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Via Intolleranza II is an irresistibly witty theatrical chaos about the construction of an opera village.

photo: Aino Laberenz

De vorig jaar aan longkanker overleden Künstler Christoph Schlingensief – alleskunner, provocateur, regisseur, levenskunstenaar – krijgt op het Holland Festival een uitgebreid eerbetoon: de openingsvoorstelling Mea Culpa, een programma met zeven speelfilms, en Schlingensiefs zwanenzang Via Intolleranza II.

Doodziek vatte Christoph Schlingensief het wilde plan op om in Burkina Faso een operadorp uit de grond te stampen, Remdoogo. Een zelfvoorzienende vrijplaats waar mensen vanuit verschillende culturen elkaar zouden kunnen ontmoeten, en om daar voor langere tijd samen kunst te maken. Dit in navolging van vergelijkbare initiatieven zoals het Avenida Theater in Mozambique, opgezet door schrijver Henning Mankell. Schlingensief streefde naar het samenvloeien van kunst en leven. Gedreven uit een jarenlange fascinatie voor de rijke Afrikaanse cultuur, en geïnspireerd op de idealen van zijn grote held Joseph Beuys.

Via Intolleranza II is Schlingensiefs poging om in een maalstroom van documentaire, muziek, beeldende kunst, film, performancekunst, lezing, opera en theater het prille wordingsproces van Remdoogo vast te leggen. Een voorstelling over een proces. Tegelijkertijd lijkt Schlingensief ook zijn eigen motieven te bevragen. Via Intolleranza II was zijn zwanenzang – hij stierf drie maanden na de première. De voorstelling krijgt op zaterdag 4 juni de Nederlandse première.

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Playing with the Wooster Group: 'a totally new way of being on stage, of dealing with signals and the material of the show'

'Your audience will love it.' That was the last thing Liz Lecompte of the Wooster Group heard from the heirs of playwright Tennessee Williams shortly before the premiere of Vieux Carré. Since then, the trustees of the estate of this American monument have been keeping quiet about the performance Lecompte created. It was the end of a long period in which... 

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You'd be interested to know what Spalding Gray and Christoph Schlingensief would have had to say to each other.

Cover of Spalding Gray At the Holland Festival, two minds wander. The loudest is that of Christoph Schlingensief, Germany's most independent filmmaker, theatre-maker, activist and enfant terrible, always good for controversy. After being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008, he processed his anger and fear in Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir, presented in 2009 at... 

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Rascals and heroes battle for power at Utrecht Festival a/d Werf

There is no such thing as the perfect human being. We are all crooks. Or is there a way to get it right? Ilay den Boer and the actors of De Utrechtse Spelen / De Warme Winkel each explore in their own way at the 26th edition of Festival aan de Werf. Wasn't my grandfather just an asshole? That... 

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Ministry of OCW cuts a little more of the truth than we already proved on Friday

Case in point: more people are against cuts than the ministry would have us believe. On page 32 of the now heavily controversial brochure 'Cultuur in Beeld', the ministry writes: "In the CDE, carried out at the end of 2010, citizens were asked to indicate from 17 policy fields whether they think the central government should spend (a lot) less or (a lot) more money on... 

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Ten theatre performances you should not have missed according to the jury of the Dutch Theatre Festival. Agree?

Of course, you were all lining up for that legendary Richard III by Orkater with music by Tom Waits. Or you had locked yourself in for Oostpool's small-room gem 'Till the fat lady sings', or you just didn't want to miss an episode of O O Cherso and The Voice of Holland. Anyway: now you know what you... 

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Dutch ministry of OC&W bases vision 'renewal' cultural funding system on British example

There is an interesting 'drone' underneath, and that may strike someone as menacing. In any case, the video at the end of this article has more meaning than many culture lovers might think. The fact is that the sweeping cuts made by the UK government through their 'Arts Council' have met with hardly any protests in retrospect, while the disproportionality in the cut... 

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Utrecht Visual Arts Centre gets visit from Salman Rushdie, George Soros and Johnny Depp in Ventia

Je fietst er als Utrechter makkelijk aan voorbij, de Basis voor Actuele Kunst (BAK) in de Lange Nieuwstraat, maar internationaal kunnen maar weinig mensen eromheen. BAK is big. Het centrum is onder leiding van de even onuitsprekelijke als sympatieke artistiek directeur Maria Hlavajova uitgegroeid tot een toonaangevend centrum in de wereld van de actuele kunst. Een paar jaar geleden mocht… 

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Tomoko Mukaiyama sprinkles nuts and high heels

Although the announcement of 'sonic tapestry: Shoes, part V' by Tomoko Mukaiyama can be read as a variant of Sex and the City on classical music, Sarah Jessica Parker would forever look at her Manolo Blahniks differently after seeing Mukaiyama's performance. This very special piano recital was Saturday 7 May at LP2 (Room 2 of the Rotterdam... 

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'Our' New York dodo reviewers saw the Wooster Group's Le Vieux Carré and were thrilled

Admittedly, our method of reviewing (see our contributions on Springdance and De Internationale Keuze) is new to the Netherlands, but in the States a few were already doing it. For example, the two yummy guys Andrew and Andrew are doing well with their iPhones, doing the same as the Dodo with the Kodak Zi8 (no shares, though we would love to be sponsored... 

