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PODIUM ART

Alles waarvoor mensen een podium betreden.

Kameropera ‘Ik vertrek’: weg van de smartphone

Vorig jaar dé hit van het Stadsfestival Zwolle, dit jaar opnieuw te zien bij NJO Muziekzomer: de opera Ik vertrek van Lucas Wiegerink. De NJO Muziekzomer trapt vandaag, 4 augustus zijn nieuwe editie af met de publiek toegankelijke generale repetitie van The Mother of Black-Winged Dreams van Hanna Kulenty. Over deze opera, waarin hoofdpersoon Clara wordt belaagd door innerlijke demonen, schreef ik hier afgelopen week… 

Performing arts employers (NAPK) angry: subsidy system must change

They totally agree with us, the employers in the performing arts sector. These company and theatre directors and other managers of dwindling coffers, gathered in the Dutch Association of Performing Arts (NAPK), are circulating a letter today, calling on the Lower House to review the system of subsidies. After all, now the middle class is falling between the cracks. Has happened before, and... 

ISH Fund Performing Arts awards

Performing Arts Fund cuts dance subsidies. Not enough, according to some.

The Performing Arts Fund announced the awards for the 2017-2020 period. What does this mean for the dance sector? Pluralism and 'bleeding through'. While everyone is on holiday, the Performing Arts Fund announced the grant awards for the performing arts for the 2017-2020 period. And it was reiterated: the fund is facing a previously initiated budget cut of 30 per cent. That would... 

Performing Arts Fund Budget

Performing Arts Fund announces battleground. It's as bad as we feared.

The effects of the previous cabinet's arts cuts are finally becoming clear. The Performing Arts Fund today announced the winners and losers of the battle for four-year subsidies. From 2017, the Dutch art world will be a lot smaller, more meagre and poorer than it was until 2013. Big names are gone, traditions broken down, while what is new faces an extremely uncertain existence.

Waanzinnige heldin in opera Hanna Kulenty

Een opera over het meervoudig persoonlijkheidssyndroom, kan dat wel? De Pools-Nederlandse componist Hanna Kulenty (1961) en de Canadese librettist Paul Goodman (1955) waagden het en oogstten veel lof met The Mother of Black-Winged Dreams. Deze opera beleeft volgende week zaterdag 6 augustus zijn Nederlandse première tijdens de NJO Muziekzomer, in een coproductie met Dutch National Opera Academy. Waanzinnige heldinnen, de gangbare operaliteratuur wemelt… 

Swans 2016

These are the winners of the Swans 2016. Or not.

Three dancers and three dance productions have been nominated for Swans 2016. On Friday 7 October in Maastricht, Daphne Bunskoek and Art Rooijakkers will announce who the winners are during the Nederlandse Dansdagen's Opening Programme 2016. But you can already draw a few conclusions from the list of nominees.

Romeo and Juliet: loose highlights in the Amsterdam Forest

Huge passenger trunks, like those at the airport, are stacked crosswise on the stage in the Amsterdam Forest. This immense rendition forms the backdrop of Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare in the Amsterdam Bostheater's performance. Director Ingejan Ligthart Schenk stages Shakespeare's classic modern, with acrobatics by the Tent Circustheater group and musical input by De Veenfabriek.

Joseph Puglia shines in music Luciano Berio

American-Dutch violinist Joseph Puglia is a passionate advocate of contemporary music. Last year he scored highly with his rendition of the Violin Concerto by Anders Hillborg, together with the young musicians of the NJO Symphony Orchestra. He is first violinist of Asko|Schönberg, with whom he presented the world premiere of the violin concerto composed especially for him earlier this year Roads to Everywhere By Joey Roukens.

Tefer, Itamar Serussi, Balletto di Roma, photo: Matteo Carratoni

Julidans double bill with Levi and Serussi mostly raises questions

It is a new and important trend within the programming of international dance and performance festivals in the Netherlands: not only showing relevant work by international choreographers, but also paying explicit attention to dance makers connected to Dutch dance practice. Spring Utrecht opened in May with Nicole Beutler and closed with Jan Martens, while during Julidans Pere Faura was allowed to kick off with sin baile no hay paraíso (no dance, no paradise).

Ed Spanjaard is the ideal new leader of the Orchestra of the East

After it was announced in January this year that Jan Willem de Vriend was leaving at the end of the 2016/2017 season, the Orchestra of the East announced that it was in no hurry to find a successor. One would start working with "renowned guest conductors". Just over six months later, a few months before the departure of interim director Bart van Meijl, a successor was still presented. That this successor, Ed Spanjaard, is given the title of 'permanent conductor' seems mainly a semantic issue.

Theatre festival Boulevard

Theatre Festival Boulevard: Not the Avignon, but the Berlin of the Netherlands?

There are many reasons not to go on holiday. It costs money, you come back more stressed than you went, the food is no good, it costs tons of CO2 and it doesn't increase mutual understanding between countries either. Reason enough, then, to just stay here and enjoy the free time given to you by the boss, or by yourself if you are self-employed. Without being barked at by airport staff.

