For members only

This content is only available to Culture Press members. Become a member.

Pure contact improvisation and martial arts in confrontational performance by Japanese dance group contact Gonzo

by one of our members
21 April 201129 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

1_Contact_Gonzo_2,_480 — Contact Gonzo

With their name, the five Japanese of contact Gonzo refer to the gonzo journalism by the late Hunter S. Thompson. Raw, harsh and subjective. Thomspon also showed how he worked in his pieces. Contact Gonzo warms up during the performance, taking snapshots of each other with disposable cameras and passing the water bottle. Gonzo-style: what you see is what you get.

Contact Gonzo adheres to simple rules. For example gravity: jumping and coming down. Or attracting and repelling: pushing, pulling, like a rugby scrum. In doing so, they touch on minimal art that adhered to a set of parameters; one thinks of Sol LeWitt.

Aerial cycling elevated to art: Sylvain Prunenec 'dances' Nos Solitudes by Julie Nioche

by Wijbrand Schaap
20 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

It could be a circus number, but the stillness in this technical dance installation ensures that it rises above the level of a pretty trick. Hanging from pulleys supported by counterweights, Sylvain floats in the Academy Theatre. Here, he briefly explains how it works. Spoiler alert. And in French.

Yasmeen Godder lets contrast between frightened individual and roaring group animal linger too much in dancers' minds

by Daniel Bertina
20 April 201129 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

storm end come Itzik Giuli — Dancers by Yasmeen Godder - photo Itzik Giuli

She is on her knees. Shaking and trembling, she jerks backwards. With clawed fingers that seem to grasp at the void. Like a frightened cat. Shuffling, the dancer moves backwards in a semicircle on the white stage floor of Theatre Frog. One by one, the five others step onto the empty open stage, while the first dancer keeps looking anxiously at the audience. Thus begins 'Storm end come'. With this performance, Israeli choreographer Yasmeen Godder shows the overwhelming effects of fear on the bodies of her dancers. But it doesn't really get scary.

The Dodo reports on the 27th edition of Springdance

by Madeleine Red
18 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

The 27th edition of Springdance in Utrecht is in full swing. Cultural Press Agency reviewers are there, attending dance performances from all corners of the world. For instance, Fransien van der Putt visited the opening performance Sideways Rain by Brazilian Guilhermo Botelho and the jazzy tap dance performance by Broadway star Savion Glover. Maarten Baanders attended Studium by Belgian dance collective...

Parade prepares for new summer tour in glorious weather

by one of our members
18 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Terts Brinkhoff , founder of De Parade, has a set of sheds on the frayed edge of Weesp in which all the travelling festival's tents are stored, when not rented out. In April, the management (now Ray van Santen and Nicole van Vessum) gathers all the artists from the upcoming summer tour there for an introduction. Press time, of course. And with the weather like...

Also at the Imagine festival: film fans become film financiers

by Leo Bankersen
17 April 201129 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, FILM

In 1945, advanced rocket technology allowed a group of Nazis to escape to the moon. There they hid and soon they will return to take over again. At Imagine, Amsterdam's festival for fantastic film, there was a sneak preview of that. If the omens do not deceive, Iron Sky, as this Finnish production is called, promises to be a...

"What's wrong with 'dark'?" Margrét Sara Gudjónsdóttir makes you aware of the dark side of being a spectator

by Wijbrand Schaap
17 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Margret Sara Gudjonsdottir explores the unequal power relationship between spectators and dancer. And goes very far in doing so. Uncomfortable' is still the mildest description for the work 'Soft Target'. Which is not at all the case for a conversation in private.

"On your knees, governor!" David Byrne wins lawsuit against abuse 'Road to nowhere'

by Wijbrand Schaap
17 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

It was so nice, using the 1980s band Talking Heads' song 'Road to nowhere' to get your political message across. Now yes. Ex-Senator and Governor of Florida Charlie Crist thought he could get away with it, and he may have succeeded politically, financially he is going to lose out big time. The compensation amount has not been disclosed, but...

