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choreographer

'It felt a bit like the first time sex: way too direct, rushed, overactive and largely based on insecurity': Ivo Dimchev in battle with Franz West's wearable art

by Daniel Bertina
15 April 20128 July 2016
4 min read
SPECIALS

"What the fuck should I do with this?" was choreographer and performance artist Ivo Dimchev's (1976) first thought when confronted with the artworks of Austrian artist Franz West. After Dimchev's solo performance Some Faves (2010) in Vienna, West, a multi-awarded creator of bizarre sculptures and objects, sought contact with the choreographer. He asked him to make an improvised video based on his...

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Director of Dance Days Maastricht: "I really feel supported by Mayor Onno Hoes."

by Fransien van der Putt
14 October 20118 July 2016
6 min read
ACTUAL

The Dutch Dance Days are not yet a mad hive of dance, but for Maastricht they are increasingly a fun tourist attraction. Day trippers and weekend tourists come from all over the country to combine the delights of the South with those of the art of dance. For that matter, all of Maastricht seems to float on VVV leaflets. In this sphere of promotion, is there still room for...

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Ingmar Bergman becomes opera at Grachtenfestival

by Daniel Bertina
27 July 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Amsterdam, 1999. Studying Theatre Science, first-year theatre analysis class. I sit with notepad and pen clutched in fingers, making indecipherable notes. Halfway through the lecture, Sjaron Minailo (Tel Aviv, 1979) saunters in, dressed in a huge fur coat, with big Gucci sunglasses and dreadlocks. With a sigh, he plops into the back lecture bench, hears three sentences of the disrupted lecturer's speech

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Eszter Salamon and Daniel Linehan gems of highly diverse Julidans

by Fransien van der Putt
19 July 20118 July 2016
5 min read
SPECIALS

Holland Festival, Julidans, IT's, Over 't IJ. End-of-season theatre is always strewn across Amsterdam. Between April and September, international performance offerings migrate from Utrecht (Springdance and Festival aan de Werf) via Amsterdam to Rotterdam (Internationale Keuze). If you want to experience something of contemporary, international dance, Springdance, HF and Julidans are the places to be. [For...

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#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

by Fransien van der Putt
17 June 201129 July 2024
5 min read
Holland Festival, SPECIALS, APPRECIATE & DONATE!

Composer Wolfgang Rihm and choreographer Sasha Waltz, two familiar faces at the Holland Festival and big names in European performing arts, released a performance together in 2008 that could not be missing from a Holland festival programme this year. Not only does the festival have a focus on some great contemporary composers (Xenakis, Rihm), but it is also quite pushing the envelope on the...

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#HF11 Environmental message in 'Birds with Skymirrors' does not give imagination wings, but literally gets in the way

by Maarten Baanders
4 June 201113 February 2019
3 min read
Holland Festival, SPECIALS

You can hardly take your eyes off the feet. The dancers make busy, fast steps and yet their bodies seem to glide across the stage. It exudes something of perfection. In 'Birds with Skymirrors', you constantly get the feeling that the bird world has been the model for the movements. Trembling hands are reminiscent of wingtips, vulnerably scanning the skies....

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'They want to put everything on the line. In Western Europe, that desire is stupidly lacking': Algerian B-Boyz vulnerable and unyielding in Nya

by Fransien van der Putt
24 May 201130 March 2022
6 min read
For members only, SPECIALS

This year, the Holland Festival brings the extraordinary French-Algerian co-production Nya, which combines achievements of modern and classical dance with hip-hop and, in addition, Ravel's Bolero sounds alongside Houria Aïchi's Algerian evergreens.

Opinion: 'Let Joop van den Ende take classical ballet under his wing, merge Nederlands Dans Theater, Nationale Ballet and Scapino Ballet.'

by one of our members
5 May 20118 July 2016
4 min read
ACTUAL

It was predictable. Now that the Culture Council has given the secretary of state a go-ahead for massive and very deep cuts in dance, the first press releases are appearing with the outraged reactions. The National Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater are aggrieved: 'How

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Fascinating canon with 24 dancers by Boris Charmatz as bouncer and finale of Springdance 2011

by Fransien van der Putt
25 April 201130 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Springdance 9 — Boris Charmatz's dancers in ''Levée des conflits'' Photo Caroline Ablain.

