Deventer seeks one boss for not a museum, but a story
Who can tell the story of Deventer? Apply. And if you manage to convince the committee, you can touch a nice salary for three years. As director of the first museum production house in the world.
SERVICE
Things we do for members and partners.
Reinbert de Leeuw in Zomergasten, not in Muziekzomer
In just over two weeks, the NJO Music Summer, with more than sixty-five concerts performed by young musicians, spread across more and less obvious locations in the province of Gelderland. One hundred and sixty young people flocked from all over the world to show their skills from 1 to 17 August. Anyone staying in Gelderland at that time could not possibly miss their presence.
Working for free has become commonplace in the arts. 4 bare facts by festival director Meulman
'The practice of payment by book voucher does not belong to a professional sector with substantial economic importance.' Jeffrey Meulman, director of the Dutch theatre festival, has learned to live with it. Against his will. As host of the annual Gala of Dutch Theatre, he has managed to organise that party again. Without money.
Seeing music (and not hearing it?)
Because of my fascination with the complex relationship between listening and watching, I decided to visit three performances at the recent Holland Festival and experience what happened when I tried to pay equal attention to ears and eyes. The first was "Delusion of the Fury" (1966) by American composer Harry Partch, the second a concert performance of Philip Glass's opera "The CIVIL warS" (1983), the third a performance of Franz Schubert's "Die Winterreise" (1827) in which twenty-four short films by South African artist William Kentridge were shown.
Silent hakas, blood and grim nudity at The Crimson House
Princess Beatrix can take a punch in contemporary theatre. Just two years ago, she was in the audience (as queen) at The Life & Death of Marina Abramovic, and this year at The Crimson House by Lemi Ponifasio / MAU. Just about one of the most radical - because loud, raw and rather unfathomable - performances of this edition of the Holland Festival. We didn't quite get there, by the way, but
Four opera myths shattered @Oerol festival
Is a performance opera if not a note is sung? If the audience sits on a stand in a car park with headphones on their heads? Or if a man cries out like a dog with a tongue out of his mouth throughout the performance? The definitions of opera are stretched quite a bit at five Oerol performances. Interestingly, hardly anyone calls the performance opera. By necessity, musical theatre is often used, but that term does not really fall into a warm bath.
Five things we learned from opera amuse Sweeney Todd
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What: A preview of the 'musical thriller' Sweeney Todd
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Location: the biggest rehearsal space of the Dutch Travel Opera
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Present: almost the entire cast, one hundred and fifty guests
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Menu: bread, pastry, a dessert as pretty as it is tasty
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Drinks: water, red/white wine ánd Bloody Mary's, complete with celery as a stirrer, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, pepper (and salt, nowhere to go), lemon (should have been lime), prepare it yourself
Ayn Rand was haunting Dutch theatre as early as 2006.
Ivo van Hove has not only a play made based on Ayn Roland's novel of ideas The Fountainhead. In 2006, the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam even wanted to base a whole new design of the theatre system on it. Eight years later, we can see that only the negative aspects of Van Hove's vision have been realised.
Doesn't 'The Returns' exclude you as much as the art snobs parodied by Forsythe?
When someone speaks in sentences with words that repeatedly rhyme with 'art' or in which the syllable 'art' keeps popping up, you have to adjust to a different logic than that of everyday communication. If it is also a woman dressed in bright red who pronounces those words eloquently and with many mannerisms, suggesting that she is hyper-sensitive to anything to do with art, your thoughts balance between:
Spaghetti 'Thyestes': classic roots work fiercely in a new preparation
In Rome, they have known what good food is for 20 centuries or so. Bloodletting is everything. Seneca, a Roman of the better sort, wrote plays that elevated bloodshed to an art. Audiences feasted on them, just as they feasted on Seneca's recipes in Shakespeare's time, 1,500 years later, and as we feast on Game of Thrones on TV now. It can't be gory, can't be cruel enough. We like that.
Struggling River of Fundament - grandiose recycling opera that doesn't know when to stop
From 2007, video artist Matthew Barney (The Cremaster Cycle) and composer Jonathan Bepler on a free adaptation of Norman Mailer's most maligned book Ancient Evenings. To Mailer's mythology of ancient Egypt, they added the equally mythical American automobile industry in an ambitious and operatesque film project with a demanding length of 5 hours 11 minutes.
From February River of Fundament on world tour and the Holland Festival
Voices from the realm of shadows - retrospective Luigi Nono at Holland Festival
After impressive retrospectives dedicated to John Cage (2012) and Edgard Varèse (2009), the Holland Festival this year put Venetian composer Luigi Nono in the spotlight. Under the title 'Trilogy of the sublime', the imposing Gashouder was the epicentre of three full-length concerts, short 'Nono interventions' sounded in the Rijksmuseum's subway, a two-day symposium was organised around Nono, and his widow Nuria set up an exhibition entitled 'Maestro di suoni i silenzi'.
