Over four hours long Ça ira (1) Fin de Louis, a performance by French director Joël Pommerat, to be seen this weekend at the Holland Festival. He reconstructed events in France between 1789 and 1794, better known as The French Revolution. What begins as a sometimes hard-to-follow, animated history lesson culminates in an impressive 'whodunnit', balancing between re-enactment and live television.
Report on a hidden battlefield. Poetry International in Rotterdam has moved into a new, informal venue. The home of the Ro theatre in William Boothlaan, just over basic than the Theatre on that strange square. And the terrace between roaring motorbikes is lively, full of old and young lovers of poetry. Or of spoken word, or from slam. Anyone who might think Poetry International is an elitist poetry festival will be deceived on this sunny Thursday afternoon. A stenographic report.
This is a review of a performance that is already over, and which, moreover, I participated in myself. That's not allowed at all. But it's also a story about refugees in Europe, a theatre floating above the clouds, a church made of marzipan, tunnels in Palestine and 49 draws. So I do it anyway.
Last weekend, during the Kunstenfestivaldesarts, a miracle happened at the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels. Scenographer Jozef Wouters and his crew had settled in the old hall with its domed roof. Completely renovated ten years ago, 'de Bol' is now an old-fashioned frame theatre equipped with the latest theatre technology. Including those 49 draws, and that was what it was all about.
On a pull,
'She is the embodiment of the incredible lightness of existence, agile, alert and precise on the beat.' So says one critic about Korean-American conductor Han-Na Chang (Suwon, 1982), who led just about every major orchestra after her debut in 2007. In 2014, she scored highly at the renowned BBC Proms with her fresh interpretation of the Fifth Symphony....
These are bleak times. A few days after the opening night of the Movies that Matter festival (MTM) in The Hague, the world was rocked by the attacks in Brussels. For an event that focuses on human rights issues, a sign that the violent consequences of international conflicts seem to be getting closer. This raises the question of whether an audience that is...
The Flemish author Stefan Hertmans (1951) is best known in the Netherlands as a novelist, especially since he won the AKO Literature Prize and the Gouden Boekenuil Publieksprijs with his beautiful autobiographical novel Oorlog en terpentijn (War and turpentine). But besides being a writer of novels, collections of short stories, essays and theatre texts, Hertmans is above all a poet. He wrote the Poetry Gift for the upcoming Poetry Week, which starts at the end of January....
'Well, if we don't get home in one piece, know that we loved you guys,' we joked to our family just before we left for Brussels on Saturday. We would have an interview with American writer David Vann there, and the day after take a walk through Brussels in the footsteps of writers Charlotte and Emily Brontë. There would be some...
As I wrote in my earlier article about the Nederlandse Dansdagen, choreographer Loïc Perela won this year's Nederlandse Dansdagen Maastricht Prize. It earned him 12,000 euros to put into his new project HASHTAG. The award has helped some previous winners on their way (Monique Duurvoort, Joost Vrouenraets, Erik Kaiel, Muhanad Rasheed, Joeri Dubbe,...
Not many directors have become very iconic very young. Chantal Akerman was, both for experimental film and feminist. She broke through in 1975 with Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, a film that is as disruptive as it is understated. It is her most important work, and also her most radical. The protagonist leads an existence of...
With Michelangelo Antonioni - Il maestro del cinema moderno, EYE has once again managed to put together a flawless and solid film exhibition. George Vermij visited the exhibition on the Italian master filmmaker and looks back on his influential oeuvre. In Dino Risi's road movie Il Sorpasso (1962), the passionate and extroverted Vittorio Gassman takes on a young and reserved Jean-Louis Trintignant...
Laser projection opens new vistas for digital film screening. On Wednesday, the JT cinema in Hilversum had the European premiere of Dolby Cinema with the screening of Inside Out.
2014 was the year of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, award-winning stage adaptation by Ivo van Hove. This year, that performance has been outstripped by 'Passions Humaines', written by Erwin Mortier, magisterially designed by Guy Cassiers. Again at the Holland Festival, confirming its place as a stage for the great debate on art. Two plays in which architecture, artistry and...
What happened to the five million Overijssel gave the orchestra in 2011 to 'get more money from the market'? This was also what councillor Van Abbema wondered, and the answers the province gave her mostly raise more questions. What is abundantly clear is that the province wants to keep the orchestra no matter what and of no merger
In The Loom of Mind, Icelandic folk singer Mugison, his bosom friend Pétur Ben, and Flemish baroque ensemble B.O.X. join forces. What does that sound like: melancholic Icelandic blues with 17th-century instruments? Like a stand-up storytelling concert performance? Or like a drunken panda who wants to have a game? How did you find each other? Pieter Theuns, lutenist and founder of B.O.X.: "I found Mugison...
With 'The oasis of Matisse', the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam has put on a magnificent exhibition. Sixty years after there was last a major retrospective of Matisse in the Netherlands, his work is back on display in all its glory. So alongside 'Late Rembrandt' at the Rijksmuseum, there is another blockbuster in the capital. The thousands of visitors who attended the...
Contemporary choreographer Sibi Larbi becomes the new director of Ballet Flanders in Antwerp. A striking and unorthodox choice. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, meanwhile, may stay away from De Munt in Brussels. What's up Belgium?
Choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker sends out an alarming press release. Following the decision by the Brussels theatre De Munt/La Monnaie to stop programming dance, she wonders whether Rosas is still welcome in Brussels. "The news that the management of La Monnaie is scrapping all dance fills me with disbelief. Historically, ...
Two corpses. Despairing bystanders. A blood-red photo. The cover of the Exploration, released by the Amsterdam Arts Council, makes one fear the worst. A massacre has been committed. Even if it is a scenic photo of a performance by Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Or is it all different? Are only two dead, and the rest live on? Something about shows that on must go?....
'Eutopia comes from the Greek and means as much as 'Good place'. With this installation, I want to make people think about what that is: a good place.' Architect and visual artist Filip Berte worked on his 'Good Place' for seven years and the result can now be seen in Utrecht's Zijdebalen Theatre.
Holland Festival
In 'Cineastas', the Argentine director shows Mariano Pensotti (1972) a multi-layered story about four Buenos Aires filmmakers, each struggling with their new films. It is partly a portrait of the city, through the eyes of four Argentine filmmakers, says
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...
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...
Last night the awards for best short films were presented at festival Go Short in Nijmegen. Winner of the Dutch competition is Woensdagen by Aaron Rookus, a small feature film that approaches the heavily charged subject of sexual abuse in the most subtle way. What begins as an emotionally stunningly well-struck impression of eight-year-old Kris' weekly outing...
Thanks to Ingrid van Frankenhuyzen, who posted this message on facebook. Dance is also thought of, despite the fact that the VVD sees dance as a branch of sport. Well: in America, they know all about sport, and therefore sporting behaviour. Up to a point. Because what did Beyoncé do in her latest clip? Right: a choreographed...
What she does is vulnerable to the point of confrontation. Theatre-maker Lotte van den Berg has such a personal view of the world that, outside the safe context of theatre, it can come across as absurd. Or alienating. On Sunday 26 September, she returned with the members of her Dordrecht-based location theatre company OMSK back from a four-month stay in the Congo capital Kinshasa. A full house in Rotterdam's Gouvernestraat then got to be there when they unpacked their bags a few hours after landing.
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