Usually without lyrics, often with music, always with movement
Jiří Kylián is not at the Holland Festival. He has his own festival. The small Korzo theatre hosted ten days of intimate works by the great choreographer. Varied and still impressive. Next year, Kylián will have been a choreographer for 45 years. How do you keep performing at the world's top for so long?
It seems like a statement, opening the latest Holland Festival under Pierre Audi's direction with 'Vortex Temporum'. The collaboration between the two top Belgian ensembles Rosas and Ictus does everything that is scarce in the present day.
Dancing in front of 58 world leaders, and of course Obama himself. As a thread, as an opening act. Just imagine the assignment. For three months, Conny Janssen Danst secretly worked on this mission. Until Monday 24 March the happened.
[UPDATE 19-2-2014: meanwhile the appointment is final]
This week, French media surfaced messages on that Emio Greco is the only candidate left to become Frédéric Flamand's successor at the CCN Ballet National de Marseille. However, the culture minister has yet to confirm the appointment, ICKamsterdam reported.
The Source of Inspiration Gala of the Holland Dance Festival is a relaxed exhibition of dance that runs from 26 January to 17 February to be seen during festival. It is the second large dance gala in a week. Can that go well? The final tips for a successful gala.
The dance industry is not doing very well at all, people say. I spoke to a dance marketer who told me that venues are often only a quarter full. And that includes dance makers who have a Oscar for dance have won. What does attract a lot of audiences are fairy tales. And Isabelle Beernaert.
What explains the success of this Belgian choreographer?
The bodies of Fokine, Van Manen and EGPC in the Dutch National Ballet's new programme 'Corps' are vastly different, though they all dance a form of ballet. It is the differences in stakes (decorative or expressive, stylised control or individual surrender, full of symbolism or stripped of it) and the key role for the ensemble that make the programme extremely interesting. Besides the fact that EGPC seems to be on its way to an artistic breakthrough.
'Don't let anyone leave the room without having experienced or felt something.' That is surely and surely the mission with Flemish Ann Van den Broek's work. If the mood swings in The Red Piece don't do much to you, your retinas will burn out from the changes in lighting design. You might just think you are being manipulated as an audience. But you gladly allow it.
Armando Navarro (Argentina, 1930 - Amsterdam 2013), former artistic director of Scapino Ballet, passed away last Sunday. Together with his wife Marian Sarstädt formed Navarro one of the Netherlands' best-known dance couples, alongside Han Ebbelaar and Alexandra Radius (Het Nationale Ballet) and Jiří Kylián and Sabine Kupferberg (Nederlands Dans Theater).
On the day that a vote was to be held in The Hague on the new Spui Forum, it has been announced that Robert van Leer is leaving as business director of Nederlands Dans Theater. Van Leer is resigning for purely "personal reasons", according to the press officer of the renowned dance company.
The collaboration between pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama and choreographer Nicole Beutler in the performance 'Shirokuro', seen last week at the Holland Festival, provides a beautiful perspective on two piano sonatas by Galina Ustvolskaya. 'Shirokuro' means black and white in Japanese. Despite strong visuals and impressive co-protagonists on stage, the Russian composer's absolute music is never explained and therefore retains its sheer power.
Holland Festival
Holland Festival
From the mild, everyday cacophony around the Muziekgebouw in the afternoon, on the terrace by the IJ, you'll get into the silence of the concert hall in a few steps. For three and a half hours (with over two hours of breaks in between), Asko|Schönberg, Slagwerk Den Haag and Capella Amsterdam will play and sing your ears off. Steven Schick (a.o. once Bang on a Can), not only conducts, but also takes charge of the middle part of the concert, at the Bimhuis, as a percussionist. Under his inspired direction, 'Nine Rivers' navigates between spectacle and purism: a battle between complex form and the simplicity of raw sound matter.
Holland Festival
This month is all about the Holland Festival. Culture Press reports almost daily. What are we most looking forward to?
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