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PODIUM ART

Anything for which people enter a stage.

Subtle but dull Fokine fine lead to Van Manen's 'Corps' and promising premiere of EGPC at the Dutch National Ballet

by Fransien van der Putt
17 September 201311 July 2016
7 min read
ACTUAL, DANS

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.

Read More "

The Red Piece - foto Maarten Vanden Abeele

Oppressive (audience) manipulation in The Red Piece

by Ruben Brugman
16 September 201311 July 2016
2 min read
DANS

'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.

Read More "Oppressive (audience) manipulation in The Red Piece

Yannick Nézet-Séguin turns Rotterdam Doelen into a swirling sea of sound

by Henri Drost
15 September 201311 July 2016
4 min read
MUSIC, OPERA

In a letter to Franz Liszt in 1852, Wagner stressed that in his Der fliegende Holländer should be shown as realistically as possible, full of violent waves. One hundred and sixty years later, Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes that advice very much to heart in port city Rotterdam. Nothing about this Holländer ripples, from the first notes it storms, culminating in a third act at hurricane force, with a leading role for the Netherlands Opera choir.

Read More "Yannick Nézet-Séguin turns Rotterdam Doelen into a swirling sea of sound

Twelve-tone horror at KCO

by Thea Derks
12 September 201330 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, FILM, MUSIC

Tonight and tomorrow night, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra kicks off the fourth season of the AAA series, with film music under the title 'Suspense'. But not everyone will immediately associate composers like Bartók, Lutyens and Schoenberg with cinema.

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A century of new music: Ruyneman and De Leeuw

by Thea Derks
7 September 201330 March 2022
4 min read
For members only, MUSIC

This month, Reinbert de Leeuw celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday. Not only do television, radio, internet media and written press devote extensive attention to the no small achievements of this champion of contemporary music, but he is also being honoured with his own festival, 'Reinbert 75'. This will be organised

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Armando Navarro (1930-2013): Scapino Ballet for more than just children

by Ruben Brugman
4 September 20138 July 2016
2 min read
ACTUAL, DANS

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).

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NJO honours Steve Reich

by Thea Derks
12 August 20138 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL, MUSIC

Ever since the establishment of the NJO Summer Academy in 2001, one composer takes centre stage every year, in the current edition it is Steve Reich (1936). During the NJO Music Summer, two hundred music students from fifteen countries will play a good number of compositions by the American grandmaster.

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Dance pioneer Ellen Edinoff matured the dance world

by Ruben Brugman
19 July 201330 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, DANS

Dancer Ellen Edinoff died in her hometown of Amsterdam on Tuesday at the age of 70. Ellen, together with her husband Koert Stuyf, formed a unique dance couple in the 1960s-'70s that reactions in extremes. The Dutch dance world came of age partly thanks to them.

Read More "Dance pioneer Ellen Edinoff matured the dance world

Departure of business leader Nederlands Dans Theater Van Leer for personal reasons

by Ruben Brugman
18 July 20138 July 2016
2 min read
ACTUAL, DANS

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.

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Taking young talent into Europe: what the Reisopera and Ajax have in common

by Henri Drost
11 July 20138 July 2016
4 min read
ACTUAL, MUSIC, OPERA

Still competing at the top and successfully entering Europe with 60 per cent less budget. Impossible, cries many. Only with a new stadium, argues another. And with extra investments in the winter break. But it can be done, according to a few.

Read More "Taking young talent into Europe: what the Reisopera and Ajax have in common

Unmercifully gracious, 'Shirokuro' builds on hammered Ustvolskaya @HollandFestival

by Fransien van der Putt
27 June 20138 July 2016
5 min read
DANS, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

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.

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Dutch Symphony Orchestra loses lawsuit and name

by Henri Drost
26 June 20138 July 2016
4 min read
ACTUAL, MUSIC, OPERA

We already wrote about the name change of the Orchestra of the East into the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (NedSym). The Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra (NedPho) was not amused and felt that the Enschede-based orchestra was infringing its trademark and trademark rights and demanded that the orchestra choose a different name. Summary proceedings followed and in April 2012 the court ruled that the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra could only not use the abbreviation NedSO, but did not have to change its name.

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Katibu di Shon, the first Curaçao opera ánd a universal story

by Henri Drost
25 June 201330 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC, OPERA

His great-great-grandfather wrote the first poem in Papiamento, winning a bet. Randal Corsen wrote the music for the first Curaçao opera. "It's a small island," laughs the composer, but then, moved: "Baffling to think how short a time this all took."

Read More "Katibu di Shon, the first Curaçao opera ánd a universal story

Franui provides the most fun Mahler evening in years at @HollandFestival

by Henri Drost
23 June 20138 July 2016
2 min read
Holland Festival, MUSIC, OPERA, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

What to expect from a 'musicabanda' from East Tyrol? Gemütliche folk music? Yodelling? Dance music for weddings and parties? An evening in a beer pub? Either way: definitely not Mahler. But why not, thought the Franui from the village of Innervillgraten. Result: an enervating performance around orchestral songs. We have never heard Mahler like this before.

