Things we do for members and partners.
A little tent allowed to play for sea anemone on dry land, its four legs perky in the air. Actors having a cup of tea and a game of cards. It all looks very innocent. What begins as a wonderful picture novel gradually grows into a rebus of considerable length. "My private Himalaya" is akin to a walking exhibition, with a wind machine....
You think you are buying a ticket for Springdance, but actually you are making an appointment at the office, at the Central Museum. Once let inside the waiting room, staff walk busily past you and the doorman takes one call after another. You obediently fill in a form. As usual, you have to reveal all sorts of personal details. And then that question: what...
This Tuesday was all about daily acts that became art, or art that became daily acts. We are not quite there yet. Daniel Bertina, Fransien van der Putt and Maarten Baanders discuss Field Works: Office by Heine Avdal and Yukiko Shinozaki, A gesture that is nothing but a threat by Dias and Roriz,...
Historical material, shall we call it. The letter from Halbe Zijlstra, outgoing State Secretary for Culture, and Uri Rosenthal, the equally outgoing Foreign Minister on the international cultural policy of populist Holland. As cold and matter-of-fact as the fallen Rutte government dealt with culture, so is the formulation of cultural policy in an international perspective, according to the...
No festival without a debate, and on Sunday 22 April it was. In English and led by Dodo reporter Daniel Bertina, it was about festival themes and marketing, and audiences. We have listed some highlights for you.
Europe in Motion is a travelling talent development programme and acts as a battleground and meeting place for young choreographers. What is urgent in dance is discussed for a week to encourage dance makers in their artistic development. This second edition, with partners Dance4 (Nottingham), iDans (Istanbul) and Imagetanz (Vienna), ends in Utrecht. Springdance previously featured dance from high-tech laboratories in Israel (Batsheva Dance...
With two performances, "The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act" and "House", Batsheva Dance Company shows impressive, sublime dance mastery and fresh dynamics. But also restlessness, searching and confusion. The era of happy, harmonious dance is over. A lecture on dance, prior to the performance, emphasises that contemporary dance need not compulsively oppose other dance movements. This artistic...
Upon entering, Wild Life Take Away Station has been going on for four hours. Two performers - Diego Agulló and Ria Higler, a young man and an old woman - stroll through the Central Museum's project studio like drowsy zombies. They are pale and muscle-naked, apart from their weird slippers and wigs. The two lie sprawled across the sofa,...
Our team agrees: Springdance really took off on Saturday. With Ibrahim Quraishi's installation 'Wildlife Take Away Station' for sure. Reviewer Daniel Bertina made his own recordings, which will appear in his review. And it was even more tasty for him at '(M)imosa. Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (M)....
"I love it when movement moves people," says British choreographer Russel Maliphant in this interview after the performance of The Rodin Project. In the Hekman foyer of Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg, our colleague from Danspubliek.nl put the creator ven the Rodin Project through his paces. It is interesting what Maliphant has to say about the first part of...
Ivo Dimchev is als performer zo snel en wreed in zijn schakelingen tussen botte bravoure, kinderlijke lol, erotische impertinenties en snijdende eenzaamheid, dat je er als toeschouwer normaliter niet meer tussen komt. Zodra Dimchev zijn publiek in de klauwen heeft, kan het hem alleen nog verbijsterd volgen. “I-on” is opnieuw een ogenschijnlijk losse verzameling acties. Alles speelt zich af rond een…
Experts in particular were upset with the official opening performance of Springdance 2012. "The Rodin Project" by Russel Maliphant was special for that reason alone. Rarely has there been so much talk about an opening performance, especially since it is also Springdance's last opening performance. The 30-year-old festival of innovative dance and performance is ceasing to exist. Partly due to pressure from subsidy cuts from...
Het festival opent teleurstellend met ‘The Rodin Project’. De beeldhouwer Rodin mag dan een uitdagende keuze zijn, helaas beperkt choreograaf Russell Maliphant zich tot het imiteren van sfeer en uiterlijke plaatjes. Rodin werkte vanuit een uitgesproken idee over materie. Hij was op zoek naar hoe vormen en bewegingen zich uit materie losmaken. Met zijn menselijke gestalten en hun gebaren liet…
It may be a crisis and the cultural winds may also be blowing from the wrong right corner, but that doesn't stop The Dodo from flying. The festival day newspaper we launched two years ago as a new commercial product is ready for another 10 days of Springdance. We're going to review a lot of performances, and compare even more. And we're going to make a journal. It...
"What the fuck should I do with this?" was choreographer and performance artist Ivo Dimchev's (1976) first thought when confronted with the artworks of Austrian artist Franz West. After Dimchev's solo performance Some Faves (2010) in Vienna, West, a multi-awarded creator of bizarre sculptures and objects, sought contact with the choreographer. He asked him to make an improvised video based on his...
Ze heeft het druk gehad. Hoogzwanger werkte Yasmeen Godder (Jeruzalem, 1973) aan haar eerste choreografie voor Batsheva Dance Company. In een maand tijd stampte ze onder de vleugels van Batsheva haar nieuwe voorstelling The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act uit te grond, en beviel tussendoor van een gezonde dochter. Voor de derde keer presenteert de Israëlische choreografe Yasmeen Godder haar werk…
Hein Janssen (Volkskrant) wrote a column in response to a couple of performances with BN stars in the subsidised circuit in which he argued that subsidy was not meant for that. The association for actors thought this was reason enough for a debate. We made a short film to go with it. We formatted it in storify, a feature that allows you to put tweets and other social media messages together and...
Art subsidies are better abolished if artists have to reach large audiences. Because then, after all, you distort the market. Logical. You could also decide to subsidise everyone. And that sounds stranger than
This year, Springdance will be held for the last time. After almost 30 years, it was time for something new, if only because the wind in The Hague is suddenly coming from the right and that is bad for business. At least if you want to show innovative art. That is why Springdance is merging with the other Utrecht-based...
Brazil has 10% more every year for arts, sports and entertainment, plus an extra 600 million this year. If we in the Netherlands ever start growing the economy again, we can choose between the Chinese and Brazilian models. In China, growth goes mainly to puissant wealthy entrepreneurs, and wealthier citizens buy mass-produced luxury goods. For...
"It is currently not possible to reliably predict the development of these characteristics of the cultural sector, let alone the impact of the cuts on them. Movements in the things mentioned in the question depend on many factors. First, there is no
Last night the awards for best short films were presented at festival Go Short in Nijmegen. Winner of the Dutch competition is Woensdagen by Aaron Rookus, a small feature film that approaches the heavily charged subject of sexual abuse in the most subtle way. What begins as an emotionally stunningly well-struck impression of eight-year-old Kris' weekly outing...
Peter de Graef is not only a wonderful actor, he can also tell compelling stories. He also brings that talent with him as a writer. So in Boiling Frog, the show now on tour in the Netherlands, there are six Peter de Graefs on stage, and that is no punishment. Especially not because those six Peter de Graefs also...
For the unions, it is not all that bad: because of the mega-cuts to the arts, they have to 800 people laid off will be. That is almost nothing compared to, say, the bankrupt Nedcar, where redundancies at a single location may be double or more.
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