Things we do for members and partners.
It's easy to cycle past it as a Utrechter, the Basis voor Actuele Kunst (BAK) in Lange Nieuwstraat, but internationally few can ignore it. BAK is big. Under the leadership of artistic director Maria Hlavajova, who is as ineffable as she is sympathetic, the centre has become a leading centre in the world of contemporary art. A few years ago,...
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...
Admittedly, our method of reviewing (see our contributions on Springdance and De Internationale Keuze) is new to the Netherlands, but in the States a few were already doing it. For example, the two yummy guys Andrew and Andrew are doing well with their iPhones, doing the same as the Dodo with the Kodak Zi8 (no shares, though we would love to be sponsored...
Our overview of Twitter responses to the Council for Culture's advice, released on 29 April. [View the story "Twitter reacts to Council for Culture advice" on Storify]
Once again, we are using a new web service. Just to see how it works. Feel free to let us know (in the comments) if you find us too geeky. We'll do something about it. [View the story "Springdance 2011" on Storify]
On Wednesday 27 April 2011, we reported on the annual symposium of the Royal Association of Booksellers. Interesting bi9jeen meeting, we can say, but of course not every speaker was as brilliant as Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaar, the director of the Collective Propaganda of the Dutch Book Foundation, whom from now on we will call the John and Jesus of the storytelling industry...
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 it 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?
Springdance Utrecht has ended. Boris Charmatz gave the last performance of the Utrecht dance festival last night with "Levée des conflits". Critics Fransien van der Putt and Daniël Bertina already show their opinions in the film below. They also have a conversation with Boris Charmatz. Read more about this performance.
Her full thighs clatter together. She shakes her bare arms, grinning at the trembling skin on her upper arms. She stomps furiously across the Theatre Kikker's playing floor, while her hefty body - dressed in a small, nondisguising black dress - emphatically bounces happily on all sides. You just have to dare. In her one-woman show 'Gina', Swiss theatre maker Eugénie Rebetez beyond all embarrassment. In the skin of Gina, Rebetez shows her own yearning for stardom, with plenty of self-mockery and absurdist humour. A quirky mishmash of mime, stand-up comedy, cabaret and contemporary dance.
Had we completely forgotten about the goat from sheer terror. Anyway. That goat, or at least its completely skinned carcass according to Dutch law, plays a role in the finale of Ishmael Houston-Jones' show Them. Afterwards, we saw the audience come out rather affected.
Clara García Fraile represents England in the international programme Europe in Motion. Young choreographers interacted during the festival and will present their own work at the end of this edition. Clara has nothing to show, she says, but that is also because, as a video artist, she is working on other things than dance. And those other things are...
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.
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.
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 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...
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...
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...
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.
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...
"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 struggled to master the mores of a jazz audience. As the concert progressed, it increasingly produced encouraging yells when the three tap dancers loosened up
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 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...
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. ...
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.
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, move mainly on four legs.
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