I would like to take a moment to put this one to you. Quote from this morning's volkskrant, where editor Harmen Bockma makes a valiant attempt to list all the figures of culture carnage, but fails a little in doing so. It also remains difficult to identify the fallout in the basic infrastructure add to the dropout at the fund, but it is proving altogether difficult to discern what
On Wednesday 1 August 2012, the Performing Arts Fund will announce the results of the lottery that granting arts subsidies has now become. Huge cuts are looming: companies and makers that by now seemed to be a permanent part of the Dutch arts landscape will disappear. Exactly what it will look like, we know
There have been days when we had 1500 page views. You, 2500 of our most loyal visitors, came so far to provide 14000 views on dedodo.co.uk, and you stayed around for an average of three minutes. On average. We are proud of that. Apparently, we managed to attract and keep your attention. So those are good figures for an online festival day newspaper like De Dodo, which has to make do with no screaming, no marketing budget but an overdose of enthusiasm and professional innovativeness.
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. Out 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.
Soon, Twitter brought an initial reaction to Waiting for Miss Monroe, Robin de Raaff's opera that had its world premiere at the Stadsschouwburg last night. @DavidMPinedo: What an atrocious opera Raaff's 'Waiting for Ms. Monroe' is. An atonal fart that has NOTHING musical. Just screaming. And a second. @sandraeik: Exciting world premiere Waiting for Miss Monroe - incredible performance by Laura Aiken as Monroe....
To bring in an extra five tonnes, the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and the Gelderland Orchestra are pulling together. And with success: the provincial governments of Overijssel and Gelderland are absorbing the state's subsidy cut. However, it now turns out that the plans used to rake in that bailout are dubious. Politicians have hardly looked into it. Questions about the business plan came mainly from the PVV in Overijssel, but in Gelderland that same party enthusiastically agreed to the injection of millions after a - remarkably damning - counter-expertise.
Nearly thirteen million The Gelderland Orchestra (HGO) asked for the province of Gelderland. It got three-and-a-half. Just enough to absorb the reduction in the state subsidy for the next two years and to work towards a new organisational structure and a new revenue model, as described in a very ambitious business plan, which...... wait for it. We have already written about this, haven't we?
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...
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 both 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.
We got another press release, and wondered: top or flop? How does idiosyncratic 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:.
These are data that somehow do not make the press here, because they are about America, which is not in the Netherlands. Still, it is interesting to take a closer look at the composition of the audience on Broadway. After all, that is where, in the wet dreams of VVD/PVV celebrities like Bart @deliefde and @halbezijlstra, the future of...
That frightens us quite a bit ourselves. We knew that the Cultural Press Agency was doing pretty well, but we didn't really think a reach of more than 100,000 people was possible. After all, we had done nothing in the way of marketing. Just posting content and not giving away free tickets. And only once something with a bare female breast in it. Enfin....
House amends gift deduction in cultural sector (...) A majority of the House wants to limit the Cabinet plans for tax deductions in the cultural sector. At the same time, it should become more fiscally attractive to make donations to sports and music associations. VVD, CDA and PVV submitted amendment proposals to this effect to the Giving Act of state secretary Frans Weekers (Finance) on Tuesday. (...) The PVV felt that far too...
On Thursday 27 October, FNV KIEM, the Nederlandse Toonkunstenaarsbond (Ntb) and NAPK sector orchestras discussed the terms of employment of musicians employed by the Randstedelijke and Regionale Orkesten that fall under the collective labour agreement Dutch Orchestras. Out of a total of 11 Dutch orchestras, nine are covered by this collective agreement. The orchestras of the Muziekcentrum van de Omroep and the...
The smallest opera company in the Netherlands beats the biggest. Not in visitor numbers, not in subsidy received, but in bringing in sponsorship money. On closer inspection, however, it becomes painfully clear once again that there is no giving culture in the Netherlands and sponsorship is limited to a pittance. A rattling giving law will not change that.
The story continues. On 1 July the VAT increase came into effect, on 8 July NRC quoted Halbe Zijlstra as saying that "it was not the most mature scheme" of this cabinet, words he later nuanced during parliamentary questions. In late August, the Berenschot report came out with startling figures: the VAT increase would mainly cost the Netherlands money rather than generate it. Meanwhile, the Music...
Has state secretary Halbe Zijlstra the Lower House lied or misled in June when he stated that rushing through the culture cuts was necessary to absorb friction costs? Or does it just turn out to be improper governance?
At the end of August came the figures. And what figures they were. Due to the stacking of extreme cuts by government, provinces and municipalities, the abolition of the successful Work and Income for Artists Act and the equally successful culture card, plus the VAT increase on the arts, the Netherlands' cultural sector would end up missing out on €1 billion in revenue. Berenschot had estimated that in...
Let's start again with yet another sloppiness of the Rutte government: that damned VAT measure on the arts, which are the only ones to be bounced to the 'normal' rate of 19%. VVD doesn't like it, CDA isn't happy about it, but, because tolerance specialist Martin Bosma once had to play a red toadstool in the school play, he has forever...
'And why do all these art institutions have to open on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and even Thursdays? I don't understand that. I'm far too busy working on those days.' Just a question during the Paradiso debate,
Photo: Pierre Nydegger To conclude. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we were able to meet with...
In conclusion. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we had a great time with our new...
Case in point: more people are against cuts than the ministry would have us believe. On page 32 of the now heavily controversial brochure 'Cultuur in Beeld', the ministry writes: "In the CDE, carried out at the end of 2010, citizens were asked to indicate from 17 policy fields whether they think the central government should spend (a lot) less or (a lot) more money on...
How bad is it really? A few lied lines in a Ministry of Education, Culture and Science booklet? Pretty bad. Because it's an outright lie, and a government that lies is not to be had. Because: how can you trust them anymore?
We could say something derogatory about Belgians and arithmetic, but we won't. Firstly, because the Belgians have disbanded themselves and, secondly, because there is nothing wrong with the Flemings' ability to calculate. At least, those Flemings who have calculated at the Flemish Theatre Institute how the subsidy money for the arts is spent. In Flanders. And it turns out that.
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