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ACTUAL

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

Bettina Masuch on 'her' Springdance: 'Sometimes you wonder if you want to watch it, but then you watch it anyway....

Bettina Masuch (1964) has been artistic director of Springdance since 2008 and presents its third festival programme this year. We asked the woman behind this leading festival for innovative dance about this season's highlights. One of the performances she describes already makes us very curious: the Japanese street fighters of Contact Gonzo. Could just happen that somewhere between 14 and... 

Read More "Bettina Masuch on 'her' Springdance: 'Sometimes you wonder if you want to watch it, but then you watch it anyway....

Province investigates: 'Utrecht worth 1 billion more thanks to arts sector'

Art costs money. The current Rutte administration has hammered that into it: it's expensive, no one but a small club of insiders goes there, and either way those are leftists or pseudo-leftists who can easily pay for it themselves. So much for the government's opinion. The opinion of the art world can be guessed: it is... 

Read More "Province investigates: 'Utrecht worth 1 billion more thanks to arts sector'

Superior played-in recordings are no guarantee of delivering a reference CD

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra currently has an unprecedented luxury: it is releasing CDs on two labels at the same time. How is that possible? The orchestra signed under its own name with BIS Records, the label with which the eccentric owner Von Bahr releases one extraordinary recording after another, while chief conductor Yannick Néze-Séguin is old-fashionedly under contract as maestro with EMI.... 

Read More "Superior played-in recordings are no guarantee of delivering a reference CD

The soup in The Hague is being eaten hotter than it is being served: 'no pass in 2013′

This message has since been confirmed by the Halbe Zijlstra on 14 March. We thank our source for being accurate. We once again visited our trench-coat-clad coughing chain-smoker in his Hague car park. Because there had been no news from The Hague for another week, and with the elections so close to the door, that's always... 

Read More "The soup in The Hague is being eaten hotter than it is being served: 'no pass in 2013′

'There are provinces where you can vote VVD or CDA just fine'; new website gives voting tips to art lovers

It looked like a party. Coffee and flan, a Maastricht song, brass band music and a speech by Prince Carnival. Optimism surrounded the launch of the website nadeschreeuwnudestem.nl on 21 February. Surely the cry for culture in November was mainly a voice of dissent. Now there is a chance to take forward-looking action. 'Mobilise everyone you know to join the March 2... 

Read More "'There are provinces where you can vote VVD or CDA just fine'; new website gives voting tips to art lovers

Rutteleaks 3: we now know how barren it will look in the coming years: decimate culture and libraries, spare regional broadcasters

We had done the necessary research work ourselves, and then it turned out that something had also been sent to the House of Representatives, which contained many more figures. We asked for those figures and were shocked. After 2012, when the current arts plan expires and after a year of inaction and wait and see for the whole sector a... 

Read More "Rutteleaks 3: we now know how barren it will look in the coming years: decimate culture and libraries, spare regional broadcasters

Yannick spurs his orchestra to a memorable and historic performance of Prokofiev's fifth symphony

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra is rated differently by conductors. Either you can get along with it and then it's a party, or it never becomes anything and then it stays at the occasional conducting session. Moreover, the musicians' enormous responsiveness is feared.

Read More "Yannick spurs his orchestra to a memorable and historic performance of Prokofiev's fifth symphony

Reviewers on the fortieth Rotterdam International Film Festival: lots of Chinese loneliness and that Russian needs to hit the cinemas

OK. A pilot. When Jeroen Stout lost his Wednesday film fork in Radio Kunststof on Radio 1 in December 2010, we made him an offer he could easily refuse: to do something like that with us. But that we would then look for a way that suits The Dodo. After all, audio online may be the... 

Read More "Reviewers on the fortieth Rotterdam International Film Festival: lots of Chinese loneliness and that Russian needs to hit the cinemas

The deeper caverns of an adult film festival. Sven Schlijper on safari during IFFR 2011

The International Film Festival Rotterdam celebrates its fortieth edition with a fitting XL programme. That Roman numeral XL not only indicates respectable age. It also says something about size: this fortieth also bursts with the intiguing programme, with screenings at no less than forty locations throughout the inner city of Rotterdam. Inside the festival walls is... 

Read More "The deeper caverns of an adult film festival. Sven Schlijper on safari during IFFR 2011

US grantmaker wants an art world with more creativity and less money

Now in terms of tax money, they already spend hardly anything on the arts, in America. But many think even that is too much. Earlier, we reported on Facebook and Twitter about Republican America's call to abolish subsidies altogether. Meanwhile, the president of the National American Arts Fund NAE (National Endowment of the Arts) has taken a bat... 

Read More "US grantmaker wants an art world with more creativity and less money

Call: It's not that bad everywhere, is it? We want hard figures culture budgets municipalities and provinces plz RT

If you work at a municipality or province and/or know the exact measures your government organisation will take in the coming years in the field of culture, we would like to have those figures. It may be anonymous, of course, if you don't want your exact cuts or investments to be out on the street, and it saves us a lot of wob... 

Read More "Call: It's not that bad everywhere, is it? We want hard figures culture budgets municipalities and provinces plz RT

IFFR 2011 - Slotted screening of high-profile Egyptian drama 678

With a last-minute added screening of the Egyptian drama 678, which caused quite a stir in Cairo in December, Rotterdam was still able to catch up a little on Egyptian current events. 678 dispenses with the myth that Egyptian women can protect themselves from handsome men by wearing a headscarf. In the loosely fact-based... 

