Previously, he created the show Being Arthur for Kameroperahuis Zwolle, in which the famous knights of the round table travel across the country by coach. On Friday 4 September, during the Stadsfestival Zwolle, you will sail by boat to the premiere of his latest opera, Ik Vertrek. A love couple leaves the hectic world behind and returns to nature, where...
If all goes well, the 56th Thessaloniki International Film Festival will kick off on 6 November. Less well-known than Rotterdam, Berlin or Locarno, but the most important festival in southern Europe. And they have quirky and broad programming, where you can discover all kinds of new filmmakers. But is it going well? The first festival dated back to 1960 and was...
It was dubbed 'the art heist of the century': the theft of seven famous paintings from the Kunsthal three years ago. The perpetrators turned out to be four Romanians with no clue about art. Writer Mira Feticu, originally Romanian, wrote a novel about it. Seven important paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal: a Van Gogh, a Picasso, two rare works by...
Three years ago, the suspicion was already expressed in America, now it is also penetrating Europe. People are reading far more than bookshops and publishers think. And this is not even due to the illegal downloading of bestsellers that everyone is so worried about. Logical, because what people are reading so fanatically is not the book you buy in a bookshop,...
It is one of the most pre-discussed performances of this Holland Festival. Newspapers, magazines and webmagazines dived en masse on The End featuring Japanese superstar Hatsune Miku. That she is not real. About all of us being fascinated by the virtual and technology. About her two and a half million Facebook friends. About the fans who have written more than 100,000 songs for her. About the costume designs...
Last week, the planned dance performance Q61 Cemetery at a cemetery in Alkmaar caused a stir. After threats, it was cancelled. Still, we have to get used to theatre in the cemetery. Because it is changing. A reaction from a bereaved person and the cemetery manager. It was big news. And it started with summary proceedings. Relative Leen Spaans objected to a dance performance at...
Christian von Hornsleth is exhibiting in Amsterdam, and there was an immediate small riot. An organisation that raises money against trafficking in women no longer wanted to receive a contribution from the proceeds of his exhibition in Amsterdam, because the artist, whose conceptual work often features porn images, would actually be an advocate of prostitution. Something Hornsleth himself vehemently denies. The...
Adam and Eve. Noah. Babel. Joseph. An entire book of the Bible Johan Doesburg casts in his farewell performance with the Nationale Toneel. 'Genesis' lasts 6 hours including intermissions, has 65 speaking characters and plays with the space of Scheveningen's Zuiderstrandtheater. But above all, the outgoing director wants it to tell two stories. In conversation with Johan Doesburg and actor Dries Vanhegen, whose character Jacob plays a special role in the play.
Theatre De Nieuwe Doelen in Gorinchem will close its doors on 31 May, due to lack of support in local politics. The city council, which earlier also closed the music school, would like to continue using the building as a Village Hall for amateur artists. For professional theatre, a CDA party leader reported, those few enthusiasts can just go to Dordrecht. Theatre director Rob van Wijk...
In Amersfoort, one art hall is empty and one art hall is full. KAdE, only recently completed and already successful, was dismantled five years after opening and moved to another, even newer building, across the railway line. However, the city council does not appear to have been properly informed about the financial consequences of this move and is now stuck with and noose of at least 10...
Art ends its 70th anniversary as a 'Leftist Hobby' in 2015. There is not much more to predict for this year. Art goes back to the bourgeois status it held since the start of the industrial revolution. 1: Art was never left Art, of course, has never been 'left'. Subsidy may have come from the thinking tubes of social and Christian democrats, but art an sich...
The Speech Doctor reviews: The 3 Anti-Speakers of TEDX Amsterdam 2014: Duncan Stutterheim, Ton van Oostwaard and Henk Schiffmacher. What is TEdx Amsterdam? On Friday 27 November 2014, the Netherlands' most famous TEDx, TEDx Amsterdam took place again at the Stadsschouwburg. TED is a global organisation where people of name and fame (or before name and fame) show up to present their 'ideas...
