Amsterdam

How a Martian looks at opera

by Henri Drost
11 June 201229 March 2022
5 min read
For members only, MUSIC, OPERA, SPECIALS

Or: the familiar becomes utterly alien here. Or: embracing meaninglessness as the first principle. One hundred years after his birth, John Cage takes centre stage in HF weekend.

Ever since Reinbert de Leeuw played it in the fastest talk show on Dutch television, John Cage's 4'33" has been a well-known composition in our country. For exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the musician does not play a single note and the audience hears nothing but the ambient sounds.

Fedja van Huet's lost dinner jacket and other Toneelgroep Amsterdam mysteries #HF12

by one of our members
10 June 201230 March 2022
3 min read
For members only, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Anyone who might think that making a stage show is a simple one-two punch of a genius director with a good team of creatives and perfect actors is wrong. Only, as a spectator once attending the performance, you don't notice any of that. And that is just as well. You come for the performance and you won't care if...

Blood-soaked Macbeth fits festival theme perfectly but fails to touch #HF12

by Wijbrand Schaap
10 June 201213 February 2019
4 min read
Holland Festival, SPECIALS

Imagine Arjan Robben. The much-troubled frontman of the Dutch national team has just seen a brilliant move rewarded with a penalty and he is ready to take it. Up comes a field hand with a new set of adhesive letters for his shirt because the numbers are no longer legible from the stands. Lots of lashing, shirt off, seconds glue. Circumstances, in short. After two minutes, the fielder is gone, the number readable and the referee's whistle sounds. Then try to hit the target.

Read More "Blood-soaked Macbeth fits festival theme perfectly but fails to touch #HF12

Enfant terrible Boris Charmatz puts finger on sore spot with confrontational choreography about the elusive child

by Ruben Brugman
9 June 20128 July 2016
3 min read
DANS, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

With enfant, choreographer Boris Charmatz broaches a difficult topic: how do we as adults deal with ourselves, and how do we deal with children? Charmatz draws on the French philosopher Lyotard, who pondered the "inhumanity" of adults and saw real people in children. The current image about physical contact with children is distorted and it is...

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

by Thea Derks
6 June 201225 May 2020
3 min read
Holland Festival, MUSIC, OPERA, SPECIALS, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

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 ...

Actors' award for Theatre Institute threatened with dissolution

by one of our members
4 June 201230 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Mail from Actors' Interests, the actors' 'union'. Whether we want to abide by the embargo. Of course we do. We do. Butreh: so the Theatre Institute Netherlands, to be dissolved by Halbe Zijlstra together with the Netherlands Music Centre, is getting an award. And that seems to be a sculpture, which in turn makes us wonder where the thing should be after 1 January 2013....

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

by Wijbrand Schaap
2 June 201229 March 2022
4 min read
For members only, Holland Festival, SPECIALS

[View the story "Opening Holland Festival 2012" on Storify] Opening Holland Festival 2012 On 1 June, the Holland Festival opened at Theater Carré. We were there, saw Platel's C(h)oeurs and tasted the atmosphere. Although it almost went wrong. This is what of it was witnessed on social media Storified by Cultureel Persbureau - Sat, Jun 02 2012 08:37:18...

Halbe Zijlstra has made history.

by Wijbrand Schaap
27 April 201229 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

After the presentation of the Rotterdam and The Hague arts recommendations, and a few days to weeks before the harsh judgements of the Council for Culture, and a few months before the devastating reports of the Performing Arts Fund, it is starting to become clear how drastically the Dutch cultural sector is being hit

Read More "Halbe Zijlstra has made history.

EYE on the IJ - a spaceship with allure

by Leo Bankersen
4 April 20128 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL, FILM

Tonight the queen may officially open the new home of the EYE Film Institute Netherlands, last night director Sandra den Hamer did it herself in advance at an opening party for relations. In doing so, she spoke of a historic moment for film culture in the Netherlands. Seen from a distance, the building, conveniently referred to as "the new film museum", is most reminiscent of a...

'No shit, everybody rich', but also: 'alarm, alarm, all poor'

by Wijbrand Schaap
30 March 201230 March 2022
5 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Art subsidies are better abolished if artists have to reach large audiences. Because then, after all, you distort the market. Logical. You could also decide to subsidise everyone. And that sounds stranger than

Read More "'No shit, everybody rich', but also: 'alarm, alarm, all poor'

Tjitske Reidinga launched as star of new summer programming Amsterdam's Delamartheater

by Wijbrand Schaap
21 March 20128 July 2016
9 min read
ACTUAL

Het grote publiek kent haar als de keiharde advocate Claire uit Gooise Vrouwen. Toneelliefhebbers kennen haar al langer als die actrice met die markante stem. Een diplomatendochter, geboren in Afrika, later opgegroeid in Bussum. Tjitske Reidinga durft er nu wel voor uit te komen:

Read More "Tjitske Reidinga launched as star of new summer programming Amsterdam's Delamartheater

Increase in 'wish headlines' in arts news around grant applications

by one of our members
1 March 201230 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, SPECIALS

The last opportunities for grant applications for 2013 and beyond closed today. Numerous mergers have been announced, new collaborations, high-profile relocations (Amsterdam in particular is emptying out). Many arts media now also carry news about those plans. News that is often presented as fact, while in almost all cases these are wishes. Applications are even fewer than ever...

