Things we do for members and partners.
Tonight, the 67th edition of the Cannes Film Festival opens with Grace of Monaco, a biopic with a major lead role for Nicole Kidman. Jury president of the world's premier film event is New Zealand filmmaker Jane Campion. Three of the other six jury members also
his women. Does Cannes have something to make up for?
Straight lines, single-coloured surfaces. Red, yellow, blue and white. Representing the essence of reality. That was the aim of the painters of De Stijl in the first half of the last century. At the same time, Hendrik Valk also had this ideal.
The Valley of Astonishment. Titles don't come much prettier than that of 'The Valley of Astonishment'. Theatre legend Peter Brook's tentative last play is coming to Amsterdam. The Holland Festival gave me and two journalists from Parool and NRC, respectively, the opportunity to talk to the already legendary director when he was alive. Pretty special, because the man who enchanted an entire generation of theatre-makers and audiences with performances such as the nine-hour Mahabharata in Avignon, is considered a deity among theatre connoisseurs and enthusiasts.
370 million cost to renovate the Rijksmuseum. All but a tonne. 5.5 million less than the last estimate from 2010. Which again it was almost quadruple the original budget, which still assumed 134 million. But that was before the crisis about those stairs and that cycle route, and before all kinds of construction companies went bankrupt, and before the whole thing was in danger of collapsing anyway.
The Holland Festival, we have been doing that for years. It is definitely the highlight of the cultural season. At the Holland Festival, you see how the international art world hangs out. In recent years, under the skilful leadership of Pierre Audi, the whole thing has become a lot less elitist and pompous than it used to be. A ticket often costs a lot less than An evening of André Rieu in Maastricht, to say the least.
It will be difficult to choose how we will musically fill our next weekend: will we stay in Amsterdam for the Amsterdam Marimba Weekend, or do we travel to The Hague, where Day in the Branding is devoted entirely to the string quartet? In short: are we going to string or strike? Those unable to choose can visit later this month at Amsterdam Sinfonietta and Slagwerk Den Haag - they just both do it!
I am going to talk to Peter Brook in Paris on 7 May 2014. For people who have studied theatre, this is something very special. The man once wrote a very clear and manageable booklet that is on the shelf of all theatre people: The Empty Space. But he was also the director of performances where more people attended than there were ever seats. In other words.
Pretty tricky, marketing in the cultural sector. In part, you work in a market where these days people think that what is beautiful will sell itself, and the rest of the time you have to compete with a plethora of suppliers. And this is despite the government's attempts to drastically decimate cultural offerings. Or perhaps thanks to it. The market...
To perhaps the most beautiful music written by Strauss, Arabella descends the stairs and hands Mandryka a glass of water. Their engagement is thus sealed. Behind the loving couple, however, an inky black space opens up into which both disappear.
The noble art of cable pulling is one of the most profitable activities in Dutch media land. This was evident on Tuesday 15 April in the Amsterdam court. There, Dutch writers, represented by Lira, versus the major cable companies and producers, represented by some very expensive lawyers, from the office towers on Amsterdam's nearby Zuidas.
Just think ahead for a short while and you are where Google wants you to be. All the art, accessible anywhere in the world through your screen, your tablet. Even the obscure art. Or stronger: to be experienced in your google glass or your Oculus VR glasses. You can already viewing art in museums, but without a tour guide telling you what to see. And as much as we do not appreciate that in daily life, sometimes it is quite nice to walk through unknown territory with a guide. Without spending your holiday money on it.
'Harry Partch knew exactly what he was doing. He chose very specific bourbon bottles to fill in those 43 steps in the octave. So he made music that is very accessible, but also very elusive. And that's what good art should do.'
Update: performance The Freudjes has been postponed for now, until probably later this year.
'I think it's theatre. Psychoanalysis is theatrical.' Lineke Rijxman is fascinated by psychiatrists. Not because she walks through their doors herself, but because psychiatry is a rewarding subject for someone who makes theatre. That is why it had to happen: a play about Freud. But not about Sigmund himself, or his family. The play "The Freuds (No Family)' is about three sisters in today's busy life overflowing with pills and abbreviations. 'We talk about depression so easily. You already say you get depressed when you run out of chicken satay at the butcher's.'