Nothing is more uplifting than singing a canon together. French choreographer Boris Charmatz's Frère Jacques, seen as the bouncer on the final night of Springdance, is a special case, though. 'Levée des conflits' has no recurring refrain, but it has no fewer than 25 stanzas, which are danced by each of the 24 dancers. The insane polyphony that rises from this monster canon of dancing bodies slowly rattles the viewer apart over 1 hour and 40 minutes, at least if they keep following the multitude of movements and manipulations. 'Levée des conflits' presents the audience with a dilemma: does it surrender to the inimitability of interlocking phases and versions of a composition that it cannot possibly oversee? Or does it frantically search for structure, something to hold on to, something to orientate itself in this hall of mirrors of repetition and multiplication?

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Yasmeen Godder lets contrast between frightened individual and roaring group animal linger too much in dancers' minds

by Daniel Bertina
20 April 201129 March 2022
3 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

storm end come Itzik Giuli — Dancers by Yasmeen Godder - photo Itzik Giuli

She is on her knees. Shaking and trembling, she jerks backwards. With clawed fingers that seem to grasp at the void. Like a frightened cat. Shuffling, the dancer moves backwards in a semicircle on the white stage floor of Theatre Frog. One by one, the five others step onto the empty open stage, while the first dancer keeps looking anxiously at the audience. Thus begins 'Storm end come'. With this performance, Israeli choreographer Yasmeen Godder shows the overwhelming effects of fear on the bodies of her dancers. But it doesn't really get scary.

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"It would be very weird if you weren't allowed to laugh at a performance"

by Wijbrand Schaap
16 April 20118 July 2016
1 min read
ACTUAL

A shy, unassuming man, who transforms on stage into a brilliant clown and artist at the same time. You can't get more typically British than choreographer and dancer Jonathan Burrows. He has achieved cult status in the dance world, and it is actually strange that his performances do not reach a wider audience. Although he himself says he has no shortage of audience members,...

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Cesc Gelabert revives dance innovation

by Wijbrand Schaap
16 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Cesc Gelabert is a distinct figure in the world of modern dance. The Catalan with German roots makes a habit of keeping repertoire from the hot period of dance innovation alive, touring theatres and festivals with it for decades. So no Cinderella and Swan Lake for this engaging perfectionist, but dance steps from a Berlin...

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How do you bring a river on stage?

by Wijbrand Schaap
15 April 201130 March 2022
1 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

The opening of Springdance was a beautiful, continuous movement, from left to right across the stage of Utrecht's Stadsschouwburg theatre. Before the performance, Wijbrand Schaap spoke to choreographer Guilherme Botelho about this special dance piece.

'I want to make the perpetrator relive the death of his victim.' Jens van Daele makes dance out of cruelly disturbed art project

by one of our members
14 April 201129 March 2022
4 min read
ACTUAL, For members only

Jens van Daele concludes his series of choreographies on the seven deadly sins with the performance Brides for Peace. The piece is based on the art performance Brides on Tour by Italian artists Pippa Bacca and Silvia Moro. Hitchhiking and dressed in wedding dresses, with a text 'Peace' on their chests, they travelled from Milan to Jerusalem in 2008. The journey went...

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Springdance 2011 presents programme. The Dodo is there.

by one of our members
21 January 20118 July 2016
2 min read
ACTUAL

On Thursday 14 April, the Springdance festival 2011 opens with the opening performance Sideways Rain by choreographer Guilherme Botelho and his company Alias in the Stadsschouwburg Utrecht. Springdance 2011 presents innovative and high-profile contemporary dance from around the world. Besides many premieres, the festival has an extensive fringe programme including street performances, lectures, an introduction to contemporary dance for those starting...

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'Stardust' by Pete Rogie is great stream of little stories about encounters, confrontations, disappointments and lonely moments #dekeuze

by Maarten Baanders
13 September 20108 July 2016
3 min read
ACTUAL

Anyone walking into the venue where choreographer/visual artist Piet Rogie's performance 'Stardust' is due to take place is immediately astonished. In the vacant exhibition hall of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, ropes are stretched, it is teeming with seemingly carelessly scattered props and four cement mixers stand along the side like implacable sentinels. The whole space radiates that things are getting exciting. And the viewer is not disappointed with that.

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