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Comfort in times of Corona - Why adult animated films are so effective. (With Podcast)

Last year it was suddenly buzzing around: Dutch animation film is going to break through, a real animation industry has emerged. The occasion was the premiere of Heinz, Piet Kroon's whimsical and out-of-step film version of Windig and De Jong's comics. Not a children's film. And certainly not a Disney clone. We are talking about feature-length animation films, and there are many of those in the Netherlands.... 

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UPDATE: House passes motion. Minister works on 'support package'. Culture Council sounds alarm. (And look what the eastern neighbours are doing!)

UPDATE Friday, March 13, 9:30 a.m.: After the Culture Council sounded the alarm on Thursday night, the House of Representatives passed a motion urging a support package for the affected cultural sector. The text of the motion, tabled by D66, Groen Links, PvdA, Partij van de Dieren, Denk and 50Plus, reads as follows: 'The Chamber, having heard the debate, whereas meetings with... 

Read More "UPDATE: House passes motion. Minister works on 'support package'. Culture Council sounds alarm. (And look what the eastern neighbours are doing!)

Fred Goessens leaves ITA: 'In every group there is such a reliable lobster as me'

Fred Goessens has been dead, but is still alive. As uncompromising as ever. The Netherlands' most reliable actor makes an interim will after twenty-two years with Toneelgroep Amsterdam. 'I had shit on everything' This interview was published 10 years ago in TheaterMaker, the trade magazine for the theatre sector. As Fred Goessens is now leaving ITA, the company where he once... 

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PLATFORM COMMENCEMENT! LET'S BEGIN

On 2 March, Platform Aanvang! launched the petition Nederland maakt kunst / art makes the Netherlands at the Solidarity evening in ITA. An evening that opened the conversation for a solidarity sector, but most of all sounded the alarm for the planned downsizing of the arts sector. The petition was signed by more than 11,000 people in a week. When we saw the... 

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When it suddenly feels complicated to clap. Play based on Rodaan al Galidi's novel delivers necessary discomfort

Talent is often developed thanks to considerable opposition. Rodaan Al Galidi got talent for life thanks to more opposition than a white, former blonde Dutchman like me will ever meet. He escaped from Iraq and then spent years in the purgatory of the IND and COA, the abbreviations that define the border of the Netherlands. He wrote down what he... 

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That's how you give your city a real vision. (How Manchester became a leader in international arts in just a few years)

I have often resisted thinking of the Netherlands as a business. After all, a country cannot lay off people, or divest unprofitable sectors to make more profit. So anyone who speaks of the BV Nederland has not understood it. There are no competitors that you can fight out of the market while being entrepreneurial on those few square kilometres of polder land,... 

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Why the 4 March parliamentary debate was totally unnecessary.

After all, we did spend just under three hours on something completely nonsensical. Stupid, of course, as we had already written ourselves on 27 November 2019 that today's little debate in the Troelstra Room of the House of Representatives would be totally pointless. Everyone already knew that too, not least the movers of the motion, including Lodewijk Asscher ... 

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Paolo Cognetti: 'The mountains give me a lesson in humility every time.'

With his novel The Eight Mountains, Italian writer Paolo Cognetti (42) broke through internationally in 2017. Without Reaching the Top again takes place at great heights. 'The mountains give me a lesson in humility every time.' Without Reaching the Top is the travelogue of Cognetti's mountain trek in late 2017 through a high plateau in Nepal near the... 

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Hide the books, if you want people in the library. (Lessons from Manchester, episode 2)

A real estate agent once confided in me that a bookcase in the living room saves thousands of euros in the resale value of a house. In a negative sense. This fact always does well at parties, and book lovers (my network is full of them) grudge it. On a tour of Manchester Central Library, the head librarian proudly told us that the café... 

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Testament of Herman Finkers: don't brood on this wonderful life

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) was a composer, scientist, writer, doctor, mystic and founder of a convent. So a Catholic nun, but one who did explore female orgasm. The latter paradox resonates, Herman Finkers obviously realised when he wrote the screenplay for 'The Legs of St Hildegard'. Hildegard's description of orgasm read: 'When a woman makes love... 

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Better late than never. Employers in the creative sector are asking for an extra 100 million. And counting.

While I was walking around Manchester with some cultural sector leaders, minister Ingrid van Engelshoven sent a letter to the House, telling it how much it would cost to enable state-subsidised arts organisations to get fair pay at the current offer. So that letter contained quite a few omissions: the minister was silent on the role played by regional and... 

Read More "Better late than never. Employers in the creative sector are asking for an extra 100 million. And counting.

Eva's Klage at TivoliVredenburg: Lera Auerbach takes on the smothered female voice

Russian Lera Auerbach (1973) does not shy away from big challenges. And that is an understatement. Most recently, she made a big impression with her cycle Goetia 72: in umbra lucis. She composed this setting of the names of 72 demons for the Netherlands Chamber Choir and the string quartet Quatuor Danel. A CD of 72 Angels: in splendore lucis, in which... 

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70th Berlinale, under new management, opens with My Salinger Year and commemorates Hanau victims

"We are hopeful," is the reply when I speak to a colleague just before the start of the Berlin film festival. For curious as to how the choice of Carlo Chatrian as the new artistic director has fallen among German critics. Chatrian, previously director of the leading arthouse festival in Locarno, lies well, I understand. Whether this 70th Berlinale will see all that new momentum... 

