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The new defence: don't talk but bring! (How a dinner argument leads to genius insights)

I am sitting at the dinner table at my parents' house. We are celebrating my mother's birthday with the whole family. I am there, but I am not quite there. In fact, I am so incredibly tired at the moment. As I jokingly tell my friends, "I can't say boo or boo anymore and am running on my gums". Suddenly, the conversation turns to... 

With sound. Honours for Marga Klompé; Action Tomato finally buried during commemoration.

The myth just had to end. Nan van Houte, former director of Amsterdam's small theatre Frascati, has buried Action Tomato. During Requiem for Tomato, on 4 November 2019, she made it crystal clear that this legendary event has been measured too big by our theatre historians. In 1969, when a few tomatoes were sent to the al... 

'It deals with a serious subject, but I also laughed a lot.' This is why Anne-Gine Goemans wrote a cheerful book about nuclear weapons

A cheerful novel about nuclear weapons, that was to be Holy Trientje. Writer Anne-Gine Goemans based the book on the true story of American nun Megan Rice, who - at an advanced age - managed to enter the United States' most heavily secured nuclear bomb complex with nothing more than a pair of concrete scissors. 'I thought it was so beautiful, brave and naive.' Hiroshima 'failure' Every... 

Art cannot be exclusive enough. At Festival Noorderzon, everyone can experience it for themselves 

Police sirens sound less frequently in Groningen than in a city like Amsterdam. When they sounded last Wednesday night, it was because residents of the premises behind the local art academy, Minerva, raised the alarm. Standing on the roof was not an owl, but an almost naked man shouting that he was going to rob the Coop. Mads Wittermans, the actor in question, had forgotten the... 

'Playing a game is fun, especially if it's a sneaky game.' What is Yan Duyvendak doing at Noorderzon with his audience?

Armed only with instructions, consisting of a short scenario and witness accounts from previous participants, you and up to 11 others carry out a number of sneaky tasks. On the street. Exactly what these subtle disruptions of the everyday are will remain a secret until the performance begins. It promises to be one of the most special projects at Festival Noorderzon, which runs from 15 to... 

Jeremy Dutcher on Amsterdam Roots: 'I think we can expect something very beautiful in the generations to come, as long as we keep singing our songs.'

It is, so in his normal clothes, a cheerful, spontaneous guy who walks up to me in the hotel lobby where we have arranged to meet. Jeremy Dutcher the Canadian singer who is one of the main guests at this year's Amsterdam Roots festival, hardly shows any traces of the jet lag he must have undoubtedly sustained from his flight, which took off a few hours earlier... 

Colonisation is not a relationship. But we still need to establish that relationship, this Holland Festival showed.

Post-colonial criticism and reflection ran like a thread through this year's Holland Festival programme. Not only William Kentrigde and Faustin Linyekula, the associate artists with whom the festival's programmers collaborated, their work addresses the devastating effects of centuries of Western European trade and commerce. In reframing political and social history and reclaiming... 

Angélica Liddell's screams are particularly interesting in The Scarlet Letter

The much nudity and sex in Angelica Liddel's adaptation of Hawthorne's famous novel are a bit old-fashioned. The Spanish language is the real attraction. In his review of Angélica Liddell's play 'The Scarlet Letter' on this website, Wijbrand Schaap calls the scene with a naked black man "a painful low point". According to Schaap, the man is treated by Lidell as... 

Antony and Cleopatra, Tiago Rodrigues. Photo: Magda Bizarro.

'I have no problem at all if spectators want to see Anthony and Cleopatra. But for me, it's about something else.' Tiago Rodrigues writes theatre for dancers.

Anthony and Cleopatra is exactly the kind of repertory piece that people look forward to during the Holland Festival, or any other prestigious stage. Director and writer Tiago Rodrigues manages not so much to deflate that grandiose expectation as to reduce it to the intimacy of a duet and a play with extremely basic theatrical gestures. His two actors are dancers, an experienced choreographer duo 

What a broken-down bus has to do with liberation and feminism. Dancer Djino Alolo on Piki Piki at the Holland Festival

Djino Alolo Sabin (1990) sits there, relaxed, in the morning at the hotel in Brussels. The night before, he has danced his solo Piki Piki for the first time, which will also be shown at Theater Frascati during the Holland Festival. The performance touches on many intense themes, but is anything but melodramatic. Rather, it expresses a relentless optimism.... 

Laundry is still hanging on the line and food is still on the tables in restaurants. The doomsday scenario of Chernobyl, now as an HBO TV series.

