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*With sound!* Why the Holland Festival show doesn't have to stop for now

'Please stop the show!", shouted an 83-year-old former reviewer from the back row. Theatre Frascati fell silent for a moment. There had never really been such an interruption at the Holland Festival's traditionally festive press conference. And that while Faustin Linyekula had just got into his stride, telling about the projects he is carrying out with his Studio Kanako in Kisangani. They provided... 

Photographer: Jan Sol

Why I will be nice to a beggar next time. (What Ilay den Boer can't manage)

As the weather was record beautiful, I walked from Amsterdam Centraal to Theater Bellevue on Sunday 17 February 2019. I was going to see the performance 'And so I shall go again.' going to see, by Ilay den Boer, someone I used to follow intensively but had lost track of since I am no longer a paid opinion seller. I considered the title of the performance as... 

'Only when I've written it down do I know what I thought of something.' Nicolien Mizee on smurfs, gnomes and murder

'Would you like to see my smurfs?' From anyone else's mouth such a question would sound strange, but with Nicolien Mizee you are not surprised. After all, the Haarlem-based writer's books are often a tad strange and absurd, and above all witty. The interview tape is already off, the tea is finished, and Mizee pulls out a kind of maquette... 

M carbunaru [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

All balls to Cuijk. Why it really is a good idea for the Netherlands to have a Capital of Culture every year.

How nice it would be if Zutphen were to be Cultural Capital of the Netherlands next year, proudly representing itself and thanks to a strong impulse from its surrounding area: the province of Gelderland. They could immediately tackle the hopeless situation of the local theatre, the kids from the suburbs could also go to hip-hop in a real hall and everyone in the Netherlands would know... 

'A murder of a whore that involved all the high-ups.' Tomas Ross on the never-explained murder of Blonde Dolly from The Hague

How did the Hague prostitute Blonde Dolly make her millions? And why was her killer never caught, when it was abundantly clear who must have strangled her? That smells like a conspiracy, and conspiracies are like grist to writer Tomas Ross' mill. In Blonde Dolly, he tackles one of the oldest and most mysterious cold cases in the Netherlands. Until it... 

Sex sells, originality does not. Once again, two museums go out of their way to celebrate nudity.

When we don't have fresh, current posts on the site for a while, our 'most-read posts' list on the right always changes dramatically. Within two days, all stories are trending that include the words 'nude', 'nude' or 'sex'. After all, sex sells. If you like clicks from rutting men, at least. Unfortunately, this particular target group does not read much cultural news. But attention is... 

Long-winded Juditha Triumphans at DNO

Oratorios are notoriously undramatic because they only tell a story for one second and do not zoom in on human emotions. Juditha Triumphans is no exception and the narrative itself has little to it. To rid her town of its assailants, Judith gets their general drunk and then cuts off his head. This could make for a compelling story, were it... 

Minister Van Engelshoven: 'CaDance is a gift'. Blame her.

Peaks and valleys right from the opening night of CaDance, the festival of contemporary dance. From embarrassingly long dance to sky-high drama. Highlights: dancer Sammie Hermans and the entire Mom:Me. Crushing New artistic director Stacz Wilhelm, in the presence of the minister during his opening speech, names the harsh years of austerity since 2013. The so-called obviousness of art he wants to... 

TivoliVredenburg during construction. Photo: Wijbrand Schaap

Without TivoliVredenburg, the improvement of the Utrecht station area would have come to nothing.

There is an artist café in Utrecht that few Utrechters know about. And I don't mean Theatercafé De Bastaard, where by now a whole generation of actors, filmmakers and writers come from, but the artists' foyer of TivoliVredenburg. I've eaten and hung out there a few times, as an embedded reporter of De Nacht van de Poëzie, when it's very late into... 

'Stories are not that fascinating, what matters is what you see' - Tsai Ming Liang and the art of watching

Eye film museum kicks off its Virtual Reality season with Tsai Ming Liang's The Deserted. Tsai himself was in the country for a masterclass, introductions and interviews. And although his films suggest otherwise, he is a very animated speaker. In his masterclass, he talked about his career, his collaboration with muse and regular actor Lee Kang-Sheng, and his position... 

‘Kijk, daar laat iemand zijn ananas uit!’ Hoe journalist Lex Boon verliefd werd op de koningin onder de fruitsoorten

Iedereen heeft ze weleens gezien, die ananasplanten van de Ikea. Bij veel mensen staan ze een tijdje in de kamer, tot ze doodgaan en in de kliko eindigen. Maar voor journalist Lex Boon (35) was het moment waarop hij zo’n plantje cadeau kreeg van zijn (ex-)vriendin een keerpunt in zijn leven. Hij raakte verslingerd aan de gekroonde vrucht en vloog… 

Sacha Polak over de gehavende maar sterke vrouw in Dirty God, openingsfilm 48ste IFFR. Emotie is dit jaar het motto

‘Feel IFFR’ is dit jaar het motto van het International Film Festival Rotterdam. De emotie achter het beeld en bij de toeschouwer als leidraad bij onze interpretatie. De openingsfilm Dirty God is een mooie testcase. Regisseur Sacha Polak vertelt waarom ze een film over een door littekens gehavende vrouw wilde maken.

