Things we do for members and partners.
The crisis rages on and the Arab world is in flux, but in the documentary world, the time for big stories is over. At least that was the conclusion drawn by festival director Ally Derks at a press conference ahead of the 24th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (16-27 November). Unlike a decade ago, documentary filmmakers now focus...
House amends gift deduction in cultural sector (...) A majority of the House wants to limit the Cabinet plans for tax deductions in the cultural sector. At the same time, it should become more fiscally attractive to make donations to sports and music associations. VVD, CDA and PVV submitted amendment proposals to this effect to the Giving Act of state secretary Frans Weekers (Finance) on Tuesday. (...) The PVV felt that far too...
You can throw your ass to the curb, as an art sector, but you can also do something else, while staring with your big rabbit eyes into the headlights of an oncoming balderdash monster. And what is that other thing, the Amsterdam Arts Council wondered? Cuddling to death, was the answer. When Amsterdam's alderman of culture unfolded her plan for the...
Donner Puts Knife In Websites Central Government The ministries collectively run nearly 400 websites, most of which do not meet official accessibility requirements. Minister Donner wants a clean-up first. (...) The municipalities, of which only 2 per cent fully comply with the web guidelines, have until the end of 2012 to comply with the lowest level and another two years after that to fully...
Opposition: have arts cuts calculated (...) These are cuts by the state, provinces and municipalities. The aim is to clarify how big the total cuts together are and what exactly the effects will be on supply and employment. (...) "With this request, we want to counter the politics of the short-term agenda. Good policy, including austerity policy, takes into account...
Quality. It is such a nice civil service-political magic word. Sounds good and nobody can be against it. So shout as a politician that you want more quality and all heads start nodding busily. State Secretary for Cultural Affairs Zijlstra also likes quality. Says he. For instance, when it comes to cultural education. In his memorandum More than quality, he says he wants to make work of the...
Gorkum - Culture sector is in dire straits (...) The major austerity exercise will come in spring when the new Culture Policy, among others, is on the table. (...) In the meantime, further consultations are being held with cultural bodies, among others, such as the Toon Foundation and the Nieuwe Doelen theatre on 30 January. "They, like the Gorcums Museum, can come up with innovative, cost-saving plans....
Groningen municipality cuts back on Gezinsbode The municipality is going to cut back 150,000 euros on publishing city notices in the Groninger Gezinsbode. The City Council wants to publish decisions and permits electronically from now on, for example on the municipality's website. (...) The number of pages in the Gezinsbode will be halved. (...) source: OogTV 10 Nov 11 Most councillors expect subsidies to be cut...
The Concertgebouw announced jubilantly yesterday that last September's share issue was a resounding success. After all, out of 1,000 €12,500 shares, 400 had been ordered. Almost €5 million from private individuals raked in. Truly no mean feat in this thrifty little country, where everyone complains that patronage does nothing. The media, including Amsterdam's Parool, briefly took the jubilant news as...
Trouw's commentary addresses the problems that are now beginning to be felt even at the top of the arts sector: Cultural entrepreneurship can produce great things. Ernst Veen, who brought De Nieuwe Kerk and Hermitage Amsterdam to great fruition as new exhibition spaces in the capital, is a successful example. Yesterday, he complained in Trouw that...
On Thursday 27 October, FNV KIEM, the Nederlandse Toonkunstenaarsbond (Ntb) and NAPK sector orchestras discussed the terms of employment of musicians employed by the Randstedelijke and Regionale Orkesten that fall under the collective labour agreement Dutch Orchestras. Out of a total of 11 Dutch orchestras, nine are covered by this collective agreement. The orchestras of the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep and the...
Letters from Culture Secretary Zijlstra are dangerous, especially when they are about figures and schemes. And we haven't seen the latest one for now. So right now, it is about 'friction costs' for the cultural sector. These are the costs that subsidised institutions have to incur when their existence ends due to the subsidy freeze. Think redundancy payments, damages, flower arrangements for funerals of suicides and selling real estate at a loss.