On 26 April 1986, an explosion occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. To this day, it is one of the most catastrophic disasters caused by man. The effects of the nuclear disaster are felt even today. For many, Chernobyl represents a long-forgotten memory. Places with a macabre history have always drawn people and... 

Podcast! Four strings live in four helicopters, for Stockhausen's 'Aus Licht': 'We still need to do something about those carrier pigeons in terms of planning.'

In 2016, the Holland Festival, De Nationale Opera, the Royal Conservatoire and the Stockhausenstiftung joined forces to stage the German avant-gardist's magnum opus at Amsterdam's Gashouder. Light far surpasses Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen in ambition and scale. Against the four full-length operas of his older colleague, Stockhausen places 'Sieben... 

Brabant feud between orchestra and province comes at the expense of children, schools and small companies.

Cultural summit will take place Friday, February 1, 2019, at the North Brabant Provincial House. Reason: The 'Orkexit', or, the decision by the Philharmonie Zuid Nederland to cease all education activities in North Brabant with immediate effect. This not only deprives thousands of children of culture, but also puts a number of small youth theatre companies in dire financial straits. The Philharmonic, a merger orchestra, formed... 

'Stories are not that fascinating, it's what you see that matters' - Tsai Ming Liang and the art of watching

Eye film museum kicks off its Virtual Reality season with Tsai Ming Liang's The Deserted. Tsai himself was in the country for a masterclass, introductions and interviews. And although his films suggest otherwise, he is a very animated speaker. In his masterclass, he talked about his career, his collaboration with muse and regular actor Lee Kang-Sheng, and his position... 

Lower House gets less say on arts subsidies. (If the minister gets her way)

Some people read Christmas stories over Christmas, others the interview supplements of newspapers, and a few do so with policy documents. So, quite a few people have read our Culture Minister's 'Advice Request' in the past few days. I, at least. Those who 'officially' cannot have done so are the members of the Culture Council, because the whole package came... 

DocLab 2018: improve the world, put on VR glasses.

Slowly but surely, the very latest in virtual reality (VR) is finished and we can start thinking about what you want to show, rather than how. Whereas at the first VR festival I still got whooping headaches from bad glasses, now I can be mesmerised by the beauty of the Amazon or beautiful animations. Movie theatres like Eye... 

People no longer want to be seen as toys. We can't get around it. Museums can't get around it.

Searching for what I stand for and what path I should take, time and again I come across facts that confuse and amaze me. I live in a country where only a single woman is in De Volkskrant top ten most influential people - in tenth place, that is. Only three out of 100 young Dutch millionaires... 

PODCAST: Theatre Festival 2018 opens with punishment.

1On 6 September 2018, Chokri Ben Chika left his sense of humour behind in Belgium. He trekked to the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg with a filled jerry can and committed a criminal offence. He threatened a Rabo Hall filled to the brim with an indistinguishable fake weapon. He said he admired the anonymous Tunisian who, with his self-immolation ... 

Major concerns over fate of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov - eight weeks on hunger strike in Russian captivity

Human rights organisations from around the world and thousands of filmmakers and artists express support for Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years by Russia. This Ukrainian filmmaker has been on hunger strike since 14 May. His life is in serious danger, according to the European Film Academy.

The songs that slap you in the face rock hard in an unguarded moment

In 2016, I was unexpectedly struck by a Beatles classic. So what are the ingredients of perfect pop music? It is August 2016. I am standing with my friend at a ticket office in Liverpool, the British port city that is just as much an open-air museum. It is rather rubbed in on us that this city gave birth to The Beatles. In the harbour, tourists spend the night in a yellow submarine, equally... 

The Basel Miracle: "YES!" the petty people said en masse by referendum in 1967 to the purchase of two expensive Picassos.

This is an extraordinary story about crowdfunding avant la lettre and an urban 'bourgeoisie' that for once does not vote by refendum against throwing money at modern art. In Switzerland, no less. Kunstmuseum Basel made a small, fine, penetrating exhibition about it, still on show until 18 August, 2018. Ideal for a stopover on the way to Italy. If you do have a moment... 

Gisèle Vienne performs at @hollandfestival on rave culture: 'Violence and aggression are not necessarily negative.'

French-Austrian theatre maker Gisèle Vienne is showing her latest work Crowd at the Holland Festival. Vienne takes the rave party as a starting point for subtle observations on what moves people during a night out. Besides the ecstatic pleasure of dance and trance, the performance also stages all kinds of nocturnal self-loss, awkwardness, loneliness and aggression. Acid The wonderful mix of acid, trance and... 

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