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DANS

Usually without lyrics, often with music, always with movement

Culture Council fill-in exercise offers hardly any surprises

Champagne at BAK in Utrecht, deep disappointment at The New Institute in Rotterdam: the Council for Culture has spoken. Today, Thursday 19 May 2016, the first advice after the draconian art cuts by the first Rutte cabinet came out, and heads are rolling. Amsterdam loses prestigious presentation institution De Appel, in The Hague fellow institution Stroom has to redo its homework. The Orkest van het Oosten and the Gelders Orkest have to come up with merger plans within two years. In Utrecht, the city company Theater Utrecht will no longer receive funding despite artistic appreciation. Het Zuidelijk Toneel in Eindhoven Tilburg must make new plans and Opera Zuid must quickly raise its artistic quality. These are the main conclusions of the Culture Council's opinion.

As dramatic as some of this may sound, the advice is actually not, when you look over the whole battlefield. Thanks in part to

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Creatures ISH and The Ballet Orchestra

Total spectacle Creatures turns The Ballet Orchestra upside down

In the huge Zuiveringshal of Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek, musicians from jubilee Het Balletorkest live it up on stage in the creative dance performance Creatures. They even lie flat on the floor or swing loose in a small big band.

'Come and see that, Creatures: special show with fifty musicians and ten breakdancers," shouts the man at the door. The last tickets for the premiere must be sold. Creatures is at the Zuiveringshal in Amsterdam for a fortnight. Schools visit the show during the week, on weekends anyone can see it. But Creatures is such a

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Interview Jiří Kylián on Free Fall in Korzo

Jiří Kylián: 'The silence of a photograph, I love that'

With Free Fall, Jiří Kylián shows his photographic works for the first time. He talks enthusiastically about his discoveries, his inspiration, and Sabine. The house in The Hague where Jiří Kylián has lived for more than 30 years radiates joy of life. Warm colour tones, fragrant flowers, classicist furnishings yet cosy. Unmistakably the 'touch of a woman.' That woman is Sabine Kupferberg, the life partner and... 

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The five shows you must see in May

Toneelschuur, Don Carlos (stage) Nina Spijkers brings Friedrich Schiller's classic play back to its essence. No lavish scenery depicting the Spanish court, but canvases peeled off layer by layer. playlist M31 Foundation, Nederlandse Reisopera, Theater na de Dam, Der Kaiser von Atlantis (opera) Forty years after its world premiere at Theater Bellevue, Victor Ullmann's Der Kaiser von Atlantis will be re... 

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Sensorium: see, hear, feel, smell and dance!

How do you get children moving? How do you stimulate their creativity? How do children learn to dance if they have little experience with dance, or other expressive artistic expressions? ICKamsterdam is developing a toolkit for dance teachers in primary education: Sensorium. By stimulating the various senses - eyes, ears, touch and nose - the body is invited to respond with movement. I am in a... 

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Roméo et Juliette proves: synthesis of opera and ballet exists

Most impressive is the moment when the orchestra falls silent and Romeo tries desperately to storm the white wall behind which his sweetheart Juliet has disappeared. Time after time, he runs up the steep slope, only to slide down defeated each time. His wild jumps and trotting make his black coat tails flutter high, as if he were a tipsy bird in... 

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Doelenzaal

Once sold for a guilder: now everyone out of the Doelenzaal

The historic Doelenzaal in Amsterdam, home to Internationaal Danstheater, will have flats. Those currently sitting there will have to leave. Doelenzaal sold The users of the Doelenzaal can all leave: International Dance Theatre, Omscholingsfonds Dansers, Dancing on the Edge, Musicians without Borders and Windmill Film. Because the building's new owner wants flats. The Doelenzaal, a design by architects Beirer and Bekkers who... 

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What is the relevance of contemporary dance?

Last weekend's workshop The Relevance of Dance, organised by Dansmakers Amsterdam and the European Dance House Network, sought to answer the question: What is the relevance of contemporary dance art for audiences? Suzy Blok, general director of Dansmakers Amsterdam, opened the atelier by talking about the desire of production houses to bring dance more to the... 

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Dying Swan (Rinus Sprong), photo Studio Oostrum

Even with eyes closed, DEDJDD's Ballet Blanc is a beautiful evening

The Zuiderstrandtheater in The Hague premiered Ballet Blanc on 8 March. It is the new full-length performance by The Dutch Junior Dance Division. The young dancers tour the country with a collage of fifteen short pieces. Blanc is the unifying factor in a fresh mix of classical and modern ballet, with tragedy, poignancy and humour. The juniors... 

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Moisio's choreography 'Mum's the Word' makes you yearn for peace and freedom

Mothers and daughters: is there a closer bond? Their lives are an extension of each other. Mother treads the same path her daughter will later follow. She is a friend, to whom one can always fall back. But under the skin, a suffocating power struggle rages in which they hold and attack each other. Jealousy and competition gnaw at the domestic idyll. Escape is impossible. It is a... 

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Choreographer Erik Kaiel: 'No longer controlling everything from my laptop'

On 30 January, choreographer Erik Kaiel was presented with the prestigious Victor Award at IPAY, an international youth theatre fair in Canada, for his performance Tetris. "It's a kind of Buchmesse for youth theatre. If you get picked up there, you go around the world" says Kaiel. Kaiel (1973) has been working in the Netherlands since 2003 and has so far produced his work at... 

