High up in a posh flat, Lavalu (stage name of Marielle Woltring, Cleveland, Ohio, 1979) recently gave a try-out of her new programme at Eindhoven's FlatFest festival. For the first time now, she will tour without a band, solo with piano, in small venues where there is a good grand piano. On that Sunday afternoon in Brabant, it soon became clear that somewhere, something was...
World-renowned Dutch drummer Han Bennink celebrates his 75th birthday and the 50th anniversary of his ICP Orchestra at Utrecht's Le Guess Who? Festival (LGW). Time for a conversation with a diligent worker. All over the world, Han Bennink is famous. And for him, that whole world is his playground, literally. Bennink started drumming at an early age. Pots...
Art subsidy cuts have been passed on to the weakest shoulders. Minister Jet Bussemaker made no bones about it in one of her latest public appearances. 'I have often praised the resilience of the sector, and we should celebrate that,' she declared yesterday at the presentation of the Fair Practice Code, 'but I also saw that subsidised institutions...
This week, two things already became clear about the Dutch theatre world. One: the topic of diversity is finally really on the map and two: the theatre world, however small, is hopelessly divided. During Het Theaterfestival, there were two debates/ meetings/ symposiums on the lack of diversity in theatre. One on Monday, the other on Thursday. Bit much in one...
On Sunday 10 September, the Gaudeamus Award for composers under 30 was presented in TivoliVredenburg. Winner was Dutch guitarist, composer and instrument designer Aart Strootman (1987). He was chosen from five nominees and received the prize from jury member Christopher Trapani. The jury also included Joe Cutler and Mayke Nas. Like last year, Gaudeamus invited its...
The Gaudeamus Music Week seems to have definitely left behind the stage of thorough but audience-unfriendly 'bleep-grunt'. The renowned festival of new music will present 129 compositions from 32 countries over five days. Asko|Schönberg and Cappella Amsterdam kicked off Wednesday 6 September with a motley variety of styles. