Things we do for members and partners.
We reported earlier. Worldwide, the Netherlands is Crazy when it comes to protecting the creators of books, films, journalism, art, theatre, dance and so on. And no, IT IS NOT ABOUT SUBSIDY NOW. It is about an archaic legislation that does protect the middlemen but leaves the creators outlawed and disenfranchised. That middlemen are paid extremely well, have...
The Holland Festival got a completely unknown new director in the person of Britain's Ruth Mackenzie. At least, to us. The flamboyant, artistically exceptional opera director Pierre Audi makes way for a woman who has presented herself mainly as a manager of festivals and cultural institutions, but whose ideas are anyone's guess. When she was presented, none of the...
Should the free market be curbed to save Dutch culture? The issue facing the Dutch government is quite a big one. On Tuesday, Dutch 'makers' (artists, photographers, actors, screenwriters, translators, directors, freelance journalists, etc.) presented a pamphlet. The pamphlet outlines the idiotic situation the Dutch cultural and creative sector is in. No other country disregards...
" Dear friends of Free Knowledge," With these words the president of Wikimedia Netherlands, Frans Grijzenhout concludes his welcome speech of the Wikipedia conference. In a conference venue at Hoog-Catharijne, I am surrounded by some 120 ' Wikipedians', as they call themselves. As in any subculture, it is clear to see who belongs to the regular incrowd. Wikipedians look like...
Twenty-five per cent of people have a room they can no longer enter because it is too full of stuff. This is oppressive and it is no wonder that some resort to the other extreme: radical consumerism. In TROEP, theatre group Firma MES follows Barbara, a woman who wants to live with no more than eight objects. Just like Buddhist monks. This results in a delightful, witty play that is seriously thought-provoking and shows how giving up can become just as oppressive as keeping it.
So it really does exist. A high road through the mountains of Romania. Completed in 1974. Viewed by my father in the same year, while his 'guide' told him not to walk too close to the edge, because he would not be the first to crash over the edge. After which his 'guide', the secret agent that every western journalist...
Update: text amended after tips from our observant reader Sebastiaan Smits. The Danish National Chamber Orchestra is quitting as of 31 December. Economised away. But not because of this video, then, Sebastiaan Smits managed to report. @culturepress Is not a protest, but a promotion for chilli. http://t.co/GfsyPJUF2k - Sebastiaan Smits (@sebastiaansmits) November 7, 2014 @sebastiaansmits Thanks for the addition then. We will correct it. To...
It is a little after ten o'clock. I'm on my way to the bakery on Rotterdam's Nieuwe Binnenweg. I pass a coffee shop, a bicycle shop, an off-licence. I also pass the hairdresser's where about 12 men are waiting in front of the door. An hour before the doors open. "Yes but wait... A hairdresser that doesn't open until 11 o'clock...
You could wait for it. Meppelgate. Marieke Heebink, top actress with Toneelgroep Amsterdam, had the audacity to say in the newspaper that she is happy to be in a sold-out 'Angels in America' in New York. "Thank God I don't have to go to Meppel" she says. Aj. Aj. How dare she! That is guaranteed to generate angry reactions. And not just from Meppel....
What does the canalside have against Drenthe anyway? Now Marieke Heebink again. It started with Yvonne Kroonenberg who, after a visit to Assen, spoke of "Simple people with those classic Drenthe heads, but with expressionless eyes. I walked around there and tried to understand those people in the same way I try to immerse myself in the spiritual life of animals." Afterwards, Kroonenberg rushed to...
The National Theatre will premiere Blueprint for an Even Better Life on 8 November 2014, which addresses, among other things, the position of artists in society. A theme that also featured in their recent Tasso, and in Toneelgroep Amsterdam's successful The Fountainhead. Is the subject of art back on the theatre agenda due to the changed cultural politics of the past...
'The experts have written an inspiring guide, which demonstrates the importance of good music education and also makes clear which steps need to be taken to achieve this. The experts spoke to representatives of primary education, teacher training institutes and the cultural sector. The guide has broad support. Like the experts, I believe that good music education is a responsibility of...
Of course it is ok, that cultural and creative summit we had here. Bussemaker could suddenly talk at a high level again and art suddenly appears to matter again. After all, the creative industry is also about art again. Even if it is just our old art, because at such a conference with those Asian countries, of course, it is usually about...
This month marks two years since 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala was gunned down by a Taliban fighter in Pakistan for standing up for her right to education. Two years later, 10 October 2014, Malala, now a 16-year-old schoolgirl, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was not her first award, nor was it her first (thank you) speech. All...
In the presence of WAKVN*), our culture minister Jet Bussemaker gave a speech to other culture ministers today. It was about creative industries, as a conference on that is now under way in our country. Exchange of knowledge between Asian culture ministers and the Netherlands is already quite unique. For the Netherlands to drop the word 'art' in a meeting on the creative industry is thereby...
When De Wereld Draait Door shows live ballet on air, there must be something going on. And indeed, dancer Marijn Rademaker announces that he has been appointed principal with the Dutch National Ballet. That's no mean feat. He is considered "the best Dutch ballet dancer in the world today".
The Nobel Prize for literature and the Netherlands, it is an unhappy marriage. Not only is Nooteboom, after Mulisch, passed over time and again, on television it is also poor. Yes, on DWDD, people in their fifties trot out to sing the praises of Bob Dylan, but that's it. Of course, Dylan did not become the new laureate, nor the Haruki Murakami, also popular in our country, but the French writer Patrick Modiano.
At Bare choreographer Kenzo Kusuda shows portraits of six musicians of the New European Ensemble as in a choreographic documentary. These come at you in the dark and finally climb over your seat. You can't make your message any clearer.
With a new government in Belgium, the debate on art subsidies has also erupted there. The issue there is only 0.7 per cent of the national budget. The cut of a mere 10% is less substantial than in the Netherlands under the PVV's noose, but the arguments are the same. Though they are often better articulated. Josse de Pauw, international...
The post on facebook that dominated my timeline today: the spontaneous concert at NS station Amsterdam Centraal, taken from the NRC's website (link: http://www.nrc.nl/muziek/2014/10/09/hoe-drie-artiesten-onverwacht-samen-optraden-op-adam-cs/ For several weeks, this station has had a piano on which anyone can play. A playful action by the NS to make waiting more fun. This leads to surprising situations. Like this one in which a pianist...
"Theo van Gogh tried so hard to be an enfant terrible that we almost forgot that he was one of the Netherlands' most creative and productive filmmakers." I wrote this for the GPD papers on 2 November 2004, after an editor called me with the terrible news of the filmmaker's violent death. Soon, that murder was exactly ten...
Forty roofless hotel rooms, and then hearing your own story back as you see yourself reflected in the distant ceiling. Or: walking behind a guide through the Lombok district of Utrecht, while being provided with an overload of extra information on your headphones. About your guide. Or not. About yourself. Welcome to the universe of Dries Verhoeven, since a small...
We can make a long story short. September and early October are raining awards. Every performing art form celebrates its own party. Theatre does it with Theo and Louis, cabaret with the Poelifinario, a Cricket is awarded somewhere, and then you have the Musical Awards and of course the Swans and the Dioraphte Prize. You can already feel it hanging: there...
(In Harry Potter, True Detective and Juno, they were better) Actors are like people when they go on a stage as themselves. And just like ordinary people, I occasionally think 'that could really be better'. Soon we can check it out with the Dutch actors at the Gala of the Dutch Film Festival. With those calves. But first the...
With five nominations, the comedy Aanmodderfakker by Michiel ten Horn most likely to win Golden Calfs. Including those for best film, director and screenplay. Close on his heels, incidentally, are
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