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Krisztina de Chatel in A frenzied mastery

Truly something to look forward to. Krisztina de Châtel's emotions come unstuck in A frenzied mastery

'A frenzied mastery' is the name of the documentary that Manon Lichtveld and Bas Westerhof made about Krisztina de Châtel. The emotions really hit home when visiting their parents' home in Hungary. We met them in the Rabozaal of Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam. They were also filming. Bas Westerhof and Manon Lichtveld. Cameraman Leo van Emden and I followed Koert... 

Theatre season opens with pep talk for paralysed artists.

To start right away with the rottenest news: according to Ferry Mingelen, D66 is not going to fulfil its election promise of 100 million reparations for the arts budget. The retired parliamentary journalist announced this during his opening speech of Het Theaterfestival, Thursday 7 September at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg theatre. He had spoken to party leader Pechtold on Tuesday. The latter had said that the ten... 

Your city's future hangs by a steel thread

Does your town suffer from vacancy? Is the city centre poorly accessible? Are you looking for a tourist attraction or a unique logo? A cable car solves all your problems. Your municipality can still benefit despite the great interest from all over the Netherlands in this new means of transport. But above all, don't listen to me, but to everyone before me. Clean and sustainable alternative In Groningen... 

Art is not an exam you can fail. Art is a way of seeing

Op Art (optical art) is less well known than Pop Art. Until you see the works in question. There may be no Op Art stars of Andy Warhol status, but their creations directly resonate with images you know from art history. On Saturday 25 February, a major exhibition[hints]In collaboration with the Louisiana Museum in Denmark[/hints] opened at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam about these... 

Photographer Ed van der Elsken liked to colour outside the lines

If he could have, photographer Ed van der Elsken would have preferred to have a camera built into his head, to capture the world twenty-four hours a day. What he did manage to make are countless beautiful photographs, films and books. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam shows his rich legacy at the major exhibition The camera in love. He was... 

Huub van der Lubbe and Christine Otten on love in times of racial hatred

We Had Love, We Had Guns by Christine Otten is about black resistance fighter Robert F. Williams, who fought for black equality. In the theatre adaptation of the same name, white actors - including Huub van der Lubbe - play black characters and vice versa. Double talk about personal sacrifice, skin colour and connection. Idlewild It is a remarkable coincidence. America is taking... 

Cello Biennale opens spectacularly: Maarten Mostert likes to go big

The Cello Biennale Amsterdam, the world's largest cello festival taking place from 20 to 29 October in Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, has begun and it is already taking a battering. For ten days, 27 international cello soloists, 6 orchestras, 11 ensembles, 1 choir and many musicians from 26 countries will give over 800 performances. From morning... 

As close as possible to Marilyn Monroe

'Happy Birthday Marilyn' is the name of the new exhibition at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. As soon as you enter, the saint worship begins, with a metre-high image of Marilyn Monroe in the famous billowing dress. High up in the ridge of the side aisle. The tone is set: The New Church provides a stage for the icon of the 1950s, an eternally beautiful... 

Waiting in the bardo: the Buddhist film festival kicks off

The Golden Calfs have not even been handed out yet and the next film festival is already about to begin. On Friday 30 September, the 11th Buddhist Film Festival Europe (BFFE) will kick off at Eye in Amsterdam with a very special film. The opening film is produced in one of the smallest film countries and one of the most fascinating countries in the Far East: Bhutan. According to IMDB... 

Kristien Hemmerechts: 'I'm good at putting my feelings in the closet'

A year ago, Belgian writer Kristien Hemmerechts was diagnosed with breast cancer. While embarking on a course of surgery, radiotherapy and hormone therapy, she contained the chaos in words. Her new book Er gebeurde dit, er gebeurde dat is the beautiful result of that. A vivid account of the confusion, emotions and thoughts during those first few months, framed by older... 

Dance teacher Lenneke Gentle: 'Dance is seen too much as a performing art.'

'What is the relevance of dance?' Since the conference The Relevance of Dance in March 2016, this question has been haunting my mind. That weekend, the main topic of discussion was the relevance of dance as a performing art to watch. An approach that left me unsatisfied, because my main interest myself is to know what the relevance of dance as an activity... 

These are the winners, losers and newcomers in Amsterdam arts

Diversity in the Amsterdam art world is not yet flourishing. The Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, which announced its grant awards today, is getting a bit tired of it: "Across most disciplines, committees note that cultural diversity of audiences, staff and governance is disappointing, as are efforts to change this. Outside specialised organisations for which cultural diversity is a core business, ambitions are still not high, despite two decades of cultural policy in this area. If the ambitions are there, organisations do not always manage to give them hands and feet. There often seems to be a certain discomfort or 'not knowing how'."

So to start with the good news: Marmoucha grows 398 per cent compared to the previous grant round. The capital's producer and promoter of performing arts in the field of North African and Middle Eastern arts and culture in the Netherlands was severely cut back in 2013, but the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts found its work over the past four years to be so good that the grant has been more than deserved. In the new round of awards which became known on 1 August they rise from 25,070 euros to a tonne, adding that perhaps they should not be so ambitious.

Stop-Acting-Now-©-Wunderbaum

Wunderbaum sows beautiful doubt in Mijke de Jong's 'Stop Acting Now' (HF16)

Wunderbaum. Among lovers of fresh and young theatre, this collective of creators stirred something up at the beginning of this century. They were born and bred under Johan Simons, where they formed the youth team of his legendary theatre group Hollandia. And because back then, every young maker really had to do something with the world, JongHollandia, later Wunderbaum, wanted the same. But because they lived in the post-ideological era and saw every day how the ideals of their teachers, parents and mentors came to nothing, it mainly became a club of doubters. And they were very good at that.

New avenues for fantasy and horror: nostalgia, nihilism and quirky malevolence

Imagine has been transforming for several years. When this festival was still going through the world under the name Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival, its main focus was on genre cinema. The Fantatstic genre is an insidious term used as a catch-all for science fiction, fantasy and horror. In these postmodern times, fantatstic is harder to delineate. The festival therefore changed its name back in 2009,... 

#OscarsSoWhite? Yes. But Europe is no better.

Things have been rumbling in the film world for some time: Why is the silver screen so, er, white? And where are all the women anyway? #OscarsSoWhite but also #OscarIsADude! Many people in the industry have already expressed their displeasure at this. At the previous Oscar ceremony, actresses aimed their arrows at equal pay, or rather, the lack of it. This year, many an African-American actor and... 

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra 2016-17: Amsterdam meets Daniele Gatti

'The most important thing is to bring music to the audience,' says Daniele Gatti on Thursday 25 February during the presentation of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's new season. 'Amsterdam meets Gatti' we read on large posters behind him. That does not appear to be a word too many: the brand-new principal conductor will be involved in all series, travels on the tour RCO meets Europe,... 

Idfa viewing tip 27 November: Perhaps the weirdest and fiercest film of the festival

It doesn't often happen to me that just under 30 years after seeing a film, I still remember in what state I left the theatre. Supreme confusion it was. Was all this real? As a filmmaker, were you allowed to hit your interviewees? Was it staged? It was too horrifying to imagine everything really happening 

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