Je zult maar scenarioschrijver zijn. Of journalist voor een documentaireprogramma. Dan krijg je in Nederland dus geen cent meer voor je werk. Echt. De omroepen zijn al niet scheutig. Maar dan. Al het geld dat de kabelmaatschappijen verdienen aan de televisiekijkers van Nederland, verdwijnt namelijk in de zakken van een paar Amerikaanse bedrijven, die het weer delen met een paar omroepbazen, producenten en nog zo wat grootverdieners. Voor de mensen die dat allemaal bedenken en schrijven hebben al die bazen niets over. Zo wordt winst maken wel heel makkelijk.
It's still kind of a secret, but the website is already online. Without reference to the people behind it, but then again, we know that. So we can break the news: it CPNB (that book week club) collaborates with the booksellers and publishers on a revolutionary platform for ebooks. This project, titled 'Leesid' should put an end to the chaos of DRM-shit, lots of different readers and tablets and bizarre ownership rules the Dutch electronic book reader still has to live with.
Film tip for this week: Spies & Glistrup, a Danish shell comedy with a dark edge about the heyday of an illustrious anarchist duo from the 1970s. Even for the broad-minded Denmark of the time, they were extreme. According to director Christoffer Boe, they left a lasting mark on Danish society.
Because yes, the good Danes had not experienced anything like this before. Simon Spies, made stone-faced with a holiday travel empire and always surrounded by pretty girls,
As a museum, if you want to participate a little, you have to lead the audience through the presentation interactively. You should be able to do the same with dance, choreographer Amos Ben-Tal must have thought with his project OFFline. He shows 5 ways. In a performance.
It is the kind of publicity even literary agency Sebes and Van Gelderen dreams of. An argument between biographer and subject that makes it into all the national newspapers. Especially when it is not a biography of, say, an ex-soccer player who squandered his fortune, but one of wayward composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw.
It was big news. One orchestra confiscates the instruments of another. Only it doesn't add up. Just as much does not appear to be right in conductor Jan Willem de Vriend's letter in last Thursday's Volkskrant.
Today, Leporello Publishers in Amstelveen published my long-awaited biography Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody, on which I worked for more than seven years. The book is on sale at several bookstores in Amsterdam and can be ordered through any bookstore in the Netherlands. When I attended a concert conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw in early 2005, I discussed with a number of...
Seizure of the instruments of the former Netherlands Symphony Orchestra is imminent. The orchestra, which, since a lost legal battle with Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra is no longer allowed to use the word 'Dutch', so is not allowed to sell instruments or take them abroad. Pending a countermove from the former Orchestra of the East, they changed the name there to ***** Symphony Orchestra.
Vroeger waren het homo’s die hij eng vond, maar sinds dat niet meer mocht, is René van der Gijp op zoek gegaan naar een nieuwe doelgroep van zijn spot. De boekenweek bleek een perfecte gelegenheid te bieden.
The Netherlands has added a new award for young choreographic talent. The BNG Culture Fund, in collaboration with Korzo in The Hague, has established the BNG Bank Excellent Talent Dance Award
Over 60 million has disappeared from the coffers of the Netherlands' amateur artists in recent years. That money from your daughter's dance class, the brass band and your son's hip-hop class has been spent by municipalities, which had to compensate for cuts elsewhere, and provinces that suddenly saw no point in amateurs. That the national government additionally took 200 million from professional arts institutions is added to that.
"The only one who still dares to go for the elite". On the way to the car park under the Passengers Terminal Amsterdam, the retired newspaper reviewer who once had a page on music sighed at the feeling of his part of society. It was after the press conference where the programme of Holland Festival 2014 was presented. He was talking, as we sank deeper and deeper, about Pierre Audi, the artistic director of that Holland Festival, who this year announced his last - and most glorious - programme ever.
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