Jubilee concert #DNO: unnecessary flexing of muscles

'I feel cheated,' said the man next to me as we left the auditorium at ten to nine-thirty. He had come all the way from Tilburg to the Stopera for the concert that concluded the National Opera's 50th anniversary on Wednesday 29 June. 'It will take me even longer than the concert lasted, including intermission,' he grumbled. He also had little to say about the offering itself. And that while all around us the audience stood on their seats to cheer on the internationally renowned soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek.

Screenshot of Nieuwsuur Geert Wilders,

Oy. @geertwilderspvv sets Richard III as an example to the Netherlands

Finally, it was not quite literal, but he was clearly referring to it: Richard III. Geert Wilders, himself not too culturally savvy, quotes Shakespeare in his umpteenth plea to get the Netherlands out of the EU with pot-covered borders. In the second chamber. I saw it on Nieuwsuur, and you can watch it back. At 39′:49″ minutes into the broadcast he is in debate with his great friend, the VVD's Halbe Zijlstra.

Suburbia’s Vijand van het Volk waarschuwt voor neoliberalisme

Vijand van het Volk is de zomervoorstelling van Theatergroep Suburbia, in de regie van Albert Lubbers. Het stuk haakt aan bij de actualiteit van corrupte bankiers, milieuschandalen en overheidsdienaren die klokkenluiderkwesties in de doofpot stoppen. Deze sterke voorstelling is scherp van toon, polemisch en met vileine humor. Beter dan in eerdere Suburbia-voorstellingen past het vertrouwde dynamische acteerwerk mooi in de theatrale ruimte. Dit keer is dat de grote open schuur op Stadslandgoed de Kemphaan.

Nicolas Mansfield: Today I feel more European than ever. #Brexit

24th of June, 2016. What a day. I spent it at the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science in The Hague. Speaking with civil servants about the achievements, plans, challenges and dreams of the Dutch National Touring Opera. All in the shadow of something I find difficult to process. 

Akram Khan Until the Lions © Jean Louis Fernandez

Akram Khan's 'Until the Lions' drags you through borders #HF16

As soon as you enter the Ketelhuis of Amsterdam's Westergasfabriek, a dark droning tone takes you into the misty, somewhat ominous atmosphere of 'Until the Lions' by Akram Khan Company. A huge disc from a tree trunk, with jagged annual rings and cracks, will become the scene of a mythical battle. At stake is the human body: weak, strong, male, female. Boundaries will perish.

Roaring, pounding big band overwhelms with conspiracies #hf16

A big band, a ticking clock, conspiracy theories and twelve-tonality. Mix that in a theatrical setting and it can go whooping out of control. Yet composer Darcy James Argue manages to make it a propulsive and energising whole, with help from director Isaac Butler and cinematographer Peter Nigrihi.

Wunderbaum sends you into the night with a smile #HF16

This year's Holland Festival spotlights Rotterdam-based theatre collective Wunderbaum with the revival of 'The Coming of Xia', premieres of 'Privacy' and 'The Future of Sex' and the film 'Stop acting now'. With this film, Wunderbaum concludes their four-year project 'The New Forest', a 'Platform for social change', according to Wunderbaum, "The New Forest depicts transition and casts a... 

Stella actors Oscar Batterham and Richard Cant © Matthew Hargraves

Neil Bartlett's Stella: so perfect it's a bit irritating #HF16

The smallest details speak for themselves. For the second time during this edition of the Holland Festival, the legendary BBC series This Life comes along. Richard Cant, who plays a flawless lead role in Neil Bartlett's play Stella, has previously appeared in This Life, the series that set the standard for the modern docusoap in 1996. So now live, up close, in De Brakke Grond's Red Hall, the man who also played a solid role in Midsomer Murders.

Olga Neuwirth sticks to old avant-garde #HF16

It is good that the Holland Festival dares to stick its neck out, by making Olga Neuwirth (1968), unknown here, its focus composer this year. On reflection, by the way, I would have preferred to hear her high-profile opera Bählamms Fest in a staged version once, rather than Le Encantadas. This piece composed last year did not quite manage to live up to the high expectations... 

Pascal Gallois: formidable champion of the bassoon #HF16

Bassoonist Pascal Gallois gets laughs when he tries in vain to insert the flowers he has just received into the tube of his instrument. Also in the now classic Dialogue de l'ombre double by Pierre Boulez, he manages to make the audience chuckle on Sunday 19 June, when he produces a kind of elephant-like trumpet with much misfiring. His performance is part of the action ''Save the bassoon', which will conclude on Sunday 25 June with a concert at the Holland Festival Proms at the Concertgebouw. For this hundreds of (amateur) bassoonists ON. Action successful, in other words.

Grunberg doesn't come out of his hole in The Future of Sex #HF16

Woody Allen made sure in 1972 that his fans could not watch Star Wars with dry eyes years later. The final scene of his film 'Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, But Were Afraid To Ask' shows us the male brain as the bridge of a Star Cruiser where the crew is hard at work to bring a date to a successful conclusion. The spermatozoa in the front are a squabbling gang of take-off runners, heading for an uncertain descent towards beating egg.

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