I am sitting at the dinner table at my parents' house. We are celebrating my mother's birthday with the whole family. I am there, but I am not quite there. In fact, I am so incredibly tired at the moment. As I jokingly tell my friends, "I can't say boo or boo anymore and am running on my gums". Suddenly, the conversation turns to...
Jules Deelder instilled in me a love of poetry. He was there when I was in need of something other than the big-people poems that weren't about me, as a would-be punk. That was almost forty years ago now. He's just died, and heaven is also going jazz-ish. Last night, while the night mayor of Rotterdam...
In the ongoing series of interviews with leading figures from Amersfoort's cultural sector, I interviewed D66 alderman Fatma Koser Kaya. It turned into an animated conversation. Strangely enough, De Stadsbron, Amersfoort's local journalism site, is not allowed to promote the interview from Facebook, the editors announced yesterday. It is unclear why. Here is an excerpt, the whole story of course on De Stadsbron: 'I believe...
Virtual Reality is taking off. On Friday 11 October at 15:00, you can experience the world premiere of the chilling Walking through the Walls, a totally immersive work made for the Oculus Go and MEZE AUDIO headset, together the most complete portable VR set available. The event takes place at Mediamatic in Amsterdam, in collaboration with Stichting...
The Theater aan de Parade is slowly but surely starting to become the blot of cultural politics in Den Bosch. The outdated theatre has too low ceilings, too much plush, asbestos and past to still be a credit to the Brabant provincial capital. Viktorien van Hulst, director of the now 35-year-old Theatre Festival Boulevard, made a point of saying during her opening speech on 1 August that the...
Crash Park - La vie d'une île (2018) by French director Philippe Quesne performs 19th-century values in their 21st-century elaboration. The elitist explorer has become a modal tourist, moving in well-organised groups to every corner of the world in search of ultimate experiences, provided they don't get in the way of a return ticket western...
When the longlist of the Man Booker International Prize was announced on 12 March this year, two things stood out. First, of course, that our own Tommy Wieringa had won a place on this list of fiction translated into English. Even more striking was that 11 of the 13 titles had been published by small, independent publishers. That development...
The heritage sector is not the sexiest sector of the Dutch cultural world. Even though nude exhibitions are flying around your ears this season, you're more likely to think of obscure museums, monuments, stamp collections, old stuff. This is how it happened that the Digital Heritage Netherlands Foundation could exist for almost 25 years without anyone in the 'more popular' arts (stage, film, literature)...
That publishers and writers are struggling is not news. That something needs to change in connecting with readers too. But what? That is the big question no one has an answer to yet. Publishers have rapidly lost their prestige, their monopoly and often their canal houses. On the other hand, the phenomenon of...
When we don't have fresh, current posts on the site for a while, our 'most-read posts' list on the right always changes dramatically. Within two days, all stories are trending that include the words 'nude', 'nude' or 'sex'. After all, sex sells. If you like clicks from rutting men, at least. Unfortunately, this particular target group does not read much cultural news. But attention is...
'Feel IFFR' is the motto of this year's International Film Festival Rotterdam. The emotion behind the image and with the viewer as a guide for our interpretation. The opening film Dirty God is a nice test case. Director Sacha Polak explains why she wanted to make a film about a scarred woman.
Peter Vossen says he experiences live concerts on average twice a week. Not just in TivoliVredenburg, although he visited there almost 40 times last year. 'I also see a lot of free concerts on the streets and in cafés, of course.' Jazz is his great love, but he also attends soul, funk, Latin or pop concerts. Regularly, he can be found
A Quattro Mani's pop-uprecent Afke Bohle takes on the challenge of reading a book with her sons. After good experiences with Suzie Ruzie, The Green Hand series by Susan van 't Hullenaar and Tori by Brian Elstak in collaboration with author Karin Amatmoekrim. This time they plunge into Lobke and the Light, a read-aloud book with a mission. Finding words 'Where can...
The female composer, she continues to stir minds. My article following Mathilde Wantenaar's world premiere of Damocles unleashed a fierce discussion on Facebook. 'Why should women be given preferential treatment?" an angry man asked. 'All that matters to me is quality, not whether a piece of music was written by a man or a woman.' He got icky about the m/f discussion, which...
With Toost, the Netherlands has gained a food truck festival that does not visit the capital cities but rather the smaller towns. This sometimes causes local friction, but almost always gratitude. And for a consumer who feels not stripped down but taken care of for a change. Photos: Anne van den Dool Photos: Anne van den Dool Photos: Anne van den Dool Photos: Anne...
Panic. On the tram between Leidseplein and Amsterdam Centraal, I suddenly lost the Dutch translation of 'string quartet'. So I typed 'violin quartet' into my facebook update, trying to make a connection between a blow job and Ligeti. Joking, perhaps, but there was something much deeper behind it, in that tram, after the music and theatre event 'The String Quartet's...
EYE Film Museum has a robot filmmaker connecting old archive footage with trending topics from social media. Experimental filmmaking in the internet age. Watch and marvel at Jan Bot's work.
This was the email from the editors of Trouw, dated 9 May 2018: "Mr A. Bakx has had the phone number and email address we now have from him under this name since 2014. We therefore assume that he is A. Bakx." Was supported by an email to Erwin Roebroeks, which mentioned a telephone conversation with...
Whether the artists performing on DWDD got paid for their performance. Esther Ouwehand of the PvdD did not know. She was not the only one, at the roundtable session on Wednesday 25 April on the labour market in the cultural sector. None of the MPs, fund managers, trade unionists present knew. So we asked on facebook and twitter how it was even done....
In the week when defenders of the Dutch language are flying into each other's hair over whether or not a schoolgirl should read Multatuli in the original language, the Council for Culture comes out with its advice for the literary sector. Already in the first chapter, it reads: 'those who start reading at a young age become more language literate, start liking reading more....
The premiere of the second season of Westworld takes place next week. I got to watch in advance. In case it doesn't ring a bell; Westworld is currently HBO's most popular series after Game of Thrones. Short synopsis: The show is set in the fictional Westworld: a technological Western theme park where the population consists entirely of synthetic androids, which are also...
Where can you indulge as a film lover in the Netherlands? With 54 festival editions in 2017, North Holland appears to be the province where you can enjoy film festivals most often. Amsterdam takes the crown with a whopping 47 film festival editions, according to a study by the Hogeschool van Amsterdam (HvA). Lecturer Harry van Vliet of the Crossmedia lectureship of the HvA faculty,...
Subscribe to our free newsletter. Because you can! Here's why. Holland Festival, Poetry International, a summer full of art. And meanwhile, a whole new arts system is being put together. The Netherlands is eager to get outside, experience music, experience art and eat food trucks empty. And flipping the subsidy system. It is a...
Platonov, Theater Utrecht's latest show, premiered on 2 March and is an instant hit: rave reviews in all major newspapers. Artistic director and director Thibaud Delpeut bases his version of this archetypal Chekhov play on the translation made by actor Jacob Derwig in 2000 for 't Barre Land. This equally legendary play fitted...
The Faal Festival at Utrecht's festival palace TivoliVredenburg, taking place on 3 March, is unique in many ways. Never before have so many famous people been willing to come and talk about their failures. Apparently, there is a big audience for it, in these times when quick success is actually mandatory. In the run-up to the festival, I spoke to Remko van der...
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