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Opera 'The Rise of Spinoza' by Theo Loevendie deserves permanent place in repertoire

In 2014, the world premiere of The Rise of Spinoza by Theo Loevendie received an enthusiastic reception at the NTRZaterdagMatinee. Rightly so, as Markus Stenz steered the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Groot Omroepkoor, vocal soloists and recorder player Erik Bosgraaf through the colourful one-act aptly. The live recording was recently released on CD, allowing the opera to reach an international audience as well. The now 87-year-old Loevendie... 

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'Renew yourself, or languish.' How the @hollandfestival gives regulars a refreshing kick in the ass.

Dat is alvast één fout die je kunt maken: boeken voor een voorstelling van Christoph Marthaler en dan verwachten dat er iets nieuws zal gebeuren. Toch deed ik het, bij mijn laatste bezoek aan het Holland Festival van dit jaar. Iemand had gezegd dat de Zwitserse theatermaker die al sinds het begin van zijn carrière voorstellingen maakt waarin verloren zielen… 

Read More "'Renew yourself, or languish.' How the @hollandfestival gives regulars a refreshing kick in the ass.

Lessons in Love and Violence: glowing music fails to spark icy drama at @hollandfestival

'Love is poison' Mortimer sings to the king in the first scene of Lessons in Love and Violence. The military adviser denounces his relationship with Gaveston, whom he showered with favours while his subjects went hungry. 'Don't bore me with the price of bread' ripostes the king. Rather than worry, he treats his lover to poetry and music... 

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Gisèle Vienne performs at @hollandfestival on rave culture: 'Violence and aggression are not necessarily negative.'

French-Austrian theatre maker Gisèle Vienne is showing her latest work Crowd at the Holland Festival. Vienne takes the rave party as a starting point for subtle observations on what moves people during a night out. Besides the ecstatic pleasure of dance and trance, the performance also stages all kinds of nocturnal self-loss, awkwardness, loneliness and aggression. Acid The wonderful mix of acid, trance and... 

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Geeks and mouse arms at the Muziekgebouw. The bar is high for @hollandfestival's new bosses

Then suddenly there is a very different audience in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan het IJ. Gamers. Or rather developers. And hardcore new-music aficionados. 'I only come for Maze,' said my neighbour petulantly. He came for the music ensemble. Not for the games, that is, not for the computer graphics. And maybe not even for Claron McFadden. That famous, hyper-pliable opera singer who appeared in... 

Read More "Geeks and mouse arms at the Muziekgebouw. The bar is high for @hollandfestival's new bosses

The @Hollandfestival Proms are many, bold and full. Every now and then, that's quite nice

That George Benjamin is this year's Holland Festival court composer makes perfect sense. And I say that as a non-expert. After all: the way contemporary classical music is often written and talked about scares laymen like me. Would I ever have enough knowledge to appreciate those gourmet sounds? On Saturday night, I made my first live acquaintance... 

Read More "The @Hollandfestival Proms are many, bold and full. Every now and then, that's quite nice

Hewar and Gurdjieff Ensemble @Hollandfestival: music unites two troubled peoples

After the smashing finale of Ishtar by Dima Orsho, the audience stands up as one and erupts in an ovational applause. I am almost stunned by the loud cheers and shouts that overwhelm the members of Hewar and the Gurdjief Ensemble. Bewildered, I look around me: surely there would be another song? But no, there... 

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Gesualdo at the @hollandfestival: a hell of a match made in heaven.

Pizza Napolitana is not going to taste the same again. After all, mozzarella can be anything. We owe this enrichment of our lives to De Warme Winkel, the anarchic theatre company hired by the Nederlands Kamerkoor to enhance their Holland Festival programme. We knew it. And you can go and check that out for yourself, because after that... 

Read More "Gesualdo at the @hollandfestival: a hell of a match made in heaven.

Zwierende parachutes en trillende spieren op Playful Arts Festival: ‘Als de bezoeker niets doet, bestaat het werk niet’

Af en toe schuurt het bij Playful Arts, een intiem festival dat spel en kunst samenbrengt. Alles draait om interactie, zelf doen, ervaren. Sommige bezoekers moeten even een drempel over. Maar dan gebeurt er wel iets. ‘Die dansers moeten echt een keigoeie conditie hebben’, hoor ik iemand achter me vol eerbied mompelen. Aan de overkant van de straat wijst een… 

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It's up to us to offer Octavia E. Butler's sower fertile ground in the @hollandfestival

First of all, the chairs have to leave the auditorium of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Then some discomfort, those two hours that Octavia E. Butler's The Parable of The Sower lasts. At least it would make for some shared sorrow, and possibly some awkward swinging. Because the way things were going, that first night of Toshi Reagon's debut at the Holland... 

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The colonial image of the black woman with bared upper body is rewritten in Legacy by Nadia Beugré at @HollandFestival

A sizable group of women, their skin all shades of brown, white and black, their breasts and chests hopping briskly to the beat of stepping and running movements on the spot, swirls around its own axis upon entering the auditorium at the Brakke Grond. Legacy is an intimate performance that moves loosely up and down between concert, performance,... 

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The real @hollandfestival special #3 about Bowie. And Bausch. How the recent dead keep us alive.

Nothing defines us like our taste. And especially taste in music. We find that music taste defines exactly who we are and can easily distinguish us from people who have distinctly different, and therefore lesser, tastes. Pinkpop, a pop festival with several world-famous headliners, experienced this. Each world star plays to their own audience, which schi... 

Read More "The real @hollandfestival special #3 about Bowie. And Bausch. How the recent dead keep us alive.