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Booksellers are reluctantly starting to embrace the digital age

On Wednesday 27 April 2011, we reported on the annual symposium of the Royal Association of Booksellers. Interesting bi9jeen meeting, we can say, but of course not every speaker was as brilliant as Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaar, the director of the Collective Propaganda of the Dutch Book Foundation, whom from now on we will call the John and Jesus of the storytelling industry... 

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Fascinating canon with 24 dancers by Boris Charmatz as bouncer and finale of Springdance 2011

Boris Charmatz's dancers in ''Levée des conflits'' Photo Caroline Ablain.

Nothing is more uplifting than singing a canon together. French choreographer Boris Charmatz's Frère Jacques, seen as the bouncer on the final night of Springdance, is a special case, though. 'Levée des conflits' has no recurring refrain, but it has no fewer than 25 stanzas, which are danced by each of the 24 dancers. The insane polyphony that rises from this monster canon of dancing bodies slowly rattles the viewer apart over 1 hour and 40 minutes, at least if they keep following the multitude of movements and manipulations. 'Levée des conflits' presents the audience with a dilemma: does it surrender to the inimitability of interlocking phases and versions of a composition that it cannot possibly oversee? Or does it frantically search for structure, something to hold on to, something to orientate itself in this hall of mirrors of repetition and multiplication?

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Eugénie Rebetez shows the alienating contrast of a woman who wants to be more and is also at peace with who she is

Eugénie Rebetez in 'Gina'. Photo: Augustin Rebetez.

Her full thighs clatter together. She shakes her bare arms, grinning at the trembling skin on her upper arms. She stomps furiously across the Theatre Kikker's playing floor, while her hefty body - dressed in a small, nondisguising black dress - emphatically bounces happily on all sides. You just have to dare. In her one-woman show 'Gina', Swiss theatre maker Eugénie Rebetez beyond all embarrassment. In the skin of Gina, Rebetez shows her own yearning for stardom, with plenty of self-mockery and absurdist humour. A quirky mishmash of mime, stand-up comedy, cabaret and contemporary dance.

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But what about the goat?

Had we completely forgotten about the goat from sheer terror. Anyway. That goat, or at least its completely skinned carcass according to Dutch law, plays a role in the finale of Ishmael Houston-Jones' show Them. Afterwards, we saw the audience come out rather affected.

'Talking about art always reaches a point where it all becomes too abstract.' - Clara García Fraile on 'Europe in Motion'

Clara García Fraile represents England in the international programme Europe in Motion. Young choreographers interacted during the festival and will present their own work at the end of this edition. Clara has nothing to show, she says, but that is also because, as a video artist, she is working on other things than dance. And those other things are... 

Read More "'Talking about art always reaches a point where it all becomes too abstract.' - Clara García Fraile on 'Europe in Motion'

Pure contact improvisation and martial arts in confrontational performance by Japanese dance group contact Gonzo

Contact Gonzo

 

With their name, the five Japanese of contact Gonzo refer to the gonzo journalism by the late Hunter S. Thompson. Raw, harsh and subjective. Thomspon also showed how he worked in his pieces. Contact Gonzo warms up during the performance, taking snapshots of each other with disposable cameras and passing the water bottle. Gonzo-style: what you see is what you get.

Contact Gonzo adheres to simple rules. For example gravity: jumping and coming down. Or attracting and repelling: pushing, pulling, like a rugby scrum. In doing so, they touch on minimal art that adhered to a set of parameters; one thinks of Sol LeWitt.

Read More "Pure contact improvisation and martial arts in confrontational performance by Japanese dance group contact Gonzo

Yasmeen Godder lets contrast between frightened individual and roaring group animal linger too much in dancers' minds

Dancers by Yasmeen Godder - photo Itzik Giuli

She is on her knees. Shaking and trembling, she jerks backwards. With clawed fingers that seem to grasp at the void. Like a frightened cat. Shuffling, the dancer moves backwards in a semicircle on the white stage floor of Theatre Frog. One by one, the five others step onto the empty open stage, while the first dancer keeps looking anxiously at the audience. Thus begins 'Storm end come'. With this performance, Israeli choreographer Yasmeen Godder shows the overwhelming effects of fear on the bodies of her dancers. But it doesn't really get scary.

Read More "Yasmeen Godder lets contrast between frightened individual and roaring group animal linger too much in dancers' minds

The Dodo reports on the 27th edition of Springdance

The 27th edition of Springdance in Utrecht is in full swing. Cultural Press Agency reviewers are there, attending dance performances from all corners of the world. For instance, Fransien van der Putt visited the opening performance Sideways Rain by Brazilian Guilhermo Botelho and the jazzy tap dance performance by Broadway star Savion Glover. Maarten Baanders attended Studium by Belgian dance collective... 

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Parade prepares for new summer tour in glorious weather

Terts Brinkhoff , founder of De Parade, has a set of sheds on the frayed edge of Weesp in which all the travelling festival's tents are stored, when not rented out. In April, the management (now Ray van Santen and Nicole van Vessum) gathers all the artists from the upcoming summer tour there for an introduction. Press time, of course. And with the weather like... 

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Also at the Imagine festival: film fans become film financiers

In 1945, advanced rocket technology allowed a group of Nazis to escape to the moon. There they hid and soon they will return to take over again. At Imagine, Amsterdam's festival for fantastic film, there was a sneak preview of that. If the omens do not deceive, Iron Sky, as this Finnish production is called, promises to be a... 

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