Culture Council: The Netherlands underestimates its own music theatre culture. (Why opera still seeks talent abroad)

The Performing Arts Fund is failing to professionalise and make the music theatre sector sustainable. So says the Council for Culture in an advice leaked yesterday on the future of music theatre in the Netherlands. The advice presented today to the rest of the Netherlands therefore wants to transfer more different music theatre makers and companies from the Performing Arts Fund to the Cultural Basic Infrastructure. This partly... 

Why you shouldn't miss 'Im wunderschönen Monat Mai' at Paradiso

On Wednesday 16 January, Reinbert de Leeuw will present his cycle Im wunderschönen Monat Mai at Paradiso. A unique opportunity to see him at work once more in his globally believed masterpiece. In 2003, he surprised friend and foe alike with this composition inspired by songs by Schumann and Schubert. Was that not swearing in church? Arnold Schoenberg had the Romanticism... 

Petra Gerritsen goes to a concert almost every night off. 'You're with your own group. But how bad is that?'

‘Ik werk vijf avonden in de week en dus moet ik speciaal uitzoeken wanneer ik naar een concert kan. Soms neem ik er vrij voor. En dan zeggen ze wel: “hé, ga je alweer naar een concert?”, en dan zeg ik: “Natuurlijk ga ik weer naar een concert”. Maar ik vind het ook niet extreem.’ Petra Gerritsen is proces expert… 

Fred Wondergem: 'There is always more that you don't see than what you do see.'

'When I look in the auditorium at a classical concert now, I do think: it's full now, but in 20 years eighty per cent will be dead. So the bottom has to be fed, and TivoliVredenburg does that well. They do it, for example, with Out of the Blue, which is a programme where you get great food and by a special host 

Lower House gets less say over arts subsidies. (If the minister gets her way)

Some people read Christmas stories over Christmas, others the interview supplements of newspapers, and a few do so with policy documents. So, quite a few people have read our Culture Minister's 'Advice Request' in the past few days. I, at least. Those who 'officially' cannot have done so are the members of the Culture Council, because the whole package came... 

Nederland heeft een wrede geschiedenis. Zo maakt Theatergroep Aluin dat voelbaar in ‘1619, maak het kort’.

Nooit geweten dat ik een traantje zou voelen opwellen om het lot van een 17e eeuwse Raadspensionaris. Toch gebeurde dat op vrijdag 21 december, bij de première van ‘1619, maak het kort…’. Met dit slotdeel zet auteur Erik Snel een kroon op zijn trilogie over de Tachtigjarige Oorlog. Was deel 1 (1600, slag bij Nieuwpoort) vooral een vrolijke opeenstapeling van… 

Tot het zot eruit is. Prachtige reconstructie van zijn familiegeschienis door Bart Meuleman

De eerste keer dat de vader van de Belgische schrijver Bart Meuleman over zijn afkomst begint, tijdens een autorit, leidt dat nauwelijks tot een diepgaand gesprek. Maar wel tot een kanteling. ‘Mijn vader werd iemand anders,’ schrijft Meuleman. ‘Aan alles wat hij als vader ooit deed, of naliet, of zei, of verzweeg, gingen kwesties vooraf. Ze hadden hem gekneed tot… 

Forty times a year to TivoliVredenburg: 'You get everywhere if you love music, eh.'

Peter Vossen says he experiences a live concert twice a week on average. Not just in TivoliVredenburg, although he visited there almost 40 times last year. 'I also see a lot of free concerts on the streets and in cafés, of course.' Jazz is his great love, but he also attends soul, funk, Latin or pop concerts. Regularly, he can be found 

Three CDs you wouldn't have wanted to miss in 2018

The end of the year is approaching. So the lists fly around our ears again with 'most beautiful', 'best', 'most unforgettable', 'most moving'... fill in the blanks. I think compiling top-soaps is actually a typically male thing, but come on, I'm not that bad. Here are three CDs you wouldn't have wanted to miss this year - in no particular order. Louise Farrenc: Variations for Piano Biliana Tzinlikova,... 

The Culture Index goes regional. Cherry-picking season has begun

It took about a day for the PVV Enschede branch to discover the message. Quite fast for a club that is usually not very interested in art. Anyway, this one detail at the presentation of the regional culture index was of course grist to the mill of the far-right local party: Region Enschede has the biggest mismatch between amount of subsidy and... 

De mens sterker dan het Lot? Forget it! – Oedipe van George Enescu bij #DNO

Eenieder die de toegangspoorten van Thebe wil passeren moet het raadsel oplossen van de Sfinx. Wie faalt sterft een onherroepelijke dood, zijn botten verbleken in het knekelveld rondom haar. Oedipus daagt haar uit, vastberaden de stad te redden. ‘Noem iemand of iets dat machtiger is dan het Lot!’, orakelt de Sfinx vanaf haar eenmotorige vliegtuigje. ‘De mens!’, jubelt Oedipus. Waarop… 

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