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Performing arts employers (NAPK) angry: subsidy system must change

They totally agree with us, the employers in the performing arts sector. These company and theatre directors and other managers of dwindling coffers, gathered in the Dutch Association of Performing Arts (NAPK), are circulating a letter today, calling on the Lower House to review the system of subsidies. After all, now the middle class is falling between the cracks. Has happened before, and... 

Now Live: Aase Berg, Luis Chaves, Sinéad Morrissey at Poetry International

Aase Berg from Sweden, Luis Chaves from Costa Rica and Sinéad Morrissey from Northern Ireland read their full selection of festival poems. Translations into Dutch and/or English will be projected directly along. The readings will be preceded by an introduction to the poets' work. Presentation: Feline Streekstra. Ever since her first collection Hos Rådjur (1997), Aase Berg has been writing direct, hard and compressed poetry full of... 

Anneke Brassinga, Jeet Thayil, Laura Accerboni: now live at Poetry International

The poetry readings are at the heart of Poetry International festival. Anneke Brassinga, Laura Accerboni and Jeet Thayil read all the poems they have brought for the Poetry International Festival. The translations into Dutch and/or English will be projected simultaneously with the reading, so you won't miss a word. Prior to their readings, the poets will be briefly... 

Culture Council fill-in exercise offers hardly any surprises

Champagne at BAK in Utrecht, deep disappointment at The New Institute in Rotterdam: the Council for Culture has spoken. Today, Thursday 19 May 2016, the first advice after the draconian art cuts by the first Rutte cabinet came out, and heads are rolling. Amsterdam loses prestigious presentation institution De Appel, in The Hague fellow institution Stroom has to redo its homework. The Orkest van het Oosten and the Gelders Orkest have to come up with merger plans within two years. In Utrecht, the city company Theater Utrecht will no longer receive funding despite artistic appreciation. Het Zuidelijk Toneel in Eindhoven Tilburg must make new plans and Opera Zuid must quickly raise its artistic quality. These are the main conclusions of the Culture Council's opinion.

As dramatic as some of this may sound, the advice is actually not, when you look over the whole battlefield. Thanks in part to

'Alva'. Unknown stage work by Vondel discovered

This was our April fool's joke for 2016. Thanks for sharing! During renovation work at the Stadsbank van Lening building on Amsterdam's Oudezijds Voorburgwal, a manuscript of a work of poetry that has since been attributed by literary historians to Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) has recently turned up. It concerns a rough, unfinished version of a play entitled 'Alva' and is dated around... 

'Daphne' op de patio van museum Beelden aan Zee (foto auteur)

Everything is temporary, however beautiful - exhibition Iris Le Rütte at Statues by the Sea

Last spring, while looking at Catinka Kersten's newly installed sculpture on the patio of museum Beelden aan Zee, Iris Le Rütte's sculpture Daphne caught my eye. A woman who instead of a head and arms stretched branches to the sky. It is a scene from Ovid's Metamorphoses: the nymph Daphne, on the... 

The great Jihad or tearful dying: "Mom, are you ready?"

Last night Nazmiye Oral, together with a large group of Turkish colleagues, played the performance Niet Meer Zonder Jou for the third and, for now, last time. It is an intimate and overwhelming theatre production by Adelheid Roosen, Female Economy & Zina, co-produced by and performed during the Holland Festival at Broedplaats De Vlugt, far west in Amsterdam-Slotermeer. Tearing die Nazmiye Oral calls... 

Ayn Rand was haunting Dutch theatre as early as 2006.

Ivo van Hove has not only a play made based on Ayn Roland's novel of ideas The Fountainhead. In 2006, the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam even wanted to base a whole new design of the theatre system on it. Eight years later, we can see that only the negative aspects of Van Hove's vision have been realised.

In 1935, the Pieten were black, or were they white after all?

We had still so decided not to say anything about the Black Peters Discussion. But still. Whoever is right, and whatever has been said, written and fantasised about it historically, we now have images. In those images, from 1935, we see Sinterklaas (a starring role by the famous actor and director Eduard Verkade) (thanks Peter van Bokhorst for the info), surrounded by men in some kind of noble costume, on horseback. We thought for a moment

Small selection of great suffering for Christmas week

There will definitely be no investigation into a corporatisation of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven. According to the proposal, a council majority wants to have the opportunities to earn more money and save on expenses investigated. A political party earlier suggested that many more visitors and revenue could be brought in with a less elitist programme. At the Money Museum in Utrecht 

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