Since the decision in June to reduce the BIS, many eyes have focused on the Performing Arts Fund, which has an annual budget of €60 million to give away. However, the Fund is also facing a cut: the budget for the multiannual scheme will be reduced by 40% from 40 to 24.5 million euros. The multiannual scheme is meant for...
''Look mum! You have that book too!'' Harry Mulisch's granddaughter points to a book on the reading table named after her grandfather at the Café Américain in Amsterdam. Mulisch's entire oeuvre is displayed on the table at which he loved to sit. In the café that was dear to him. Anna Mulisch smiles. She and her sister Frieda, the...
The smallest opera company in the Netherlands beats the biggest. Not in visitor numbers, not in subsidy received, but in bringing in sponsorship money. On closer inspection, however, it becomes painfully clear once again that there is no giving culture in the Netherlands and sponsorship is limited to a pittance. A rattling giving law will not change that.
The Netherlands Opera's fourth revival of Elektra is over halfway through. In the final performances, two fresh dramatic sopranos take over. Why does an opera get revived, even as many as four times? With the sleep-inducing Don Giovanni in the previous season of De Nederlandse Opera - also a revival - this might have been a logical question. The decision turned out to be...
It came as a shock that still hasn't quite worked out. Haf September, dozens of arts organisations received a letter from the State Secretary for Culture, informing them that they could start using the subsidy they thought they were getting for projects until 31 December 2012 for redundancy procedures, selling property at a loss and staff lawsuits against...
The story continues. On 1 July the VAT increase came into effect, on 8 July NRC quoted Halbe Zijlstra as saying that "it was not the most mature scheme" of this cabinet, words he later nuanced during parliamentary questions. In late August, the Berenschot report came out with startling figures: the VAT increase would mainly cost the Netherlands money rather than generate it. Meanwhile, the Music...
"Programmatic ingenuity goes hand in hand with Fischer's ebullient and finely crafted performances". So when someone says that about you, you have earned a prize. So that is what the jury of formerly the Classical Music Prize thought of Iván Fischer, the Hungarian-born conductor who was therefore awarded the 'Ovation' on Monday 17 October 2011. And so then the 'Ovation'...
She was accused of fraud and therefore suspended in September. However, a judgment has now been handed down in the summary proceedings that Saskia Kriekhaus, director of the Lucent Danstheater and the Anton Philipszaal, both in The Hague, had filed against her dismissal. And so Saskia Kriekhaus won that. So that suddenly everyone in The Hague's arts sector is heartbroken,...
While anti-capitalists were plotting to occupy Amsterdam's Beursplein this week - if you can at least put the protesters under that heading - in the US, anger over THE 99 PERCENT shifted to the concert hall. The discussion flared up in response to two events. Wall Street was occupied; and the Metropolitan Opera received $182 million in donations in one year, a record amount....
It is not very often that Dutch films attract the attention of the film trade magazine Screen International. Now that the web edition ScreenDaily happens to publish two reviews in a row, it is nice to quote something from them. Screen editor-in-chief Mike Goodridge saw Dutch Oscar contender Sonny Boy and Marco van Geffen's debut film Onder ons (international title Among Us) and came to the...
Europe in Motion (EIM) is an international exchange project, which supports the development of emerging choreographers, travelling through three Springdance partner organisations in 2011 and 2012. Last February it visited Nottdance in Nottingham and in April EIM touched down in Utrecht. During SPRINGDANCE 2011, nine choreography talents from the UK, Austria, Turkey and the Netherlands interacted privately with...
A nice side effect of the Giving Act is that it gives the tax authorities a vital role when it comes to determining what is art, and what is not. That was the outcome of the hearing on Tuesday 11 October in the House of Representatives. There, the MPs listened to people from the philanthropic sector and tax experts in turn. Outcome of the two...
Anyone who was still left wondering what the vision of the governing VVD party on art is now out. For that vision is simple. Art is sport. According to the VVD. So said the alderman of Rotterdam, so said the spouse of top wrestler Albert Verlinde, the as mayor of Maastricht ancillary runner Onno Hoes. During the opening of the Dutch Dance Days, he gave...
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