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Zeros, ones and the public; what is digital art?

The new format of the Holland festival puts the spectator first. Plenty of visible events, free performances and being in the middle of the city. It's director Ruth McKenzie's trademark. It is therefore not surprising that she does not shy away from the digital universe. After all, what better way to share than digital art? But what then is digital art... 

Hatsune Miku: So did we all fall in?

It is one of the most pre-discussed performances of this Holland Festival. Newspapers, magazines and webmagazines dived en masse on The End featuring Japanese superstar Hatsune Miku. That she is not real. About all of us being fascinated by the virtual and technology. About her two and a half million Facebook friends. About the fans who have written more than 100,000 songs for her. About the costume designs... 

The Book of Sand: unprecedented computational speed invisible behind singing woman in layers

Inspired by stories by Borges, whose widow was present at the launch of the online interactive musical piece at the Holland Festival, The Book of Sand still looks most like an elaborate, very chic music video. Is that a bad thing? "Neither the book nor sand possess a beginning or an end." Borges' story, to which the title refers, is about... 

Lulu and Kentridge's clothes

Lulu, the opera that Alban Berg left unfinished on his death in 1935, is considered an undisputed masterpiece, which is frequently performed. The opera is at the Muziektheater for the third time this millennium, but for the first time with the third act completed by Friedrich Cerha. South African artist William Kentridge will direct. He and the performers were honoured after the... 

Scene photo La Fura del Baus, M.U.R.S. Photo Josep Aznar

La Fura dels Baus pushes you into a haunted house of play and seriousness in M.U.R.S.

Stepping into M.U.R.S. is a treat. This is the smart city, the city of our near future. Communication electronics and fun rule. It resembles a fairground or a huge disco. Exciting voices welcome you. You whirl in with the crowd. Everyone joins in. Your phone is in touch. Cheerleaders stand on a stage,... 

New annual figures show: THE Symphony Orchestra is virtually bankrupt

THE Symphony Orchestra is as good as bankrupt. The 2014 figures show that. So it is total nonsense that responsible minister Jet Bussemaker reported in her answers to questions by MP Jacques Monasch less than a month ago that the orchestra was well within the own income norm of 21.5%. Not only did she already use incorrect figures in her answers, now... 

Turkish toppers play the roof off Carré: fresh wind through Holland Festival #hf2015

Stars, we don't really do that in the Netherlands. Our ground level does not allow diva behaviour. In our lowlands, you get a plus if you have stayed so nicely ordinary despite your success. Even if you stand in the Arena with your songs, like the Toppers, this weekend. How different it is in Istanbul. There, you are allowed to be shamelessly famous. Like. 

Holland Festival - Back to the future with Metropolis

During the Holland Festival, theatre company La Fura dels Baus lets us experience the city of the future with the interactive performance M.U.R.S. As an overture, HF has programmed the film Metropolis, Fritz Lang's magisterial 1927 dystopian vision, which rightly became known as the mother of all future films. Iconic imagery, biblical influences, Marxist dialectics and actually still surprisingly modern. New York,... 

Ritual dance around digital Calf: M.U.R.S. by Fura dels Baus at Holland Festival

Visiting M.U.R.S. without the app on your smartphone is a challenge. The performance by the infamous Barcelona-based theatre collective is a commentary on how people are unwittingly becoming part of a SMART society run by international corporations via all sorts of gadgets. Are you in or out? Is there actually anything to choose? According to Jürgen Müller, one of the founders of... 

How do you remove the negative sound around 'amateur art'?

A tricky question, but Festival Havenwerk director Erik-Jan Post has an idea and likes to bad some sacred cows. About arts education. About the concept of 'amateur'. About how big you should want to be as a festival. 'We are much less a festival in the classic sense. Havenwerk is more of a meeting place, with the participants at the centre. This year, therefore, the entrance fees are... 

'A drunken panda who wants to have a tussle' - The Loom of Mind on HF15

In The Loom of Mind, Icelandic folk singer Mugison, his bosom friend Pétur Ben, and Flemish baroque ensemble B.O.X. join forces. What does that sound like: melancholic Icelandic blues with 17th-century instruments? Like a stand-up storytelling concert performance? Or like a drunken panda who wants to have a game? How did you find each other? Pieter Theuns, lutenist and founder of B.O.X.: "I found Mugison... 