Read More "IFFR 2011 - Slotted screening of high-profile Egyptian drama 678

IFFR 2011 - Tiger Eyes is beautiful ode to personal cinema

Those who did not attend the first cinema screening of Tiger Eyes yesterday would do well to tune in to Nederland 2 on Tuesday night. That is the television premiere of this Frank Scheffer-directed anniversary film with which the Rotterdam Film Festival celebrates its fortieth edition. In Tiger Eyes, seven directors who together represent the kind of cinema that Rotterdam strongly... 

Read More "IFFR 2011 - Tiger Eyes is beautiful ode to personal cinema

Liszt's music is too important to ignore

Fransz Litszt, born in 1811, explored every nook and cranny of the piano in his work, trying to incorporate every conceivable technique. As this contemporary of Carl Czerny, Niccolo Paganini and Richard Wagner was born 200 years ago this year, so there is a Liszt year. The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra bit the bullet of that on Friday 28 January,... 

Read More "Liszt's music is too important to ignore

With the best actors of their generation, Oostpool makes beautiful theatre of J.D. Salinger's America

Things become more fascinating when you look back on them 30 years or so later. Three decades make the life you were once in the middle of history, and that is happening to my generation (40-somethings) now with the second half of the last century. Hence the success of Jonathan Frantzen's masterpieces Freedom and The Corrections, and hence the success of a DVD series like Mad Men.... 

Read More "With the best actors of their generation, Oostpool makes beautiful theatre of J.D. Salinger's America

Ifigeneia had to die, according to the reconstruction by the jubilee Theatre Group Alum

"That looks like a book series!" my wife spoke with some horror upon seeing the cover of 'The Revenge of Iphigenia'. And yes, it has to be said: in book format, the poster of Theatre Group Alum's latest theatre production is a bit too much of a stretch. From the A0 poster, you would never have thought so. Indeed: those posters of Alum, which... 

Read More "Ifigeneia had to die, according to the reconstruction by the jubilee Theatre Group Alum

IFFR 2011 - Tiger from Sri Lanka kicks off, courtesy of taxpayers

The first film from the Tiger competition for new talent that Rotterdam festival audiences got to see on Friday was Flying Fish from Sri Lanka. Director Sanjee Pushpakumara, present at the screening, was clearly overwhelmed. He himself was seeing his film on the big screen for the first time, and in front of a sold-out audience. His acceptance speech was not only touching but... 

Read More "IFFR 2011 - Tiger from Sri Lanka kicks off, courtesy of taxpayers

Eternal chairman Hans Onno van den Berg leaves Association of Theatre and Concert Hall managements

He was pretty much fused with it. Hans Onno van den Berg was the VSCD. And that ís so until 1 September, when he leaves as chairman of the Association of Theatre and Concert Hall Directors. So we heard from a very reliable grapevine. And we have since received confirmation, albeit a week later. Far too late according to some, far too... 

Read More "Eternal chairman Hans Onno van den Berg leaves Association of Theatre and Concert Hall managements

Greek debutant and Polish veteran open International Film Festival Rotterdam (XL edition)

There are great skateboarding scenes in the Greek Wasted Youth with which the Rotterdam Film Festival opened its 40th edition tonight. Lyrical, but with that hearty dose of raw nervousness that suits this attempt to capture the sense of life of a city or perhaps an entire country in crisis. Wasted Youth, selected for the Tiger Competition for budding filmmakers, is the ostensible... 

Read More "Greek debutant and Polish veteran open International Film Festival Rotterdam (XL edition)

"Characteristic of the book trade remains the endless chatter, but this evening I wouldn't have wanted to miss." All tweets from #evdu, with video.

Interesting things are happening these days. The digital revolution is beginning to have traces of a real revolution. No one has yet set themselves on fire, as in Tunisia, but more and more people are taking to the virtual streets to overthrow the old powers: after the record companies, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people downloading, and the newspapers, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people searching freely for information, it now seems to be the turn of book publishers.

Read More ""Characteristic of the book trade remains the endless chatter, but this evening I wouldn't have wanted to miss." All tweets from #evdu, with video.

Diego del Morao does himself a great disservice at Flamenco Biennale with unprofessional stage presentation

Between 21 and 30 January 2011, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam will host the Flamenco Biennial, a music and dance fest around that mythical Spanish primal music that leaves no one untouched. A style of music, moreover, that developed in parallel with the history of the Iberian peninsula, where the culture of the Indian Roma gypsies came together with that of the... 

Read More "Diego del Morao does himself a great disservice at Flamenco Biennale with unprofessional stage presentation

"RutteLeaks": Prime minister and state secretary don't know their own figures: income requirements for arts institutions already met in 2007 and most subsidy already going to successful institutions

We already thought something was wrong when Mark Rutte, in his much applauded show of strength in Buitenhof, spoke of 'all those empty halls with 10 people in the front row'. Ok, he hadn't been there himself for years, but according to his State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra, at least in The Hague, the emptiness was glaring, Rutte knew.... 

Read More ""RutteLeaks": Prime minister and state secretary don't know their own figures: income requirements for arts institutions already met in 2007 and most subsidy already going to successful institutions

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