Anything for which people enter a stage.
'We would have actually been presented with the award last week at the premiere of Grimm. That was our big production this season that was to play 30 times. But after the second rehearsal, we were able to stop. It seriously looks like we won't be seen in theatres this year. When in autumn the...
'Yes, of course it was something we already saw coming in every way. That made me mentally prepared. But then when you actually hear it... It's just SO sour. It's every time - I don't blame anyone, to be clear - but every time you get bad news, you try...
It is with great regret that the Holland Festival is forced to cancel the 73rd edition, which was to take place from 4 to 28 June 2020. The corona pandemic's persistent, domestic and foreign restrictions and uncertainties make it impossible for the international performing arts festival to take place. The ongoing, restrictive measures that the central government had to announce 21 April last,...
80 million it should cost, and it should hold a lot of people, with three theatres, and it should all happen on the lot now occupied by the Theater aan de Parade in Den Bosch. That has proved so difficult that there has been fuss about it since 2006. Now there is a draft, approved and all, of...
'Last (Silent, ed.) Saturday we ventured out to dinner at friends', my husband and I once again. We were tired of just talking about Corona. Then we agreed to have a music night. We all work in classical music, but agreed to listen to precisely no classical music. It became a...
We are now a good month after the start of the intelligent lockdown. Slowly, a new normal is beginning to emerge, where we are no longer exclusively fanatically following all the tweets about corona. The concerns are still there and certainly where the cultural sector is concerned. The entire sector, nationally and internationally, is engaged in the titanic task of keeping the public...
Maybe I am not looking closely but I miss in the various media, as I did years ago during the demolition policy, the role of amateur music practice on which many a musician depends. At the moment, the focus is partly on venues and theatres asking their visitors to accept vouchers or donate their tickets. Fine...
'When the lockdown came, we actually decided right away to continue, but online. So we opened digital studios.' Like so many others, the Hague Theatre House also entered the digital world of Zoom, the app with which Culture Press also records podcasts remotely. 'People rehearse for presentations and performances. We have created a talent environment for that. An online place with films,...
We always try to look for a bright spot anyway, but sometimes you just have to let it go. On Monday 6 April 2020, we brought you a post on how the corona crisis is having long after-effects, which have been casting their shadow for at least a year. Today, we talk to Victorine Plante and Erik Snel of Alum, the bringer of that first post. In the...
Earlier this week, Minister Van Engelshoven appealed to the public to start donating en masse "to your favourite (cultural) institution". She also hinted at her willingness to explore within the cabinet the extent to which donations to cultural institutions can be made extra attractive as an income tax deduction at this very moment. Meanwhile, however, within...
Utrecht-based theatre group Aluin is in dire straits. Like all other theatre companies, they cannot do their work, and performances have been postponed or cancelled. That it does not only apply to ongoing tours is now apparent. Performances scheduled for autumn and next spring have also been cancelled. The company reports this in a press release. Alum would...
'Exercising at home is very nice to do. In your own living room, you have no shame.' Dereck Cayla is associated with ICK Amsterdam, the capital's urban dance company. Now that all performances are down and he can no longer train with the company's dancers in the studio, he offers his lessons online. For ICK's own professionals,...
'The world around us is changing, after this period we will speak about a period BC and AC'. Words from a wise dance maker from the Hofstad, referring to the period before and after the Coronavirus. However, you can also relate it to the news from the Hague dance world. What is the news? Sol Léon and Paul Lightfoot decided that...
'Thea, have you heard that new piece yet? It's beautiful!' And there plopped another wetransfer in with a recording by Kate Moore, Pete Harden, Calliope Tsoupaki or any other composer. Frans Curvers was at the front of every (world) premiere. Whether it took place at Paradiso in Amsterdam, De Doelen in Rotterdam, TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht or a backstreet church somewhere....
It's not 50 billion, like in Germany, but it's more than nothing: the support measures Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven announced today for the hard-hit cultural sector. And, who knows, this may offer openings to do a few things completely differently after this crisis. For instance, it is great that the national museums do not have to pay rent for a while,...
'It may sound very double, but somewhere a moment of peace, a moment of contemplation, is something you always long for. That the trigger now is that pandemic is not nice, of course, but still." Fedor Teunissen is artistic director of Asko|Schönberg, the world-class ensemble founded by the world-renowned conductor, composer and pianist Reinbert De Leeuw. Die...
In a fire letter to Minister van Engelshoven, more than a thousand actors and directors ask to financially support the free theatre producers in the Corona crisis. Together, the free theatre producers annually provide 60% of the supply in Dutch theatres and theatres. They do so with their own investments and without subsidies. Through the measures taken in the fight against Corona
We spoke to Andreas Hannes about the cancellation of Cinedans 2020. As a programmer, how do you deal with cancelling a festival you've spent a whole year working on? How do you still retain some of the sense of community that is so important to a festival when you are only online? For now, the festival will not go into the existing...
An artists' protest in Albania deserves extra attention. Especially as EU accession negotiations resume. Indeed, the protest action is impressive and offers a view of EU accession from an interesting perspective. That of a people who are committed to democratic values, who value their own history and culture, who do not want to give way to...
Cinedans, the festival for dance and film, was supposed to open 25 March and be the hub for dance film, as well as workshops and discussions, until 29 March. Obviously, this cannot continue. The festival will not be postponed but cancelled this year. An alternative that should ease the pain a little for this year is a nice and varied offering of short and...
An online party with a few close friends, and that you then invite a musician to perform live there. It can be done, and Deborah Jacobs would think it a fantastic idea. The musician, music teacher and lyricist from Breda had just about got her act together when Corona struck. All at once, all performances were cancelled and the...
'Keep doing your daily routines as much as possible when disaster strikes' Willem Jaap Zwart is director of theatre, film house and arts centre Concordia in Enschede, and he knows what he is talking about. As a resident of Enschede, he experienced the fireworks disaster, and even then the motto was: show resilience, and stay close to yourself: 'On the day it...
Director Noël Fischer, artistic director of HNTJong, Het Nationale Theater's youth club, learned a week ago just before the first try-out that she and Trojan Wars would not be allowed on stage for the try-out, nor for Saturday's premiere. No ordinary performance but a marathon performance with three parts, with fodder for the mind (music) and the...
Yesterday, I read this update from Madeleine Matzer on facebook: 'Two years ago, I chose this view. So beautiful. So quiet. So serene. And so well suited to the hectic and dynamic life I normally lead. Insanely meaningful work with wonderful and inspiring colleagues, a large and delightful social network, and then also all those opportunities for...
Leon Giesen, also known as Mondo Leone, said goodbye to mainstream theatre some time ago. He played - until Coronoa struck - increasingly at meetings and seminars, where the audience is more massive and attentive. But now that market has fallen away, and Leon has come up with something new. Listen to this race storyteller's story in our podcast in...
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