Dimitris Papaioannou turns heritage Pina Bausch to his advantage with Neues Stück 1 Seit sie for Tanztheater Wuppertal, Holland Festival #HF2018

Neues Stück 1 Seit sie - Ein Stück von Dimitris Papaioannou is a long title for an overwhelming piece, which Tanztheater Wuppertal is bringing to the Holland Festival this year. Nine years ago, on 30 June 2009, a month before she was to turn sixty-nine, Pina Bausch died suddenly. The world-famous and highly influential choreographer of experimental, haunting and unparalleled dance theatre left behind a... 

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How Wiek Hijmans makes the electric guitar socially acceptable

Wiek Hijmans (b. 1967) tirelessly devotes himself to the use of the electric guitar in contemporary composed music. He also likes to be influenced by jazz and rock in his own pieces. On Electric Language, his latest CD, he presents music by eight composers alongside his own Victus. Six pieces were composed especially for him. The disc appeared on the label... 

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Choreographer Arno Schuitemaker outdoes himself with gossamer The Way You Sound Tonight at @HollandFestival 2018

It is the spatial arrangement that immediately impresses in The Way You Sound Tonight, choreographer Arno Schuitemaker's ninth performance. There are roughly 25 seats too few. The last Holland Festival visitors to walk onto the Rabozaal stage during the premiere have to find their own place on the still-scented wooden floor. Pijpela Schuitemaker has, to my... 

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Podcast: Would the Netherlands ever be ripe for Science Fiction? @Hollandfestival provides context with Octavia E. Butler

Of course, we have Chriet Titulaer. But it kind of ends there. And to say we took those very seriously, back in the day? No. The future, and fantasising about it, is not really a thing in the Netherlands, at least not with the big publishers and broadcasters. A writer dealing with science fiction will never join a big... 

Read More "Podcast: Would the Netherlands ever be ripe for Science Fiction? @Hollandfestival provides context with Octavia E. Butler

Fritz Lang vs George Benjamin at @hollandfestival: a fresh tired death.

The Holland festival has a tradition of combining film with live music. Whether it's the post-punk band Mogwai at Mark Cousins' Atomic Cinema or a live accompaniment to a silent film, something magical usually happens. That was certainly the case at the screening of Fritz Lang's Der Müde Tod (1921), accompanied by composer in... 

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No free tickets for journalists in the cultural sector: censorship or just a matter of business?

Menno Pols, reporter for De Gelderlander, was denied accreditation (free ticket and other benefits) for the three-day Manana Manana festival in Vorden this year. Reason: an article he wrote last year about the money flows within the club behind the festival. That club earns millions mainly from Zwarte Cross, the biggest festival in the Netherlands with 220,000 tickets sold. The accreditation... 

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Walking around a bazaar full of exclusive merchandise: new exhibition at Drents Museum on Iran as the cradle of civilisation

The feeling of walking around in a bazaar straight out of one of the fairy tales of a thousand - and - one nights. Your eyes feast; colourful Persian carpets, atmospheric lanterns and exclusive 'merchandise'. With the new exhibition Iran- Cradle of Civilisation, the Drents Museum takes visitors to one of the oldest civilisations in the world. For the... 

Read More "Walking around a bazaar full of exclusive merchandise: new exhibition at Drents Museum on Iran as the cradle of civilisation

Panic is contagious, sex is not. About my anxious hours during and after Sex and Anxiety at the @hollandfestival.

Panic. On the tram between Leidseplein and Amsterdam Centraal, I suddenly lost the Dutch translation of 'string quartet'. So I typed 'violin quartet' into my facebook update, trying to make a connection between a blow job and Ligeti. Joking, maybe, but there was something much deeper behind it, in that tram, after the music and theatre event 'The String Quartet's... 

Read More "Panic is contagious, sex is not. About my anxious hours during and after Sex and Anxiety at the @hollandfestival.

Our only unique @hollandfestivalspecial #2: inspiration and constriction in the first week #hf18

Our Thea Derks sat watching a traffic light for a couple of hours on Thursday 7 June and observed that the music was better. It happened during the opening of the 2018 Holland Festival. In the tradition of Ruth Mackenzie, the opening was of mixed reception, and that is actually a good thing. Even at a time when the Amsterdam Arts Council is in a... 

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Hyena by Georg Friedrich Haas: how Mollena Williams-Haas kicked off her alcohol addiction #HF18

The Holland Festival presents Hyena, in which Mollena Lee Williams-Haas recounts how she kicked her alcohol addiction. Her husband Georg Friedrich Haas wrote the music to accompany her blood-curdling account. She is accompanied by Klangforum Wien and conductor Bas Wiegers, who also performed the world premiere two years ago. Hyena can be heard once at Muziekgebouw aan het IJ on Wednesday 13 June.... 

Read More "Hyena by Georg Friedrich Haas: how Mollena Williams-Haas kicked off her alcohol addiction #HF18

Kunstraad has profile for new Stedelijk Museum board ready: an Amsterdam rascal (m/*/f).

The cultural sector is sometimes behind, but more often ahead. In the - otherwise very much to be welcomed in terms of content - advice issued by the Amsterdam Arts Council on the future of the local Stedelijk Museum, you can read that job security in the art sector is once again under pressure. Especially for young entrants from 'diverse' backgrounds: 'Preferably, the museum will make greater use of... 

Read More "Kunstraad has profile for new Stedelijk Museum board ready: an Amsterdam rascal (m/*/f).

'Kata' shows at @hollandfestival how inspiring a peaceful fight can be (review)

What a grandiose invention to think of breakdance as martial arts dance! In a sense, of course, it has been so from the beginning. Young people in New York's poor neighbourhoods developed their spectacular dance techniques in the 1980s. These were a means for them to express themselves in their own unique way. This was a necessity of life in a society that... 

Read More "'Kata' shows at @hollandfestival how inspiring a peaceful fight can be (review)

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