It's not 50 billion, like in Germany, but it's more than nothing: the support measures Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven announced today for the hard-hit cultural sector. And, who knows, this may offer openings to do a few things completely differently after this crisis. For instance, it is great that the national museums do not have to pay rent for a while,...
With northern Italy cut off from the outside world because of corona and looking increasingly desolate, we are reminded of an interview we had a few years ago with writer Davide Longo about his book The Vertical Man. A book à la The Road by Cormac McCarthy, in which Longo outlines a desolate world that has changed dramatically as a result of...
I had the chance to attend the 500th anniversary - it took place at the beautiful Teatro La Fenice - of the first Jewish ghetto during my visit to Venice in 2016. One of the speakers was historian Simon Schama. During his lecture, I was given a brief history of Jewish suffering in Italy. According to...
Emerging fascism is becoming increasingly parlous. Especially among young people, I discovered recently at a concert by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw. A reading club of twenty-somethings said they enjoyed James MacMillan's Second Percussion Concerto. They joined me in denouncing the draconian cuts to culture. But suddenly it sounded carefree: 'We are all voting for Thierry.' When I was dismayed...
There are people who have a voice with which you can quiet a crowd in a whisper. Bill T Jones, choreographer and this year's associate artist of the Holland Festival, is one such person. Apart from that beautiful, heavy and full voice, he also has a presence with which he can quiet the cogs with a single hand movement. But all that would be nothing if...
What. Have. We. Terrible. Much. Too. Learning. If there is 1 thing the musical Tina makes clear, it is that. Especially at the stormy premiere, Sunday 9 February, a few hours before storm Ciara blew the last bubbles out of the Utrecht champagne glasses. An almost completely white auditorium, in Black Tie, that is, with only a few people from...
She survived a brain haemorrhage and a serious car accident. As a result, writer Rosita Steenbeek (62) no longer has a fear of death, but an enormous zest for life. It has enriched her. By looking death in the eye, I understood that love is the most important thing in life'. 1. You can also be happy without a relationship 'I've been alone for a number of years and...
'There is an information war going on right now, which shows how important data is. The Assange case is the most poignant example of this.' Dutch-German composer Iris Ter Schiphorst wrote a piece about Julian Assange, the now controversially declared founder of Wikileaks. She is on a mission with this: 'Although Wikileaks has never been caught at a single fault, Assange has been accused of...
What will shake up the cinema world the most in the coming years? The new James Bond film? Or a personal film tip tailored to your previous cinema visits that just pops up on your smartphone? Or perhaps a technical innovation that creates a whole new cinematic experience? Just a few things that loom around the topic of this week's New Cinema conference. A day and a half...
On 23 October, website Theaterkrant.nl wrote a piece on the future of the performing arts. A future that is black and gloomy when you, as a creator, count on growth, or even survival at all. In short: so much money is going away from the Performing Arts Fund, that from next year only between 50 and 60 applications can be honoured, in...
'Nothing can make up for the past. But the real, enduring power of the past lies in how it affects our present and our future. What we can do is shape a future history in which we consciously and determinedly carry with us only the best of our past.' Not keep rooting, but cognitive behavioural therapy for the whole of Europe, you might...
Ensemble Modern presents world premieres by German-Dutch Iris ter Schiphorst and Turkish Zeynep Gedizlioğlu in November Music. And that is good news, because the female composer remains too often invisible even in 2019. In the brochures of any Dutch orchestra, you will find none, or only a single work by a woman. On the new Heart & Soul list of...
Exactly 200 years ago, on 13 September 1819, Clara Schumann was born in Leipzig as Clara Wieck. She is among one of the greatest pianists of the nineteenth century. Against her father's wishes, she married Robert Schumann, whose work she fervently promoted. She also wrote well-received compositions of her own and was more famous than Robert. Yet after her...
This weekend, there was some fuss on Twitter. Something about a Nazi comparison that didn't quite work out. Now there is quite often a fuss on Twitter because of a Nazi comparison that doesn't quite work out, but this time it concerned one of our cultural figureheads. Kees Vlaardingerbroek, artistic director of the NTR Saturday matinee and former head of programming at the Rotterdam...
When you make theatre for children and young people, you tell stories to children and young people from your adult existence as an adult. You can do that. You can get funding for that. Artemis, previously named the second-best theatre company in the Netherlands here, is such a company. But, because this youth theatre company is led by Jetse Batelaan, Artemis likes to do things differently. Stronger...
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...
'As programmers, we are more often in Ghent than in Amsterdam,' says Viktorien van Hulst, director of Theatre Festival Boulevard. The Bossche arts festival, which this year takes place from 1 to 11 August under the Sint Jan and at unexpected locations around the North Brabant capital, has for years stood out for its close ties with our southern neighbours. 'The Dionysian artists are sitting...
Some stories are too big to tell. Too big, but no less important or true for that. Like the story of the millions of Africans who died in World War I in the service of the warring factions there: Britain, France, Italy and Germany. No one knew that last story. At least, nobody I knew knew about it, and neither did I myself. It...
The dance film occupies a unique place among the film offerings. Not driven purely by psychologising or text, it offers every opportunity for experimentation in form and content. But that also means it is difficult to place. And therefore difficult to make. The second part on the growing pains of the dance film features 2 dancers and performance artist....
'That I have perpetrators in my family gives me the responsibility to keep remembering. Many of my contemporaries say we should never forget and that it should never happen again, but do nothing else. Being a writer gives me the opportunity to do something. To write about it, make readers feel...
Some 400 virtual metres we go up with the dancers. Beforehand, we are warned to look straight ahead if we are afraid of heights. For me, this was unnecessary, I loved flying along in the huge circular space, knowing I was safely ensconced in a chair. Choreography, avatars, architecture and Blixa Bargeld. Those are a few...
Her debut novel became an instant bestseller in Spain. The Last Gift of Paulina Hoffmann by Carmen Romero Dorr is a novel based partly on her own family history about Paulina, who emigrates from Germany to Spain as a young girl because of World War II. 'About her past, her experiences during the war, my grandmother never wanted to talk.' A beautiful family epic, that is The Last...
The cinema industry presents its 2018 annual figures. Visits stable at 35.7 million, but Dutch film's market share dropped again, now to 11%. Half of the peak year of 2011.
Dance pioneer Lucinda Childs is actually the reason I went to Modern Girls. I am a lover of that. Of her work. But as a bonus, I got Regina van Berkel. With Frozen Echo. Why is it important for Introdans to bring a programme of work by female choreographers only? Huh? That's the feeling I got. With Van Berkel's Frozen Echo. Right from...
Bestselling author Paolo Giordano (35) does not shy away from current themes in his new novel Devouring Heaven. Poverty, environmental problems, capitalism, (un)fertility - people in their twenties and thirties have a lot to wrap their heads around. 'I find the fixed life pattern we grow up with strangling.' Devouring the sky Young people who have to find their way in the world and learn to cope with pain, loss...
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