'Fix it yourself.' Culture minister puts fate of amateur arts in hands of municipalities and citizens
In March this year the Culture Council sounded the alarm. Unique under the new leadership, which is usually extremely docile when it comes to cultural cuts. But what happens to music schools, children's drama schools, libraries and amateur orchestras is otherwise entirely up to the citizens themselves, and their local councils. This is the minister's response to the chamber.
Audience put in their place
Although both performances were created in very different ways, parallels can be drawn between 'Romeo and Juliet. To Romeo and Juliet‘ by Karina Kroft and 'Crastest Ibsen II - People's Enemy' by Sarah Moeremans / Noord Nederlands Toneel. Director Karina Kroft and actor Joep van der Geest in conversation about their relationship with a classic play and their audience.
Isabella Rosselini is endearing with her animal stuff. 4 missed opportunities in Bestiaire d'amour at @hollandfestival
Every Holland Festival there is at least 1 performance which a lot of people wonder why it is programmed. This year, that honour falls to 'Bestiaire d'Amour' by and starring Isabella Rosselini. We take a moment to look for answers.
7 confusing reasons why the stage version of The Fountainhead rattles, but you should still go.
Topical again, now that Toneelgroep Amsterdam is reprising the show, my review from 2014. This week, the stage adaptation of The Fountainhead premiered. The book is terrible, the performance rattles, the actors win only narrowly. The content, however, creates even more confusion, which is why I won't stop you from going to see it. And Hans Kesting, of course. I put it this way.
Disappointed dinner guests get money back. Yummy gesture from the Holland Festival
Visitors to the film Napoleon, last Sunday at Ziggo Dome, who had thought of booking dinner in one of the intermissions, will get their money back. This was decided by the Holland Festival after a commotion arose on the internet, and beyond, about the caterer's lousy service, and the rather poor quality of what was on offer. Visitor Marc Veerkamp said the following on facebook:
National Ballet performs enchanting Tempest
To make it 450e birth anniversary of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), Krzysztof Pastor created a full-length choreography for the National Ballet, loosely based on The Tempest (1611). The performance is part of the Holland Festival. Dramaturge Willem Bruls adapted Shakespeare's last play about the island exiled prince Prospero and his daughter Miranda into a script in which the story is told four times, from as many perspectives. The result is enchanting.
78 M€ download damage and 6 more things I learned about copyright
78 Million euros is the turnover lost by the film and DVD industry in the Netherlands due to illegal downloading. This was recently revealed in a press release announced. Yesterday, it was also one of the topics at a discussion afternoon organised by Film Producers Netherlands (FPN) on copyright developments.
Two weeks with feet in the sand @Oerol Festival
Experience is unnecessary and there is no upper age limit. At Sharon Fridman, professional dancers and amateurs dance together to create a performance on the beach. Daily guests can also learn about the dance routine.
Alain Platel deals firm death blow to traditionalists in #hollandfestival
Talent alone won't get you there. You also need a bit of luck. That luck happened to Alain Platel so often by now that you almost doubt your own wickedness. Still. Those who not only count a composer like Fabrizio Cassol among their friends, but who also gave singing prodigy Serge Kakudji a chance, deserve a bit of luck. What the trio has now achieved with 13 musicians from Kinshasa is downright revolutionary. And a death knell for those who believe that north and south can never really meet. I experienced it on Monday, 16 June. And it still echoes.
Bitter tears, screaming loneliness. Kušej does Fassbinder @HollandFestival 2014
Nice 'old-fashioned' Holland Festival: a special line-up that confronts the audience with the implications of their own position and viewing behaviour. And that's just as well with Fassbinder's 'Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant'. Melodrama was no stranger to the German theatre and film wizard. The bitter tears are of a fashion queen and her entourage, clinical is the setting, wafer-thin the story, and yet unusually exciting how this lady drama develops.
Tis Pity! Holland Festival brings the best show to the smallest audience.
Language is music. Sometimes we forget that. Then we think language is a way of conveying objective meanings. Bit silly. Language is food for all the senses. No strumming is needed under that. That's pure opera without frills. The English-language performance 'tis Pity she's a whore' I saw at the Holland Festival yesterday proves that. Even if you don't understand the seventeenth-century phrases, it is a joy to listen to.
Warhorse is almost perfect: 6 reasons to go. Or stay away.
Saturday, June 14, went off in a flood of evening gowns, dinner jackets, Dutch celebrities and Gooische Tanks War Horse premiered. A play about a war in which the Netherlands was neutral, and of which there are memorial stones in every village in the rest of the world. You can go and see it. Or not. We have listed six arguments.
'I did not have sexual relations with that woman', no way: surprising Don Juan at Theaterschip Deventer
In an immaculate virginal white uniform, Don Juan gives a slick press conference for his marriage to Elvira. We hear the famous words with which Bill Clinton denied the Lewinsky affair. Actor Ischa den Blanken's grin speaks volumes when he says: 'These allegations are false.' We know: he is lying.
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