Advertising column Three Sisters

Chekhov's helpless, poetic creatures - three actresses on Three Sisters

Three Sisters by Chekhov directed by Theu Boermans is back with the Nationale Toneel. Two and a half years after its original performance, the play will play nine times exclusively at the Royal Theatre in The Hague. There is news about all three "sisters". Anniek Pheifer (Masja), Ariane Schluter (Olga) and Sallie Harmsen (Irina) talk about their careers and about Chekhov.... 

A dozen questions to Vis à Vis

Theatre group Vis à Vis, based at Almere Strand since 2007, has been around for 25 years. In all these years, the group has mainly created accessible, successful open-air theatre performances such as PICNIC, Silo 8 and HaRT. Visual comedies with lots of spectacle, where solid themes are treated in a light-hearted way. EXIT is their anniversary performance. A dozen questions to Arjan Anker, artistic director of Vis à Vis:... 

Theo Verbey: 'A composer is first and foremost a songwriter'

Dutch composer Theo Verbey (Delft 1959) writes music of lush tonal beauty, in which the achievements of centuries of musical tradition resound. He made his name with works such as Triad (1991) for orchestra and Expulsion (1988) for large ensemble, and with orchestrations of pieces by composers such as Modest Mussorgsky and Alban Berg. For the closing concert of De Vrijdag van Vredenburg, he wrote Traurig wie... 

Flnr: Koen van Impe, Clara Cleymans and Waas Gramser of Comp Marius in Rotterdam, Figaro. Photo: Wijbrand Schaap

Brilliant actors in smooth comedy at Europe's biggest hangout

Europe's biggest hangout. That's the best way to describe the roof of that half-sunken car park in the heart of Rotterdam. Transformed fifteen years ago into the impression of a ship's deck, that 'Schouwburgplein' is now mostly owned by groups of skaters, vagrants, street urchins and other metropolitan troublemakers. Visitors to the Schouwburg usually rush without looking around too much to the... 

Vormidable: two Flemish visions of renewal sculpture

The annual major sculpture expo in The Hague in 2015 is called 'Vormidable'. In its own museum, on Lange Voorhout and at several satellite locations, Museum Beelden aan Zee shows how Flemish art experienced a true revival from the 1990s onwards. Panamarenko, De Bruyckere, Fabre, but also lesser-known names renewed sculpture - in two opposite ways. Guest curator Stef van... 

Arnhem decides: who takes decisive lead in the battle of the orchestras?

Tonight, the Arnhem city council will take an important decision on the renovation of Musis Sacrum, the monumental concert hall located at a prominent point in the city. But the real news is not in what will be decided tonight, but in the far-reaching consequences. Musis Sacrum dates back to 1847 and is part of the cultural heritage. The venue complex is in dire need of refurbishment and with... 

arie doeser on #cityt2cities

Lock up the alderman! 6 lessons from book festival #City2Cities 2015

The building alone made literature festival City2Cities worth a visit. After all, the Post Office on Utrecht's Neude, built in 1924 as an ode to progress in a style that brought together the best of the Amsterdam School, had been closed for years. So even those who don't get excited by Nick Cave and who think Michel Houellebecq is a creep had a reason... 

New music loses advocate Ton Hartsuiker

Monday 18 May 2015 he will be cremated in Utrecht: Ton Hartsuiker, tireless champion of new music in our country. In recent years, his health was ailing; he would narrowly miss his 82nd birthday. He was active as pianist, music educator, conservatory director, administrator and radio presenter. Even after his retirement in 1998, he did not consider quitting his... 

Music missionary looks back: "That King's Day concert is indefinite!"

Yep, I'm running behind, because just now I finally saw (in parts) the King's Day concert! But hey, good music has no expiry date and for now this concert will be online for a while. What a party! Some of my favourite musicians participated. Faithful readers of Culture Press know that violinist and composer Oene van Geel is definitely one of them. He brought along Zapp4... 

Crushing Benvenuto Cellini by Terry Gilliam

Even before the final notes of Benvenuto Cellini had sounded, the audience erupted in loud cheers and cheers last night (12 May). So Monty Python director Terry Gilliam's team pulled out all the stops to make this first opera by Hector Berlioz an unforgettable experience. That his dadaesque staging evokes memories of the joke-and-roll approach of the... 

With the French stroke: Cappella Amsterdam sings Ton de Leeuw

Ton de Leeuw lived in Paris for the last decade of his life and studied with Olivier Messiaen in his younger years. On 21 May, Cappella Amsterdam will present four of his French-language choral works in the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. The programme also includes works by his student and friend Daan Manneke and the young French composer Laurent Durupt.... 

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