You won't believe with your eyes what you hear with your ears with drum machine Savion Glover

by Fransien van der Putt
17 April 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

"I don't care about the body, I make music," Savion Glover said last night, leaning against the doorframe of his dressing room after the performance Bare Soundz. The dance audience at Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg theatre was struggling to master the mores of a jazz audience. As the concert progressed, it increasingly produced encouraging yells when the three tap dancers loosened...

Dancers of Busy Rocks combine rigour with lightness and humour in 'Studium'

by Maarten Baanders
16 April 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Springdance 2 — Studium by Busy Rocks - photo Teodora Mihai

It is nothing new that simple movements, close to the everyday, are given a place in dance performances. But the particular way they are constructed and highlighted in 'Studium' by Belgian group Busy Rocks makes you look at them with fresh wonder.
Three of the four dancers, darkly dressed, lie down on the floor against each other in carefully crafted poses. On this construction of bodies, a dancer, dressed bright white, takes her place in a horizontal position. The lighting makes the body lying above seem to float. The underlying figures push up the limbs in such a way that the white figure moves as if she is walking. The manipulation is done with great precision. Looking at it with tilted head, one sees perfectly natural steps.

Cesc Gelabert revives dance innovation

by Wijbrand Schaap
16 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Cesc Gelabert is a distinct figure in the world of modern dance. The Catalan with German roots makes a habit of keeping repertoire from the hot period of dance innovation alive, touring theatres and festivals with it for decades. So no Cinderella and Swan Lake for this engaging perfectionist, but dance steps from a Berlin...

Introducing: the Dodo team for Springdance

by one of our members
16 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

We gathered the cream of Dutch dance journalism for these ten days of dance innovation. Fransien van de Putt, well known in Belgium and the Netherlands, Maarten Baanders, well known in the wide surroundings of Leiden and Daniël Bertina, well known in the wide surroundings of Het Parool were ij the opening of Springdance and were actually happy with what they got to see. ...

How do you bring a river on stage?

by Wijbrand Schaap
15 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

The opening of Springdance was a beautiful, continuous movement, from left to right across the stage of Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg theatre. Before the performance, Wijbrand Schaap spoke to choreographer Guilherme Botelho about this special dance piece.

Springdance opens with Botelho's Sideways Rain: fascinating intensity of dance, but lack of consistency

by Fransien van der Putt
15 April 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Normandy 2010 — Scene from Sideways Rain by Botelho. Photo by Jean-Yves Genoud

From left to right, single people move across the stage, unceasingly and in droves sometimes, for an hour. It is addictive, this locomotion in Sideways Rain, the endless forward motion in one and the same direction of what appear to be ever-new people. Through subtle costume changes, a dark lighting scheme and Murcof's dramatic drones, it is very difficult at first to tell the 15 dancers apart. They become a fascinating stream of passers-by, on their way from somewhere to nowhere. Unlike the view along the public road, the dancers do not carry the usual bags, umbrellas and hats and, moreover, they move mainly on four legs.

'I want to make the perpetrator relive the death of his victim.' Jens van Daele makes dance out of cruelly disturbed art project

by one of our members
14 April 201129 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Jens van Daele concludes his series of choreographies on the seven deadly sins with the performance Brides for Peace. The piece is based on the art performance Brides on Tour by Italian artists Pippa Bacca and Silvia Moro. Hitchhiking and dressed in wedding dresses, with a text 'Peace' on their chests, they travelled from Milan to Jerusalem in 2008. The journey went...

So up close, and so small occupied as at La Petite Bande, Bach's St John Passion comes in in a very distinctive way.

by Wijbrand Schaap
6 April 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

I am not a connoisseur of the performance practice of Bach's St John Passion and know that other piece, the St Matthew Passion, mainly from a few TV excerpts and far-flung arrangements like the one by Platel's Pitié. So don't expect me to pass judgment on how good the version seen and heard at the Concertgebouw on 5 April 2011 was, comparatively...

Current 93 survives music industry malaise on a diet of lots of love and dog-eared fans

by one of our members
4 April 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Reports of the collapsing music industry have been rife. Apparently, as a musician, you no longer survive on the basis of record sales (alone). In niche genres, however, it is easy to survive. So proves the band Current 93, which performed in Stadtgarten, Cologne, last week. Playing live a lot and selling merchandise seems to be the golden rule for...

