Things we do for members and partners.
Rewire is once again just around the corner. From 31 March to 2 April, the festival takes place in the city centre of The Hague. The young festival does so with a choice of colours and flavours, (just) outside the mainstream. So: where adventure and the great unknown are actually perks - diametrically opposed to Guus Meeuwis on the main stage....
In the documentary Life. Animated, Roger Ross Williams tells the equally amazing and infectious story of how Disney films were the key to the world for autistic Owen. "It's about the power of stories," he says.
In a discussion (on facebook, where else) about NRC Handelsblad's departure from Blendle, an editor of that newspaper made very disparaging remarks about a reader who had paid 30 cents for one of his articles. In a recent article on Frankwatching, an expert concluded that investigative journalism could only survive if we started subsidising newspapers....
'Thanks to a radio presenter, my grandfather found an entrance to classical music. With my new piece, I, in turn, am paving a path to him.' On Thursday 30 March, Elements by Brechtje (1993) will have its world premiere in the fifth episode of An Evening of Today at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. In this series by the Nieuw Ensemble, conservatory students are given ample opportunity....
Joop Oonk (27) creates dance performances with the Misiconi Dance Company, but not of a standard kind. She also calls it inclusion dance. Dancing with wheelchairs, for example, and then doing it in public spaces. Time for a chat with this extraordinary choreographer. Fortunately, you don't have to be an art barbarian not to know the word inclusion dance. Joop Oonk choreographer, artistic director...
'The smaller the community the narrower the mind,' says Krzysztof Warlikowski. The Polish director makes his debut at De Nationale Opera this month with Alban Berg's Wozzeck. It is the second time he has taken on this iconic work of the 20th century. To this end, he draws on his own experiences during his childhood in Stettin. It is exceptionally...
A dance performance for youth (6+) recently caused a stir. Pupils from groups 5 to 8 of the Islamic Aboe Daoedschool in Utrecht visited IJspaleis (6+) by dance theatre group plan d-. At a dance of two penguins in love, one of the teachers requested that the performance be stopped. This scene was not considered suitable for the pupils, the explanation said. It...
We know him from such wonderful novels as To the Other Side of the Night and The Last Escape, but Jan van Mersbergen has more to his credit. He recently surprised us with The Rider, written from the perspective of an old horse, and now there is Diary from the River. Not a novel, but his first thriller, published under the pseudonym Frederik Baas....
What happens when you take someone's head off? Little, you will say, since the accompanying body dies. But then you are wrong. Because at the first GRIP evening at Utrecht's Theater Kikker, Steven Michel showed that the rest of the body then just takes over. Fascinating to notice how you go from a bare back to...
The first bare female breast I consciously observed in my life was the happily swishing boob of the girl in the Fa advertisement. It must have been sometime deep in the 1970s. The same time the Pacifisties Socialistiese Partij also did something similar with a cow in the background. Now, a good forty years later, the...
'My father was secret agent 007, long before James Bond' Tomas Ross is the Dutch grandmaster of the faction novel, a genre in which fact and fiction intermingle. His first thriller, The Dogs of Betrayal, about the South Moluccans' struggle for freedom, was published in 1980. He now has over 70 titles to his name and also writes scenarios for...
While Jan Martens' latest work, The Common People (2016), was at Amsterdam's Stadschouwburg last weekend, Utrecht's Theater Kikker is showing two older hits this week: Sweat Baby Sweat (2011) and The dog days are over (2014). Sweat and Dogdays are blockbusters and have already toured the world. At Kikker, they can now be seen as part of a...
When the Commendatore suddenly rises from his bier in the mortuary, Leporello recoils violently. He smacks painfully against the back wall, as if struck by a gust of hurricane-force wind. This cartoonish image is just one of many hilarious moments in Don Giovanni by the Nederlandse Reisopera. This production was performed after its premiere Saturday 4 March in the...
There is sound; a notion of impotence; a programme without a head or tail; there is power, chatter, compassion; there is nothing but also a vista, blurred image full of action and opposition. Moreover, the language seems a bit overwrought here and there. Of course, incoherent drivel can be cosy, or moving. Under circumstances, meaningfulness may be possible, but it will not...
The National Theatre plays Jeanne d'Arc by Friedrich Schiller and simultaneously retakes Johann Goethe's Tasso. Joris Smit plays in both plays, even the title role in Tasso. We talk to him about German romantics, Sallie Harmsen, the new-fangled National Theatre and the importance of going down on your face. Tasso and Jeanne, Goethe and Schiller. Is German romance...
In late 2006, I got to know Dutch filmmaker Sander Francken. I had watched his film Dealing and wheeling in small arms for the Groene Amsterdammer. Afterwards, I sought him out in his workspace for an interview. I remember that conversation well: sharper than many other interviews. After all, the worst thing that can happen to you is a swarm of PR people who...
Maybe God is dead, but His church is alive. At least in Denmark. This has to do with what you might call the Danish paradox of faith: a highly secularised society with a Lutheran Folkekirke (=Volkskerk) supported by a large majority of the population [hints]The American sociologist Phil Zuckerman has commented on this aspect of Denmark (and also a little...
Museum Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam hosts the largest exhibition in Europe of Surrealists. Famous names like Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Paul Delvaux and Roland Penrose. But also lesser-known gods like the outstanding Leonora Carrington and Francis Picabia. In 1970, the world-famous surrealist Salvador Dali visited the Boymans museum in person....
By now, we are a little surrounded by voting guides and electoral compasses. There is one for every area of policy. What to vote for if you have a beating heart for art? The Correspondent gave a nice little overview the other day. It showed that art is indeed a hobby of mainly left-wing parties, at least when it comes to subsidised art. Art...
For organisations, groups and companies, we have a special and very attractive offer: the group or company subscription. Such a subscription gives you the opportunity to issue culture press subscriptions yourself to friends, acquaintances, your network or your staff. You can easily create these subscriptions yourself, but if you don't have the time, Culture Press can also do it for you....
Why did I find the mythical stories about being an artist more interesting than the artworks I saw? I wondered this after visiting the exhibition GOED GEMAAKT (ode to the making process) at the Amersfoort art gallery KAdE. Only a single work of art touched me, while the stories about Daedelus, Pygmalion and the daughter of Butades fascinated me immensely....
Their thriller series about detective Joona Linna has sold millions of copies worldwide. The crime novels by Swedish couple Ahndoril, better known as Lars Kepler, are also very popular in the Netherlands. Their readers are not the only ones who get nightmares from them, Alexander and Alexandra Ahndoril tell us. 'After our first book, we had to move.' On the small table, between...
I read the biography of Jacob Israel De Haan, Onrust, by Jan Fontijn. Writer and director Gerardjan Rijnders based Salaam Jerusalem on this biography. It is this play, performed by De Nieuw Amsterdam, that really makes me realise how urgent it is to let such an almost forgotten figure as De Haan speak. Jacob Israel De Haan overturned taboos, fought...
The nearly five-hour documentary 'Combat au bout de la nuit' reveals how ordinary Greek people experience the crisis. A true immersion experience.
Brief summary. On Wednesday afternoon, I went to the presentation of the important award (actually two: audience award and jury award) called Code Cultural Diversity Award. I did not see a single fellow journalist(s). What I did see were lots of professional advocates speaking on behalf of people who were barely present themselves in the Galaxy. NB: the author is of Aruban-Chinese-Dutch descent and in no way wants to undermine the urgency of the issue of diversity...
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