Cultural merger fever could have serious consequences

by Wijbrand Schaap
29 February 20128 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL

In Amsterdam, Holland Festival, Theaterfestival, Toneelgroep Amsterdam and a few more clubs will 'work closely together'. In The Hague, this applies to Het Nationale Toneel and youth theatre house Stella Den Haag, while in Rotterdam

Amsterdam takes Netherlands Symphony Orchestra to court

by Henri Drost
23 February 201229 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only, MUSIC, OPERA

We already wrote extensively about the name change of the Orchestra of the East in the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (NSO). The curious opera grant application based on a business plan that carries huge risks had our full attention. Regular partner the National Travel Opera was not amused.

first reading of lost O'Neill piece

by one of our members
21 February 201229 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Connoisseurs know: often actors spend two months rehearsing a play with only one goal in mind: to recover the freshness and surprise of the 'first reading'. After all, at that first reading, actors hear the text for the first time from their colleagues, read the words aloud for the first time, and everything sounds new and unexpected....

Culture Council given little leeway

by one of our members
16 February 201230 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

He barely showed his face in recent months, rarely engaging in debate with artists or the public. Now that the mega cut in culture is law, and nothing can be changed about it until 2016, we can follow Halbe Zijlstra's victory lap again. Also on twitter.

Porn, movement and politics seek each other at festival Something Raw

by Fransien van der Putt
15 February 20128 July 2016
5 min read
ACTUAL

For more than a decade, Something Raw has been one of the few places in the Netherlands where the question of artistic and social urgency of the body is explored on stage, with all the fun and risk involved. Many performances struggled with the 'impasse of display': have people then become mere things to look at? Porn is the...

5-hour marathon Roman Tragedies favourite with spectators Toneelgroep Amsterdam

by one of our members
14 February 201229 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

We were somewhat mildly ironic about it, but hats off, meanwhile, to Toneelgroep Amsterdam's PR department and the audience, who responded remarkably well to the 'choose the reprise' campaign the company launched a few weeks back. We have the hard numbers we feared we would never see. And they are credible. We quote the press release: From 2 to...

'Ajax states' in sudden war between Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and National Travel Opera

by Henri Drost
13 February 20128 July 2016
9 min read
ACTUAL, MUSIC, OPERA

This week, the National Travel Opera begins rehearsals of Mozart's Le nozze di figaro. In the bin, the brand-new Netherlands Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jan Willem de Vriend. Business as usual, as the two companies have been working closely together for years and are united in the National Music Quarter Enschede. Only: orchestra and opera company have not been talking to each other since last week.

Fact-free journalism plunges into arts sector.

by Wijbrand Schaap
4 February 201229 March 2022
2 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

According to the Volkskrant, Rick van der Ploeg was state secretary of culture in the early 1990s (in reality, he was at the end of those years), and in Het Parool columnist Gerard Mulder claims that the fact that he "fortunately knows nothing about art subsidies" need not deter him from some wild speculations...

Top or flop: audience picks repertoire first theatre company in the Netherlands

by one of our members
2 February 20128 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL

We got another press release, and wondered: top or flop? How does quirky artistry rhyme with audience-determined repertoire choice? Andne: do all those people who chose the winning piece also get a free-or at least discounted-ticket to the performance of their choice? Andne: who checks the results, as there is no notary. Enne:.

Henk Pröpper: 'Writers Unlimited has always opposed panting and short-term ambition.'

by one of our members
20 January 20128 July 2016
7 min read
SPECIALS

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...

Miraculeus spel met eeuwenoude technieken spiegelt Stravinky’s muziek in 50.000 liter water en 50 minuten

by Henri Drost
14 January 201230 March 2022
3 min read
For members only, MUSIC, OPERA

Thais en Vietnamees poppenspel. Acrobaten, Chinees schimmenspel en Japanse kostuums. Een Chinese dirigente voor een Nederlands orkest, een Canadees regieteam en als hoofdwerk een krap vijftig minuten durende opera van een Russische componist, gebaseerd op een sprookje van een Deense schrijver die zijn inspiratie uit China haalde. Losjes.

Thunder or a minor storm in the Gouda Glasses? You may say

by one of our members
9 January 201229 March 2022
10 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

We received a letter on legs from Wim de Groot a while ago. Now we often get letters in paws, but here something seemed to be going on. Trouble of course because sorting it out takes time and money and that wasn't there for a while. (Look out for the donor campaign we are about to launch) But still. What's wrong with it? Wim de...

Theatre photography in the spotlight at small Amsterdam gallery

by one of our members
9 January 20128 July 2016
1 min read
ACTUAL

Theaterfoto’s zijn een vak apart. Uit een toch al in scene gezet onderwerp kiest de beroepsfotograaf het pakkendste beeld. Er zijn mensen die er daarom op neerkijken, er zijn mensen die de theaterfotograaf juist daarom bewonderen. Wij zijn uiteraard meer geneigd tot het laatste. Maar het vak staat onder druk. Van smartphones, van afnemers die geen plek en geen geld…

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