For most artists, it is an ideal. Being represented by a gallery. Writers have their sights set on a contract with a publisher. Musicians eye labels eagerly and theatre-makers queue up for an impresario. Creators have a love-hate relationship with such intermediaries. Because while the average creative professional would be willing to spare a toe in exchange...
" Dear friends of Free Knowledge," With these words the president of Wikimedia Netherlands, Frans Grijzenhout concludes his welcome speech of the Wikipedia conference. In a conference venue at Hoog-Catharijne, I am surrounded by some 120 ' Wikipedians', as they call themselves. As in any subculture, it is clear to see who belongs to the regular incrowd. Wikipedians look like...
So it really does exist. A high road through the mountains of Romania. Completed in 1974. Viewed by my father in the same year, while his 'guide' told him not to walk too close to the edge, because he would not be the first to crash over the edge. After which his 'guide', the secret agent that every western journalist...
On Monday 27 October, "The Culture Congress" took place. A cleverly chosen name that suggested that this congress was unique in its kind and that there was a big organisation behind it. All the more surprising that this was only the first edition. And that the initiative came from one person. During his opening speech, Job Gerlings took us through...
With a new government in Belgium, the debate on art subsidies has also erupted there. The issue there is only 0.7 per cent of the national budget. The cut of a mere 10% is less substantial than in the Netherlands under the PVV's noose, but the arguments are the same. Though they are often better articulated. Josse de Pauw, international...
The post on facebook that dominated my timeline today: the spontaneous concert at NS station Amsterdam Centraal, taken from the NRC's website (link: http://www.nrc.nl/muziek/2014/10/09/hoe-drie-artiesten-onverwacht-samen-optraden-op-adam-cs/ For several weeks, this station has had a piano on which anyone can play. A playful action by the NS to make waiting more fun. This leads to surprising situations. Like this one in which a pianist...
Forty roofless hotel rooms, and then hearing your own story back as you see yourself reflected in the distant ceiling. Or: walking behind a guide through the Lombok district of Utrecht, while being provided with an overload of extra information on your headphones. About your guide. Or not. About yourself. Welcome to the universe of Dries Verhoeven, since a small...
I published two articles in NRC Handelsblad last year. The first (6 July 2013) was critical of government policy. There was little reaction to this. The second article (7 December 2013) was critical of the arts sector: it needs to make its own sharp choices. That did cause a stir, although I am convinced that many colleagues largely agree with the content...
Declining visitor numbers, shrinking subsidies, impoverished programming: most Dutch theatres are struggling, research by NRC Handelsblad recently showed. Theatres welcomed 12 million visitors in 2012, according to NRC figures, a quarter less than in 2008. Festivals, on the other hand, are on the rise. More and more are being organised, and they are attracting more and more people - in total...
Like the rest of the internet population, artist Aram Tanis A photoblog. A stream of bizarre images found on the internet. With one big difference.
About the same time as the train from Donietsk to Kharkov arrived in my mailbox yesterday, a press release from the Manifesta. Our cultural pride in St Petersburg. These weeks, the Dutch festival is organising an audio tour of Rimini Protokoll, the renowned highly political company from Germany. Oh. And, as a third item: there is a conversation tonight about what the Biennale is capable of in times of political turmoil.
Once upon a time, people had a newspaper. In the newsroom, a few people knew why people had a newspaper. But it was a fact of life. People had a newspaper. Those who did not have a newspaper were not human beings. Nowadays, people don't have a newspaper. They have the internet. Those who don't have the internet are retarded.
Visitors to the film Napoleon, last Sunday at Ziggo Dome, who had thought of booking dinner at one of the intervals, will get their money back. This was decided by the Holland Festival after a commotion arose on the internet, and beyond, about the caterer's lousy service, and the rather poor quality of what was on offer. Visitor Marc Veerkamp said the following on facebook:
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