Read More "70th Berlinale, under new management, opens with My Salinger Year and commemorates Hanau victims

Netherlands Wind Ensemble launches second tour of The Unknown Chaplin an ode to Chaplin's artistry, with newly composed music

After its successful tour last November, the Nederlands Blazers Ensemble will tour again with The Unknown Chaplin. The second tour - from 3 March to 22 March - will take in venues in Ede, Helmond, Tilburg, Den Haag, Amersfoort, Enschede, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. www.nbe.nl/programma/the-unknown-chaplin/ Six hilarious, humorous and melancholic silent films by the great universal genius Charlie... 

Read More "Netherlands Wind Ensemble launches second tour of The Unknown Chaplin an ode to Chaplin's artistry, with newly composed music

Games - culture or not?

That gaming plays an important role in contemporary, Dutch youth culture is obvious. Yet during exhibitions and in museums, attention to this extremely popular phenomenon is usually lacking. Why does gaming remain so underexposed here? Art is such a broad concept that we can include just about anything between rock drawings and graffiti. That breadth then also matches the... 

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Reinbert is dead, long live Reinbert!

'I get up with you and I go to bed with you,' I said jokingly. We stood in his kitchenette, where he made coffee for himself and tea for me. Reinbert's big startled eyes told me that my ironic remark had landed in the barren soil of his deadly seriousness. - It was not the first and not the last 

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There is chaos in the Cultural Basic Infrastructure grant application process. Therefore, we leave you to read the email. 

That government distrust of citizens in the Netherlands has reached bizarre proportions is proven by the hassle with benefits at the tax office and the state of affairs at the UWV. Or your average housing landlord where you want to report a leaky tap. Thanks to a politics influenced by false entrepreneurialism and rabid populism that treats citizens as fraudsters... 

Read More "There is chaos in the Cultural Basic Infrastructure grant application process. Therefore, we leave you to read the email. 

'I have become a freer writer.' Esther Verhoef on the new dimension in her work

Short stories have been written by Esther Verhoef (51) for as long as she has been writing fiction - since she was seven. Whether they are 10 or 100 pages long, her stories are as dear to Verhoef as her novels and thrillers. 'Look,' says Esther Verhoef, unfolding the flaps of the cover of Labyrinth - the stories. On the inside are old, on... 

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Matthijs goes to Saturday night. That, of course, is the end of VPRO's Mondo (update: or not?).

Fascinating front-page news and headliners for all talk shows: Matthijs van Nieuwkerk quits DWDD after 15 years. Obviously a disaster of national proportions. The book industry proclaims the end of the world, bands can no longer break through, and the successor to De Correspondent can never again meet its crowdfunding target in six minutes. An institution disappears, and everyone panics. Who... 

Read More "Matthijs goes to Saturday night. That, of course, is the end of VPRO's Mondo (update: or not?).

Why I hope to meet those youngsters from that particular reading club here: Olga Neuwirth composes soundtrack to Die Stadt ohne Juden

Emerging fascism is becoming increasingly parlous. Especially among young people, I discovered recently at a concert by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw. A reading club of twenty-somethings said they enjoyed James MacMillan's Second Percussion Concerto. They joined me in denouncing the draconian cuts to culture. But suddenly it sounded carefree: 'We are all voting for Thierry.' When I was dismayed... 

Read More "Why I hope to meet those youngsters from that particular reading club here: Olga Neuwirth composes soundtrack to Die Stadt ohne Juden

Bill T Jones is larger than life. Why Holland Festival 2020 will be a lot more topical than previous editions.

There are people who have a voice with which you can quiet a crowd in a whisper. Bill T Jones, choreographer and this year's associate artist of the Holland Festival, is one such person. Apart from that beautiful, heavy and full voice, he also has a presence with which he can quiet the cogs with a single hand movement. But all that would be nothing if... 

Read More "Bill T Jones is larger than life. Why Holland Festival 2020 will be a lot more topical than previous editions.

HOLLAND FESTIVAL 2020 WITH BILL T. JONES IN SEARCH OF A 'WE'

From 4 to 28 June 2020, Amsterdam will host the 73rd edition of the Holland Festival. Associate Artist this year is American choreographer, director, writer and dancer Bill T. Jones. His work will include the new show Deep Blue Sea, in which Jones himself dances and, assisted by a hundred mostly local... 

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Frida, indringende beelden van een gekwelde ziel. Of andersom.

Full-length classical ballet Frida once again creates the Annabelle effect

How many female choreographers do you know who create a full-length ballet for a top classical ballet company? - I thought. Before going to Frida, I get word that a Latin American young woman has been hospitalised. Loss of a lot of blood, and unborn child. The cheerful girl I know weakly raises a thumb from the hospital bed on WhatsApp.... 

Read More "Full-length classical ballet Frida once again creates the Annabelle effect

Five stars. Or more. Why we need heroines like Tina Turner. 

What. Have. We. Terrible. Much. Too. Learning. If there is 1 thing the musical Tina makes clear, it is that. Especially at the stormy premiere, Sunday 9 February, a few hours before storm Ciara blew the last bubbles out of the Utrecht champagne glasses. An almost completely white auditorium, in Black Tie, that is, with only a few people from... 

Read More "Five stars. Or more. Why we need heroines like Tina Turner. 

Retrospect Opera presents Fête Galante by unjustly forgotten Ethel Smyth - Buy that CD!

'Had I not possessed three things unrelated to music, I would have perished early on from loneliness and disillusionment,' wrote Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) at 60. Those three things were: 'Iron health, a distinct fighting spirit and a modest but independent income.' Whereas women in the nineteenth century were condemned to compose 

Read More "Retrospect Opera presents Fête Galante by unjustly forgotten Ethel Smyth - Buy that CD!

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