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News about events and festivals, backed by the industry but independent in content. Find out more: info@cultureelpersbureau.nl

Impressive collectives adorn Festival Circolo 2023 programme

The Netherlands' largest contemporary circus festival with more than 100 performances to Tilburg Open mouths, squeezed bottoms and squinted eyes. From 13 to 22 October 2023, Festival Circolo descends on Tilburg for emotion, daredevilry and groundbreaking performances. The largest contemporary circus festival in the Netherlands will feature more than 100 performances for ten days at the cutting edge of... 

boulevard poster

Boulevard puts in the light and connects

The 39th edition of Theaterfestval has concluded successfully. The 11-day festival in 's-Hertogenbosch attracted around 90,000 visitors. This Boulevard was a celebration of what binds us as human beings: our desires, our bodies, our emotions. This Boulevard was about radical empathy. About learning to live together, understanding wordlessly, caring for each other and enjoying ourselves together. Strikingly frequent in this was the relationship between generations... 

Circusography

Festival Circolo celebrates differences in 10-day circus festival

Biggest festival for contemporary circus descends on Tilburg from 13 to 22 October From 13 to 22 October 2023, Tilburg will be home to Festival Circolo, the biggest festival for contemporary circus in the Netherlands. Here you will see boundary-breakers, go-getters and top artistic athletes highlighting and celebrating our differences in performances that everyone can relate... 

PR image by David van Delden

Faizah Grootens: Corpus Criolla enriches modern dance with essential Caribbean vibes on #TFBoulevard

"I select dancers very carefully. I don't do auditions. I don't believe in anyone having to prove themselves in front of the others. So that's why I take quite a long time to choose who I want to work with. If I choose that person, we go for it 100%. No matter what." Corpus Criolla is a fascinating dance performance in which Caribbean... 

It Takes A Child To Raise A Village, scene image by author.

Theatre festival #Boulevard pushes boundaries in an unexpected way

A festival is still the best way to get acquainted with new art. Yesterday, after six days of persistent drizzle and torrential rain, the sun finally broke through over Bossche Zuiderpark. Bartenders who had spent the first few days getting used to quietly serving those few customers who braved the rain for a white wine (because it was summer... 

Scenic photo by Kurt van der Elst

Life is wonderfully absurd, and Elias de Bruyne makes fine theatre about it.

In preparing my coverage of Theatre Festival Boulevard, I had also put 'interview with Elias de Bruyne' on my wish list. It didn't materialise, which is fortunate in retrospect, because Cornald Maas beat me to it. At least, Cornald Maas interviewed Elias de Bruyne during his performance 'Euhm... In 5 Acts', which premiered on Saturday 5 August. Well... 

Desire. Photo by Sofie Knijf

'Desire' is highlight of telling opening weekend of Theatre Festival Boulevard

"You can't say anything anymore either" is the title of a show by theatre friends George and Eran from Amsterdam-West. They have previously presented sensitive themes in a theatre form close to stand-up comedy, and so this programme is about the language battle. A language battle about which words are still appropriate, which stereotypes are still 'allowed' and... 

Yves Degryse by Koen Broos

Yves Degryse (Berlin) on the return of the legendary show 'Zvizdal' at #Theaterfestival Boulevard: "This really took me by my jacket"

Yves Degryse is one of the people behind the extraordinary Flemish company Berlin. Between 2011 and 2015, Berlin worked on the performance Zvizdal, largely shot in the 'forbidden zone' around the exploded Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. I saw the performance in 2016 in Den Bosch, during Festival Boulevard, and was 'blown away'. This year, it returns to Boulevard 

PR image Desire

Podcast! Louis Janssens on 'Desire': 'It's nice to be personal, but I don't want to make a diary play, so I also lie quite often.' #TFBOULEVARD

Louis Janssens is a young, ambitious theatre-maker from Flanders. With a string of rave reviews behind his name, he seems to have effortlessly found his place in the theatre world. This year, he is a prominent guest at Theatre Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch. His latest play, 'Desire', will premiere at the Verkadefabriek on 3 August. The play highlights the delicate... 

boulevard poster

European apotheosis at Theatre Festival Boulevard: Two international networks celebrate highlight during festival

In recent years, Boulevard worked intensively within two networks with 20 European partner institutions on international cooperation within the performing arts, supported by 'Creative Europe'. Both projects are guests during this edition of Theatre Festival Boulevard, which can be called unique! Performing Gender - Dancing in Your Shoes celebrates its finale with the presentation of a number of community projects and a... 

Festival Circolo presents the free street theatre festival Porto Circolo during the Tilburg Fair!

Programme Several free performances can be visited at Porto Circolo every day. The programme includes performances by Close Act, Lapso Cirk, Zinzi and Evertjan, EAEO, Skypunch Collective, Fabuloka, Hendrick Jan meets Merel Kamp and House of Circus. Want to know more about the programme and performance times? Check out the website! Locations Porto Circolo takes place in and around Piushaven. Both... 

Photo: Thomas, Sacha and Jos | Edit: Guy Vording

Theatre show 'Two old ladies' by Toon Tellegen at Boulevard Theatre Festival 

Theatre collective Thomas, Sacha and Jos creates performance about universal love After years of fruitful cooperation with master storyteller Toon Tellegen and several performances based on his work, theatre collective Thomas, Sacha and Jos will perform Two Little Old Ladies at this summer's Theatre Festival Boulevard. Tellegen's book consists of 43 love stories, each starring two little old ladies. Thomas, Sacha and Jos made a... 

ensemble Wuthering Heights. Photo: Steve Tanner

Holland Festival 2023: a programme with great artistic scope and new audiences

The 76th edition of the Holland Festival opened on 1 June with Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Simon McBurney and closed on 1 July with Requiem for Nature by Tan Dun, Pierre Audi and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. With over 80,000 visitors, an average audience attendance of over 80% and many sold-out venues, the festival was... 