In the Empire, a man always writes the same book and others wear the same shirt

by Wijbrand Schaap
30 March 201130 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

We were deep in Amsterdam's canal belt for a while. After all, prominent resident of this city Rudi Fuchs was presented with a new booklet, written by himself together in the pages of De Groene Amsterdammer. This weekly magazine, by all accounts the oldest in the country, hosts the art connoisseur and former museum director in its pages. On it, he stomach writing about artworks that...

Arts sector comes up with its own interpretation of culture cuts: more money to venues and assessment by 'professionals' on 'objective grounds'.

by Wijbrand Schaap
29 March 201130 March 2022
6 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

After the cry, now the official piece. With a fitting, tad Den Uyl/Van Agt-like title: 'Less where it can be done, better where it must be done.' But let's not laugh too hard. It is quite brave what they have done. Gitta Luyten, Marianne Versteegh, Joke Hubert, Henk Scholten, Siebe Weide and Ben Holvast, together as bosses of arts umbrellas and cultural sector institutes also...

Death Horse puts on bold shoes and waves goodbye to Shakespeare in 'Bye Bye'

by one of our members
21 March 201129 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Amsterdam-based company Dood Paard itself translated Shakespeare's 'Othello' and waves goodbye to the bard with 'Bye Bye'. The quirky collective performs a one-and-a-half-hour topical comedy of manners and soul mirror, in which pointing at 'The Other' is central. Shakespeare's plays are quite often performed quite reverently. . Moreover, the adored 'bard' from Stratford-upon-Avon has bestowed on the English language countless expressions that have come to...

After U with Monic Hendrickx and Jaap Spijkers opens third edition of Go Short

by Leo Bankersen
16 March 201130 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, FILM, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

To protest against the cuts in culture, you can of course shout loudly, but as an artist you can also just do what you are good at - make something really beautiful. Dutch film director Danyael Sugawara (Alles stroomt) chose the latter and in a day and a half, with the best Dutch actors, shot Na U, a small drama about unconditional love and...

Meanwhile in Damascus (Syria): theatre project Adelheid Roosen postponed 'due to student protest'

by Wijbrand Schaap
15 March 201130 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Dutch theatre-maker Adelheid Roosen, who is currently working with director Merel de Groot on a theatre project with Syrian art students, sees her project hindered because of student protests, although we are not entirely sure in the totalitarian country, from which we rarely receive news. The University of Damascus, where she is working on the project To tell You I call...

Taboo perpetuates health problems in music industry

by one of our members
4 March 201130 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Trouble with your voice? You don't talk about that. Because competition is so high in the music industry, there is a taboo on showing weaknesses. While the consequences would be much smaller if attention was given to it sooner. Time for the Muziek Centrum Nederland to ask the question at its music café on 3 March where...

Bettina Masuch on 'her' Springdance: 'Sometimes you wonder if you want to watch it, but then you watch it anyway....

by one of our members
3 March 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Bettina Masuch (1964) has been artistic director of Springdance since 2008 and presents its third festival programme this year. We asked the woman behind this leading festival for innovative dance about this season's highlights. One of the performances she describes already makes us very curious: the Japanese street fighters of Contact Gonzo. Could just happen that somewhere between 14 and...

Province investigates: 'Utrecht worth 1 billion more thanks to arts sector'

by one of our members
28 February 201130 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Art costs money. The current Rutte administration has hammered that into it: it's expensive, no one but a small club of insiders goes there, and either way those are leftists or pseudo-leftists who can easily pay for it themselves. So much for the government's opinion. The opinion of the art world can be guessed: it is...

" Previous
1
...
78
79
80
81
82
...
84
Next "

Small Cultural Membership

175€ / 12 Months

Subscribe

For turnover less than 250,000 per year.

Posting press releases yourself

More details in the confirmation email!

Most Popular

Cultural Membership

360€ / Year

Subscribe

For cultural organisations

Posting press releases yourself

Collaboration

In the confirmation e-mail you will find the details for press release forwarding

Private Membership

50€ / Year

Subscribe

For natural persons and self-employed persons.

Exclusive archives

Own mastodon account on our instance