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something raw logo

This was Something Raw 2016: less rebellious, more social

The raw in Something Raw can mean all sorts of things. The first thought might be something rough, as in the effect of sandpaper on skin or the havoc left by an elephant in the china shop. But rough is a derivative meaning. Raw first of all means unprocessed and fresh. There is a certain hope in the combination of rough and raw: artists who like... 

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Rader works and rebellious emotions

Years ago, Nederlands Dans Theater profiled itself with the slogan "challenging dance". That applies well to Straight Around. This performance by youth company NDT2 premiered at Holland Dance Festival in The Hague on 18 February. The company does not immediately make things easy for its audience with the four danced pieces, but for those who know how to empathise, there is... 

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Self-employed: you don't have to be able to do everything on your own, seek career guidance!

Following the exploration of the labour market in the cultural sector made by the Social and Economic Council (SER) and the Council for Culture last month, there was a lot of attention on the low earning self-employed in the cultural sector. Promising headlines such as "Everyone gets paid except the artist" (NRC) and "It's a matter of waiting every month to see if I earn enough" (Volkskrant) could account for recognition... 

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National Opera and Ballet 2016-17: Back to normal

'In the new season, we go back to normal,' Pierre Audi said on Monday 15 February during the presentation of the new season of The National Opera. He does, however, continue the forward-looking Opera Forward Festival, which was set up to mark its 50th anniversary. There are also quite a few new own productions on the roll, including the world premiere of... 

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Contemporary trends in theatre and performance at Something Raw Festival 2016

Three mongols playing Mongols. Dschingis Khan, the opening performance of Something Raw, is provocative and consequential. With this performance by German theatre collective Monstertruck, or the also Berlin-based Man Power Mix by Sheena Mcgrandles and Zinzi Buchanan, the festival Something Raw lives up to its name. Something Raw is a festival in which Amsterdam theatres Frascati, De Brakke... 

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Holland Festival 2016: urgent, challenging and inviting

Never before has the Holland Festival placed itself at the centre of society as it is today. The 2016 programme is steeped in the turbulent times in which we live. The Netherlands holds the presidency of the European Union this spring. Artistic director Ruth Mackenzie has taken this fact unflinchingly to give 'Europe' a wide place in the programming. In presenting... 

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Van Veen (vvd), Pechtold (d66) and Monasch (pvda) during the culture budget debate

We were read in 2015: 300,000 visitors, a total of 10,000 hours of reading time.

Time for our success list. In 2015, we attracted 60,000 more visitors than in 2014. That's something to be proud of. A website that focuses on the stories that existing media find the small, and then figures like that. That we attracted those 300,000 visitors is one, that they spent an average of 2 and a half minutes per story,... 

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Mrs Cornelys' scandalous salon

Mrs Cornelys' Entertainments. Under that remarkable title, baroque company New Dutch Academy presented a concert in a theatrical setting. The Hague's Korzo Theatre turned into a society evening. Visiting a much-discussed lady from 18th-century London. It was a feast for the eyes and ears. New Dutch Academy has a changing line-up in addition to some permanent members. The Academy keeps itself - the name... 

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Isabelle Beernaert

Isabelle Beernaert does it again in Under My Skin

When the car park of the Zuiderstrandtheater is full at a pre-premiere, you know something exciting is happening inside. And that's right: Isabelle Beernaert and her ensemble present the new production Under My Skin. Dance like an Instagram account: popular, photogenic and ephemeral. Woman Actually, dance is like a Pinterest account. Because that seems to be mostly for women. And there is a lot of... 

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In the theatre, all fear disappears

I hesitated for a while whether to report on the theatre workshop offered to Syrian refugees by Koon Theatre on Monday 9 November, as part of Dancing on the Edge. During the workshop, the refugees prepared a short presentation to be shown in Stadsschouwburg Utrecht on Friday 13 November, prior to the theatre performance Above Zero. The reason... 

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imen smaoui

Dancing on the Edge pulls you onto the stage. Literally.

No war scares or torturous refugee issues tonight 5 November, but getting unexpectedly intimate on stage with a strange woman. That could happen to you during Dancing on the Edge. The congenial, biennial festival featuring artists from the Middle East and North Africa can be seen in several cities until 14 November. Once started by race entrepreneur and dancer Gary Feingold, the... 

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Dancing on the Edge festival started with a sense of urgency.

At Amsterdam's Brakke Grond, the Dancing on the Edge festival (DOTE) opened yesterday with an evening that immediately showed what the span is all about. The first performance, Blank, engaged directly with the audience. The second, and official opening performance, Plastic, was more about the dynamics between the performers themselves and with the soundscape. With her opening speech 

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AUREUM by Medhi Walerski, still from trailer

Young choreographers triumph in NDT2's 'Shearing the Wolves'

In the wings of Nederlands Dans Theater, the new generation of dance makers is ready. Medhi Walerski and Johan Inger are both former dancers of the company and have previously created pieces there. In NDT2's Shearing the Wolves programme, they each surprise with a world premiere full of intense, pure dance. In comparison, an older work by house choreographers Sol Léon and... 

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