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Holland Festival

The Holland Festival is the Netherlands' leading festival, showcasing the best of what is being made internationally and nationally on the bigger stages.

Mahler Chamber Orchestra happily flirts with Haydn, but Russian composers will make you laugh #hf12

True story. There is laughter in classical music. At many an orchestral rehearsal, the viola jokes are all over the place. And in the Concertgebouw, you might catch some mock chuckles. But classical composers are not known for their humour. Except Joseph Haydn. The Viennese composer brought a cosy witticism to his works here and there. One of his... 

As gentle and intelligent as the very young dancers are handled, reactions to Boris Charmatz's 'Enfant' #HF12 are often wild.

Youth these days mostly evokes the thought of danger. Society suffers from a distorted ideal image that leaves real children little room to play. Eventually, therefore, they rebel in Enfant. But until then, the very young performers still mainly have the role of adjunct or capstone, complement or extension of the nine adult dancers. The new... 

In the wonderfully subtle The Speaker's Progress, Shakespeare's farce suddenly becomes a revolutionary weapon #hf12

Tight-lipped. Freshly cut. And with a beatific, apt voice, The Speaker - played by director Sulayman Al-Bassam - looks like a slick public relations man. Or better: a civilised Arab dictator with an Oxford degree. One of those who is supported by the West and deeply hated by his own people. He steps behind a lectern and narrates. Once upon a time,... 

Dodo Holland Festival journal becomes Dodo Holland Festival Hangout #HF12

 We've already had one episode on it, and it was obviously a huge success, but right at the climax you have to start something new. That's why tonight at 22:30 we have a new thing: The Dodo Holland Festival Hangout. Live, interactive and online. Innovative, in other words, as you know it from us. You know them: those reporter trucks with metres of spaghetti... 

Dodo Holland Festival journal becomes Dodo Holland Festival Hangout #HF12

 We've already had one episode on it, and it was obviously a huge success, but right at the climax you have to start something new. That's why tonight at 22:30 we have a new thing: The Dodo Holland Festival Hangout. Live, interactive and online. Innovative, in other words, as you know it from us. You know them: those reporter trucks with metres of spaghetti... 

Micha Hamel's Requiem is beautifully spatial but lacks substantive urgency #hf12

In his Requiem for tenor, narrator and ensemble, Micha Hamel makes the most of the space of Amsterdam's De Duif church. Musicians play on the altar, from the balconies, mingle among the audience and push out a piano. - But what does Hamel really want to say? In front of a sold-out house, Micha Hamel's Requiem premiered last night. He ... 

With Antony Hegarty and the Metropole Orchestra in a fairytale forest #hf12

Antony Hegarty gives away the layered and emotionally charged show Cut the World with his pianist and the Metropole Orchestra. He shows that it need not be an issue to present more of the same. Meanwhile, the audience imagines itself in the fairytale forest, eating out of his hand. It is not the first time the androgynous child-man Antony has... 

Survive the carnage, smeared nudity and frenzied screams in Requiem 3, and note the moving lyrics #hf12

Vincent Macaigne strikes me as a director you shouldn't fight with. Right from the first seconds of Requiem 3, he rams full steam ahead with the most hysterical opening scene I have seen in ages, and keeps on hacking relentlessly for 80 minutes. It takes a while to get through. But suddenly, in this tsunami of... 

Holland Festival news #HF12: Spectacle and emotion hand in hand in opening weekend

Claron Macfadden did it on her own, Alain Platel with 150 people and Andrea Breth in 54 scenes: touching. And convey a message. Dodo-reporters Mariska van der Meij, Daniël Bertina and Wijbrand Schaap look back at the first weekend of the Holland Festival 2012, and reviewer Maarten Baanders looks ahead to Emio Greco/PC's special performance. Kind of... 

Zwischenfälle is a breathtaking barrage of 54 hilarious, short scenes about clumsy humans. You rarely see it this virtuoso #hf12

Two men are sitting together at a table eating spaghetti. One is wolfing down the plate of pasta in no time, while at the same time telling an amusing anecdote - just barely intelligible - with fierce gestures and self-righteous grunts. The other, an elderly guy, is totally ignored. Despite frantic attempts, the poor man just cannot manage to... 

Hit in the heart by opening performance by Alain Platel, and then find solace. #hf12

At two-thirds, the lump shoots in to not go out until the end. It happens at every Alain Platèl performance. Heartfelt sobs from the audience, lots of swallowing around you and the inevitable tears welling up like a natural disaster. To call the Flemish choreographer's work predictable because of this is going too far. What he and his company Les... 