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Shen Wei pulls the Dutch National Ballet out of comfort zone at @HollandFestival

by Ruben Brugman
17 June 20138 July 2016
4 min read
DANS, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

The Dutch National Ballet presents two world premieres at Holland Festival: Overture by choreographer David Dawson and Sacre du Printemps by New York-based choreographer/artist Shen Wei. Two ballets of monumental scale.

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Marie on a string: Anja Röttgerkamp stars as an unknown soldier in Gisèle Vienne's The Pyre @HollandFestival

by Fransien van der Putt
14 June 201330 March 2022
6 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, DANS, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

'The Pyre', the latest show from internationally rising star Gisèle Vienne, initially seems less disturbing than her previous work. Pieces like 'Jerk' (2008), based on the true story of a young serial killer, and 'This is how you will disappear' (2010), starring a dark forest, were only seen in a few places in the Netherlands. Hopefully, this performance at the Holland Festival will change that. Gisèle Vienne once studied harp, then philosophy and eventually trained as a puppeteer. But Vienne sees herself primarily as a visual artist working with time, on a stage, where different rhythms, motifs and figures come together.

Read More "Marie on a string: Anja Röttgerkamp stars as an unknown soldier in Gisèle Vienne's The Pyre @HollandFestival

'El Djoudour' is interesting as a cultural-political project, but does not convince artistically @Holland Festival

by Fransien van der Putt
14 June 201330 March 2022
6 min read
For members only, DANS, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

Men and women together on the dance floor, it is still forbidden in large parts of the Muslim world. Two years ago, the dance performance 'Nya' was at the Holland Festival, a piece written on the skin of nine Algerian dancers, mostly B-Boyz from the streets, but also the son of a ballet teacher from Algiers participated. This year, French choreographer Abou Lagraa, his wife Nawal Ait Benalla and much of the Algerian cast returned to the Holland Festival with a piece in which women also dance.

Read More "'El Djoudour' is interesting as a cultural-political project, but does not convince artistically @Holland Festival

Desdemona in black and white

by Thea Derks
13 June 20138 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL, Holland Festival, MUSIC

Holland Festival

Is the kingdom of the dead in the opera Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa a 3D garden full of brilliant colour, director Peter Sellars chooses in Desdemona by Toni Morrison and Rokia Traoré for sober black and white. On the stage of a sold-out Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ are glass bottles and jars, sometimes lit from below, sometimes from above, with hanging light bulbs like flickering candles. On the left are a number of ngonis (Malian lute) and two koras (Malian harp lute), played by black musicians.

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John Adams' other Gospel of Mary @HollandFestival: masterpiece just too long

by Henri Drost
9 June 201330 March 2022
3 min read
For members only, Holland Festival, MUSIC, OPERA, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

Mary is arrested at a demonstration and thrown into a cell next to a heroin addict, while her sister Martha has just started a shelter for the homeless. And Lazarus, yes, Jesus brings him back to life here too, with downright breathtaking sounds. And we are not even halfway through.

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Crushingly good: Nine Rivers by composer James Dillon, with conductor and percussionist Steven Schick @HollandFestival

by Fransien van der Putt
9 June 201330 March 2022
5 min read
ACTUAL, DANS, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

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.

Read More "Crushingly good: Nine Rivers by composer James Dillon, with conductor and percussionist Steven Schick @HollandFestival

Meistersinger @HollandFestival convinces musically only

by Henri Drost
6 June 20138 July 2016
2 min read
Holland Festival, MUSIC, OPERA, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

Cowardly knight defeats untalented rule fetishist with help from wise cobbler and wins singing contest and the hand of coquettish goldsmith's daughter. Or: boy meets girl on the streets of Nuremberg and decides to enter the local version of Nuremberg's got talent. The judges send him away, but he gets the audience vote. Wagner wouldn't be Wagner, however, if he didn't take about five hours for this story.

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Jan Kooijman en Henna Lee. Foto: Hans Gerritsen.

BN'ers at Scapino Ballet's captivating lucky draw TWOOLS

by Ruben Brugman
6 June 20138 July 2016
3 min read
DANS

As the hall fills up with BNs, TV star Jan Kooijman sits behind the wings silently practising his turnout. Girlfriend Henna Lee goes through the final steps. In a moment, the curtain opens for

Read More "

Two voices on Sunken Garden @HollandFestival part 2. Thea Derks: 'Guilt & penance before, after, with and in death'

by Thea Derks
5 June 20133 June 2019
4 min read
For members only, Holland Festival, MUSIC, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

Amsterdam, 5-6-2013 - It is difficult to go uninhibited to a production that has already caused so much controversy as Sunken Garden by Michel van der Aa. This "first 3D opera" was slammed as "soporific" after its premiere at London's Barbican Theatre last April, but also hailed as "the future of opera".

Read More "

Two voices on Sunken Garden @HollandFestival, part 1. Henri Drost: "much more than 3D film opera"

by Henri Drost
5 June 20138 July 2016
4 min read
Holland Festival, MUSIC, OPERA, SPECIALS

Holland Festival

Forget all the fuss about the first ever 3D film opera, forget all the fuss in British newspapers. Michel van der Aa himself sighed in interview that, on reflection, he would have loved to have made the second 3D film opera. And perhaps he had

Read More "