John Zorn by Scott Irvine

November Music 2023 focuses on top and mid-career international creators - November 1 to 12 in 's-Hertogenbosch

This year, with the arrival of John Zorn, Barbara Hannigan, Jennifer Walshe, Rebecca Saunders, Simon-Steen Andersen, Tristan Murail, Oslo Sinfonietta, Jack Quartet and The Crossing, November Music opts for the absolute world's best. In addition, Dutch mid-career makers such as Aart Strootman, Maya Fridman, Rozalie Hirs, Kika Sprangers, Jameszoo and LudoWic will be given the chance to strike out with new, large-scale productions. With. 

boulevard poster

Boulevard full programme announced

It's time to get puzzling: the full programme of Boulevard 2023 is available from now on. In addition, Boulevard Magazine 2 is also out, containing background articles, filters to help you choose and, of course, a look at this year's programme. Brain gymnastics Earlier, we already announced thirteen names and now you can find the complete programme.... 

CocoRosie - PR image

CocoRosie live at Holland Festival: remarkably accessible and solid, and so is the festival itself

The Casady sisters, since they went through life together as CocoRosie in 2003, have developed a totally unique sound. Yesterday, they were guests at the Holland Festival, at the invitation of their friend ANOHNI. The latter, as associate artist, introduced this year's festival audience to the female and queer side of the New York art scene. CocoRosie are with... 

Monk forces concentration with Indra's Net at Holland Festival

The dome of the imposing former Gashouder on the Westergasfabriek grounds turns out to offer excellent acoustics for music. There, last night, the premiere of Indra's Net, the latest composition by singer, director and filmmaker Meredith Monk, took place. Famous mainly in the United States, where she has been composing and performing minimal music for more than 50 years. Since 1978, together with her... 

The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black-pr image

Holland Festival breaks fascinating new ground with old punk and Lithuanian rave.

Amy Winehouse is alive. Though perhaps we shouldn't call it life, as she stands in all her corpse-blue glory, looking bewildered at the audience in the Muziekgebouw for an hour. A bit like we know her from those tragic last concert recordings, where she was stiff with all the chemicals and liquid aids to perform a few last notes. She is now... 

PR image Pentheseleia by Dim Balsam

Eline Arbo's Penthesilea oscillates between madness and horniness at the Holland Festival

At the walk-in, several actors dribble across the bare stage. No set pieces, few lights, a little smoke from the machine. Slowly, the stage fills, and the actors line up at the front of the stage. The first scene is sung, a surprising choice. Then Diana, the high priestess of the Amazons, a brilliant role by Marieke Heebink, holds a... 

scene photo by © Sukmu Yun

Colourful dragons conquer the stage - Eun-Me Ahn's Dragons in HF23

Whereas in the West dragons are mythical creatures to be defeated, in the East they are the embodiment of joy, unlimited possibilities and destiny. People born in the year of the dragon (every 12 years with 2000 being the most recent adult generation) are proud, irresistible, vibrant and extroverted, according to Chinese astrology. Put seven on and... 

image from the film by David Hannan

Thanks to Wallworth at the Holland Festival one last look up from beneath a dying sea.

The dome of Artis Planetarium is made for stars; it is not a shiny Imax canvas. That the images in Coral: Rekindling Venus by Lynette Wallworth therefore do not splash off the screen is to be expected. Wallworth, a close friend and colleague of ANOHNI, is prominent at this year's Holland Festival and made Coral, Rekindling Venus exclusively... 

Ed Atkins Photo by Kiasma

Poetic gem by Ed Atkins knows exactly how to strike a chord

That he prefers not to hear news about the weather, but that there were once people alive who he knew, and what the weather was like then, Ed Atkins cannot talk about that often enough. So he repeats that phrase endlessly. A 'loop', then, as we know it from music and video art. But performed live. Is... 

© Ahad Subzwari

Music can move, comfort and even heal the greatest traumas, the Holland Festival makes us feel

ANOHNI lived in Amsterdam for a year as a young child, in Gerrit van der Veenstraat, formerly Euterpestraat. The street where the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) had its headquarters during the war in what is now a nice school with a focus on art. Opposite was the building from which Zentralstelle für jüdische Auswanderung organised the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews. The... 

Sigur Ros - © Hörður Óttarsson

Sigur Rós overwhelms Concertgebouw with multi-layered magic music - HF23

The picture is immediate. Vast glaciated vistas, patches of fog and the twilight of a land where the sun rises only once a year. Something like that. And then that soaring music that in one long tone makes all air traffic redundant for at least a month. Beneath it the rumble of shifting earth plates. For the first time in 10 years, Sigur Rós made another... 

Pankaj Tiwari, an artist from the poorest part of India, and Polish performer Maria Magdalena Kozłowska. Photo: Eva Roefs

Sustainability is a luxury issue in Jerome Bel's airplane-less autobiography (and the show turns out to be more fun than I first thought)

Input from members: that's what drives this club. Just watch. Yesterday I wrote this piece: Jerome Bel is quite something. The man who identifies himself as a choreographer has banned himself from flying for sustainability reasons, which is why he could not come to Amsterdam from Paris to read his own autobiography. However noble the non-flying... 

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