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On 28 February, Pierre Audi will present the programme of the 2012 Holland Festival at the City Theatre. As in 2010 and 2011, we will follow that festival closely with our online festival daily newspaper at www.dedodo.nl. That daily newspaper has now proven its right to exist, as more and more festivals want to collaborate with the Cultural Press Agency on this unique initiative. To the 'product-range'...
A website is nice, but often less suitable for quiet reading. And although our mobile themes now seem to work well, it is often still a lot of clicking and searching before you can read everything in sequence. We have now found a solution: ebooks. A handy way to read all kinds of related articles: on...
It is remarkable how a writer's sentences, once highlighted, can be given echoing interpretations after his death. Gustaaf Peek in particular, if he really wants to do justice to Haasse, must do something about his rather chest-thumping piety, but even a seasoned artist like Kees 't Hart may moderate the tone while quoting.
It is incredible what an energy the men of Manar can generate. These six - dressed in djellabas - percussionists play Dekka al Marrakchia: an insanely rousing form of traditional Moroccan drum 'n bass party music and religious Gnawa. After a solemn, almost ritualistic beginning - in which the band comes jogging onto the stage of the Theater aan het Spui in a goose-step, accompanied by the menacing sounds of two huge horns - the drums erupt and the dance floor is full of swinging visitors.
There is something special about Africa. The new generation of writers from Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa walking around Writers Unlimited is different from their parents in the world. Or, indeed, the fact that they interact with it in a completely different way, with those ancestors, defines them as something completely new. They present themselves as confident, modern global citizens.
In the late 1980s, John N. Gray (South Shields, 1948) adviser to Margaret Thatcher - Gray: "I was just a small mote of dust in her administration" - now he is a fierce critic of all things neoconservative. On Writers Unlimited, publicist Bas Heijne felt him out.
His voice is low, and when he talks, he does so calmly and thoughtfully. He regards his humour - very British - as a side effect that is more accidental than intended. This makes Helon Habila a perfect guest for the opening night of Writers Unlimited, the Hague literature festival better known as 'Winternachten'. The Nigerian can tell stories, but...
He is now a publisher, and the man who was director of the Dutch Foundation for Literature until last year will be quite happy with that. As director of the Bezige Bij, one of the country's largest publishing houses, he will surely never again have to submissively toast the sarcastic State Secretary for Culture Halbe Zijlstra. At least the relief was audible in Pröpper's...
She now lives in Norway, after she had to leave her homeland Iran for her own opinion. She was detained for five days, and in Tehran's notorious Evin prison, that is an eternity. Now Asieh Amini is free in a foreign land, and Oxfam-Novib is presenting her with the PEN Award. A great opening for the Writers Unlimited Winternachten Festival, which, with this presentation,...
Writers Unlimited The Dodo is coming back to life. On 19 January already. That's when we plunge into The Hague writer's life. The four-day festival Writers Unlimited, formerly known as Winternachten, but thus changed its name because of the weather (not, but nice joke) will have a real dodo, but then again differently. We will LIVE BLOG. That means we will be there....
That frightens us quite a bit ourselves. We knew that the Cultural Press Agency was doing pretty well, but we didn't really think a reach of more than 100,000 people was possible. After all, we had done nothing in the way of marketing. Just posting content and not giving away free tickets. And only once something with a bare female breast in it. Enfin....
An alternative scene for classical events outside the ice palaces of classical music is growing. Last month, you could 'classical clubbing' at the Yellow Lounge at the Westergasfabriek venue. The club was sold out, indeed with a large
'I will never go to anything undergrounds again,' sighs a lady as she leaves the auditorium. She looks pained, after more than an hour and a half of Neutral Hero by director Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players. The paper description of the show may therefore lead a potential visitor astray. A 'country opera' sounds far too...
Director, actress and theatre designer Sarah Moeremans is holding office in the lobby of the Rotterdam Schouwburg for a year. Titled "My First Camp", she has moved into the front hall to be more in touch with the various users and visitors in the building and the world around it. Has the public space become a wilderness, which...
Can a plastic rag be sad? It does in the hands of a puppeteer in a performance by Lotte van den Berg. With a few pieces of tape and a lot of well-aimed buttons, the plastic rag has been transformed into something with four limbs and a head. And the plastic rag mourns in its performer's hands dozens of similarly knotted...
"We are blind to the big changes in the world and meanwhile we are arguing with one-liners on Radio One." These words, penned by reporter Robbert van Heuven from the mouth of writer Abdelkader Benali during the Choice Debate on Tuesday 20 September perhaps best captures what The International Choice was all about. Artistic director Annemie Vanackere...
A procession of bright red and green bicycles snakes along the Meuse, ridden by people looking around curiously, conferring with each other and wondering at every moment if 'this is part of it'. The Parfum de BoemBoem ticket in their pocket is proof: this is not an ordinary bike ride, but one with theatrical surprises. Guide Sereh enjoys the questioning looks and leads the group to the first location: the waste incinerator in Rotterdam-South.
Listen here to the podcast/work in progress by Jowi Schmitz who attended the event with chef Natasja Postma: Fantasising about 2020 in International Choice 2011 Liposuction fat. Blood. Vomit. 'You can look at it that way too!' says the Appetitheque's food designer excitedly. It doesn't bother her that her thin-walled jelly pudding, processed cola and her yellow-white lumps of beef salad are still...
It is the most frequently asked question to actresses: whether it is difficult, crying on command. And invariably Carice van Houten or Halina Reijn then replies to Matthijs van Nieuwkerk or Jeroen Pauw that there are all kinds of tricks for that. For crying. Just think of something nasty, tiger balm, onions, and Vaseline. Now, however, it turns out there is something where even...
Spain and God. The two have had something in common for a long time. And to outsiders, not always in a positive sense. Spaniards invented the Inquisition and converted the entire native population of South America to the eternal hunting grounds. When artists delve into the relationship between supreme being and Spaniard, it also quite often produces confrontational works. Take...
It takes guts: walking down Rotterdam's Kruiskade with a big wooden cross and shouting "Mason was a fish!" shouting. The drug-addicted residents of St Paul's Church, the dishwashers at Chinese restaurants and waiting passengers at the tram stop look on in bewilderment. Sandro Lima shouts lyrics about Mason the saviour like a possessed religious maniac. Moments before, we are at...
Far more people waved at the Queen on Princes Day than stood on Malieveld a day earlier to protest against austerity. Why are we unable to revolt? And what can we learn from the Tahrir Square uprising. These were some of the questions that came up during 'Lessons in revolt', the debate...
Opinion pollsters take note: "People give the moderate answer to most questions they are asked in life. The characters in 'This is not a love story' are very ordinary, very average. In that, it clicks between those two. It's an ending where you feel an enormous satisfaction." Enthusiasm prevails after the opening weekend of The International Choice of the...
What is your relationship with whales? A. Totally not interested in it. B. Somewhat interested. C. Very fond of whales.
You don't often hear such a question in everyday life. It appears in 'This is not a love story', a narrated, danced and musically performed 'Swedish road movie' by choreographer/filmmaker Gunilla Heilborn. A journey Heilborn took with dancers Johan Thelander and Kristiina Viala from Tromsö to Lisbon provided the material for this performance.
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