Opening Holland Festival on twitter and facebook: tenue de wtf, ns-#fail, sublime dance theatre and mozzarella sticks #hf12

[View the story “Opening Holland Festival 2012” on Storify] Opening Holland Festival 2012 Op 1 juni opende het Holland Festival in Theater Carré. We waren erbij, zagen Platels C(h)oeurs en proefden de sfeer. Al ging het bijna mis. Dit is wat ervan mee te maken was op de sociale media Storified by Cultureel Persbureau · Sat, Jun 02 2012 08:37:18… 

The Dodo goes out of its way to tell you all about the Holland Festival 2012 #hf12

 Top theatre from all corners of the world, big names we had never dared hope for, and a newsreel that we will broadcast at unexpected times. Festival day newspaper The Dodo, now a household name in festival land, is going all out at this year's Holland Festival. Of course. It is the dream of every blogger, professional or amateur, to be at the performances of the... 

Unforgettable stage version of Man Without Qualities gets undeserved dessert from Yves Petry #hf12

Maybe it is also just the wrong choice to see part three immediately after the first two parts. Maybe after a day of you or some settling down you will be able to appreciate Petry's text, on its own merits. Imagine a three-star dinner. A sensuous succession of small and medium-sized dishes, prepared with the... 

Holland Festival: diary of the 2011 edition

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'... 

One hundred and thirty thousand visitors for the Cultural Press Office in 2011. The bar for 2012 is high.

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.... 

#HF11: We chat with Jeroen Stout, Daniël Bertina, Fransien vd Putt and Wijbrand Schaap.

  In conclusion. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we had a great time with our new... 

A few solid misses, interspersed with plenty of indispensable beauty in week 3 of the Holland Festival #hf11

The Dodo was busy, this third week of the Holland Festival. Thankfully, again with an exciting mix of beautiful, weird and extraordinary. As it should be, really. What makes the Holland Festival all the more exciting is that such extremes can sometimes take place within one programme, as with the National Ballet, or even within one performance, as with The Russians... 

#HF11 Audi makes Ayres' funny-grim animal opera 'The cricket recovers' layered and edgy

Eindelijk: de opera The Cricket Recovers naar het dierenverhaal De genezing van de krekel van Toon Tellegen is in Nederland! Het Holland Festival presenteert ruim zes jaar na de wereldpremière in Aldeburgh het werk van Richard Ayres, uitgevoerd door Asko|Schönberg en VocaalLAB onder leiding van Etienne Siebens. Pierre Audi tekende voor de regie: hij maakte de voorstelling gelaagd en gewaagd.… 

#HF11 'The select' is neat and well behaved and on stage lacks the raw emotion of Hemingway's novel

Zou de anti-reclame van premier Rutte cum suis door kunst weg te zetten als bestemd voor linkse types en andere idioten al effect sorteren? Je zou het bijna denken als je de tamelijk slecht gevulde zalen ziet tijdens de voorstellingen op het Holland Festival. Er zitten meer dan tien mensen op de eerste rij, maar toch houdt het allemaal niet… 

#HF11 Thomas Adès sails his own ship and steers across familiar waters with new compositions

The ark as the earth, as a spaceship carrying us through the chaos of the universe to a safe haven. The pole star as the apparent magnetic centre of the universe around which all the stars revolve. No, this is not woolly new age chatter, these are the starting points for Tevot and Polaris, two major orchestral works by Thomas Adès, which had their Dutch premiere under the composer's own direction.

#HF11 Dreamy cult pop and visual feast from The Irrepressibles

Op verzoek van het Holland Festival maakte Jamie McDermott van The Irrepressibles een nieuw programma: Human Music Box. De tienkoppige Britse band begint zijn wereldtournee in Amsterdam. De première op vrijdag 17 juni in het Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ werd een ingetogen, muzikale avond die vooral visueel aantrekkelijk was. In het midden van de Grote Zaal stond een groot, ronddraaiend… 

#HF11 The National Ballet opts for aesthetic wandering and exotic pictures

‘Labyrinth’ heet de choreografie van Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Doolhoven intrigeren omdat je er in kunt verdwalen en dan per se de uitgang wilt vinden. Onderweg doet een mens dan allerlei onthullende ervaringen op omtrent zichzelf. Maar Cherkaoui komt niet toe aan deze gang. Hij begint meteen met symboliek. Een danseres houdt een brede band vast die vanuit het toneelhuis naar… 

#HF11: They're going to make another big cut to the Russians at Toneelgroep Amsterdam

Cologne and Paris may not have been built in a day, but it took less than three days to fly to the moon. A warped comparison to say that a show that rattles three days before its premiere can turn out to be an unimaginable hit on the premiere itself. So something like that could happen with The Russians, the latest show 

#HF11 Special performance Jagden und Formen by Waltz and Rihm does not produce an ideal exchange, but it does raise interesting questions about the fusion of dance and music

Componist Wolfgang Rihm en choreograaf Sasha Waltz, twee bekende gezichten op het Holland Festival en grote namen in de Europese podiumkunsten, brachten in 2008 samen een voorstelling uit die dit jaar niet mocht ontbreken in een Holland festival-programma. Het festival heeft niet alleen aandacht heeft voor een aantal grote, hedendaagse componisten (Xenakis, Rihm), maar timmert ook behoorlijk aan de weg op het… 

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