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#HF11 Rommelige opzet van Around Robert Wyatt zit magische momenten in de weg

”Alifib” van de Britseprogrocker Robert Wyatt (1945) is een liedje dat onder de huid kruipt. De bijnabrekende stem van Wyatt klinkt zo oprecht triest dat het je de adem beneemt. Het lijkt een onmogelijke opgave om ”Alifib” overtuigend te brengen zonder de meester zelf. Toch krijgt het Franse Orchestre National de Jazz het voor elkaar. Waar Wyatt in het origineel… 

Week two of the Holland Festival (#HF11) brings a nice mix of highlights and questionable choices.

Dat de Off Broadway-musical Fela! Een succes was, konden we eigenlijk wel verwachten. Voor De Dodo hebben we er daarom ook niemand heen gestuurd: er zijn al genoeg kranten en andere bloggers die graag bij de New Yorkse publiekslievelingen op de eerste rang willen zitten. Dat ze een goede tijd hadden, leest u elders op deze site, via de blogstream… 

"We still spend hundreds of millions on culture"

Stronger than ever in recent years, the influence of spin doctors on politics has been noticeable. While at first it was only the PVV, in the person of Martin Bosma, who introduced the American methods of 'framing', it is now also standing Cabinet policy. We all know the Henk and Ingrids, the hardworking Dutch and the head rag tax. And now there is the... 

#HF11 Unadorned, austere and powerful "Flûte Enchantée" by Peter Brook

Papageno pronkte gisteravond zonder zijn verenpracht. Sterker nog, de hele regie van Une flûte enchantée was een onopgesmukt genoegen. Sober. Integer. Je kunt een Nederlands publiek niet wilder krijgen dan met een dergelijke aanpak. Complimenten dus, voor Peter Brook. In het Muziekgebouw aan het IJ was de Nederlandse première van Brooks bewerking van Die Zauberflöte van Mozart. De productie draaide… 

#HF11 Weather barbed, lovely and humorous notes at mini-festival Xenakis 1234

With the battle between Titans and gods on Mount Olympus, Xenakis opens 1234, a mini-festival in the great Holland Festival. In four concerts, spread over two days, it features Iannis Xenakis central. There is also an extensive exhibition dedicated to the Greek composer, who was a mathematician and architect by birth.

Deeper layers far in vague project 'The Long Count' by twin brothers Dessner

The Long Count - photo Julieta Cervantes

Two boys beat a guitar with a baseball bat, which was hanging on a rope in the air. Moments before, they also battered the instrument in a strange game of tug-of-war, during which the guitar regularly hit the ground. Both times, shrill, nasty sounds fill the room. The games are played with a deadly serious face, so they seem to be telling something to the visitors. But what actually? That question keeps spinning through your head with almost every theatrical moment in The Long Count. The project by twin brothers Bryce and Aaron Dessner of indie rock band The National sounds rather exciting. For instance, the announcement calls it a multimedia concert, with a song cycle that is supposed to focus on the time before our world began. The musicians created it with video artist Matthew Ritchie and used the Popol Vuh, a historical-mythological text by a Mayan people from Guatemala about those early days, as inspiration. In the show, they aim to make connections between Mayan myth and their own lives.

Die Jahreszeiten, in OT's version, fits perfectly into the Flemish-Dutch Opera Days

In the Netherlands, the view of opera is mainly guided by concert practice. As such, the Dutch approach to this genre differs considerably from what is common in the rest of Euroa. This is evident from the fact that over the past century, investments have been made in concert halls that are among the best in the world: the Amsterdam... 

De Dodo herleeft voor Holland Festival editie 2011 #HF11

Deze week barst het Holland Festival los en wij zijn erbij. We maken met een flink team professionele journalisten een Dodo Festivaldagkrant, zoals we dat eerder ook deden voor bijvoorbeeld Springdance en De Internationale Keuze van de Rotterdamse Schouwburg. We volgen het festival op de voet om nieuws te brengen wanneer het zich voordoet. We gaan voorstellingen zien waar anderen… 

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

photo: Aino Laberenz

The lung cancer survivor who died last year Künstler Christoph Schlingensief - all-rounder, provocateur, director, life artist - gets on the Holland Festival an extended tribute: the opening performance Mea Culpa, a programme of seven feature films, and Schlingensief's swan song Via Intolleranza II.

Deathly ill caught Christoph Schlingensief up the wild plan to move into Burkina Faso an opera village from the ground up, Remdoogo. A self-sufficient sanctuary where people from different cultures could meet, and to make art together there for an extended period of time. This follows similar initiatives such as the Avenida Theatre in Mozambique, set up by author Henning Mankell. Schlingensief sought to merge art and life. Driven by a long-standing fascination with the rich African culture, and inspired by the ideals of his great hero Joseph Beuys.

Via Intolleranza II is Schlingensief's attempt to capture, in a maelstrom of documentary, music, visual art, film, performance art, lecture, opera and theatre, the early process of becoming Remdoogo. A performance about a process. At the same time, Schlingensief also seems to question his own motives. Via Intolleranza II was his swan song - he died three months after the premiere. The show will have its Dutch premiere on Saturday 4 June.

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... 

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... 

Ministry of OCW cuts a little more to 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 (much) less or (much) more money on... 

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... 

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... 

Utrechts Beeldende Kunstcentrum krijgt in Ventië bezoek van Salman Rushdie, George Soros en Johnny Depp

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… 

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... 

Boekverkopers beginnen schoorvoetend het digitale tijdperk te omarmen

Op woensdag 27 april 2011 deden we verslag van het jaarlijkse symposium van de Koninklijke Vereiging van Boekverkopers. Interessante bi9jeenkomst, kunnen we stellen, maar natuurlijk was niet iedere spreker even briljant als Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaar, de directeur van de stichting Collectieve Propaganda van het Nederlandse Boek, die we vanaf nu de Johannes en Jezus van de verhalenbranche zullen… 

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 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?

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'. Foto: Augustin Rebetez.

Haar volle dijen kletsen tegen elkaar. Ze schudt met haar ontblote armen en kijkt grijnzend naar de trillende huid op haar bovenarmen. Ze stampt woest over de speelvloer van Theater Kikker, terwijl haar forse lijf – gekleed in een klein nietsverhullend zwart jurkje – nadrukkelijk aan alle kanten vrolijk meestuitert. Je moet maar durven. In haar one woman show ‘Gina’ gaat de Zwitserse theatermaker Eugénie Rebetez aan alle gêne voorbij.  In de huid van Gina toont Rebetez haar eigen hunkering naar het sterrendom, met veel zelfspot en absurdistische humor. Een eigenzinnige mengelmoes van mime, stand up comedy, kleinkunst en hedendaagse dans.

Maar hoe zat het nou met die geit?

Waren we van pure schrik helemaal vergeten hoe dat nou zat met die geit. Enfin. Die geit, of althans het volgens de Nederlandse wetgeving geheel ontvelde karkas ervan, speelt een rol in de finale van de voorstelling Them van Ishmael Houston-Jones. We zagen na afloop het publiek tamelijk aangedaan naar buiten komen.

‘Met praten over kunst bereik je altijd een punt dat het allemaal te abstract wordt.’ – Clara García Fraile over ‘Europe in Motion’

Clara García Fraile vertegenwoordigt Engeland in het internationale programma Europe in Motion. Jonge choreografen hebben tijdens het festival met elkaar gepraat en presenteren aan het eind van deze editie een eigen werk. Clara heeft niets te laten zien, vertelt ze, maar dat komt ook omdat zij als videokunstenares met andere dingen dan dans bezig is. En die andere dingen zijn… 

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