCD Toneelprijzen, de VSCD Mimeprijs, de VSCD Jeugdtheaterprijzen en de AVRO Toneel Publieksprijs 2011 uitgereikt. En dat u dan weet dat VSCD staat voor de Vereniging van Schouwburg- en Concertgebouw Directies en AVRO voor Algemene Vrijzinnige Radio Omroep.  De prijs voor de beste mannelijke hoofdrol van het afgelopen… 

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Heet en zonnig weekend op vliegbasis Soesterberg: tijd voor nieuw experiment met De Dodo

Het wordt met temperaturen boven de 25 graden een broeierige, maar ook unieke zomerdag, die 10e september. Het Cultureel Persbureau is die dag en zondag met 4 journalisten aanwezig op de voormalige Vliegbasis Soesterberg om verslag te doen van festival De Basis. Wanneer u daar komt, maakt u veel natuur, nog meer indrukwekkend oorlogsverleden en een stuk of wat theatervoorstellingen… 

Read More "Heet en zonnig weekend op vliegbasis Soesterberg: tijd voor nieuw experiment met De Dodo

Royishment threatens Gouds Museum over sale of Dumas painting to unknown party

Ok. It is not Victory Boogie Woogie, the Mondrian painting that, in a distant and then cultural past, embarrassed ministry and municipality of Hilversum, because of the planned sale of the canvas to pay for the renovation of the town hall. Still. 'Schoolboys' by Marlene Dumas is also a canvas by a cherished painter, and you don't sell that either 

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New Culture Council president? 'Van Klink creates a crisis himself so he can then solve it'

Pim van Klink is his name. He has been popping up everywhere lately. Especially when the malign subsidy orientation of the cultural sector needs to be pointed out, every medium calls Van Klink first. Last week, he once again threw his hobbyhorse into the henhouse in the NRC and was invited to join Buitenhof. And according to our trench-coat-clad... 

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Kick off subsidy addiction requires greater government effort than Zijlstra wants

Arts organisations are subsidy-addicted and so we are withdrawing subsidies. The VVD's approach is clear. On the exact how, they appear to need to think longer about that, now that there is so much opposition from the country. Cold Turkey, the treatment proposed by tolerance partner (nice word in this context) PVV, could well result in deaths. To... 

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Almost had Halbe Zijlstra praising a drummer as a figurehead of our literature

Nice, that secretary of state for hard rock and Tom Clancy. Mr Halbe Zijlstra-san has once again lived up to his change manager name in China. But in a slightly different way. In the land of eternally sealed mouths, he opened the Dutch stand at the book fair there, with a speech that once again rammed Dutch values into the Chinese. Anyway... 

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Eindelijk antwoord op prangende vragen uit toneelgeschiedenis

Ooit geweten dat ‘De bruiloft van Kloris en Roosje’ in 1707 voor het eerst werd opgevoerd, en dat dit de voorloper is van de huidige oudejaarsconference? Dankzij de theaterencyclopedie die vanaf 1 september online te vinden is, zijn deze en nog vele wetenswaardigheden te vinden. Het Theaterinstituut Nederland (TIN) is initiatiefnemer en levert een groot deel van de inhoud van… 

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Afwezige aanwezigheid als vervanging van gestolen beeld

Elk nadeel heb zijn voordeel: Wie een beeld steelt uit een plantsoen maakt ruimte vrij voor een nieuw kunstwerk. Omwonenden van Utrechtse Willem de Zwijgerplantsoen keken een jaar lang tegen een lege sokkel aan, omdat ‘hun’ beeld ‘Homo Ludens‘ was gestolen door bronsdieven. Omdat niemand nog verwachtte dat het beeld terugkwam, organiseerde de gemeente een prijsvraag voor een vervangend beeld.… 

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It's final: the format for arts subsidies until 2016 is with the chamber

We have another letter from the secretary of state for culture. Halbe Zijlstra has sent it to parliament, to make it official that from 2013 a very bleak wind is going to blow in arts land. That makes cuts of 200 million final, still excluding the probably 150 million in so-called friction costs that the ministry also has to get from somewhere (u... 

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'Conceptual thundering won't get you far in London': guest column Teunkie v.d. Sluijs

"I can fire anyone here. Except the actors." Sam Walters, artistic director of London production house the Orange Tree Theatre does not mince words. "Everyone in the office could leave. The directors too. But without actors no performance." The actor is unequivocally central to this theatre. As a director, you only prove yourself here when you get top performances out of your... 

Read More "'Conceptual thundering won't get you far in London': guest column Teunkie v.d. Sluijs

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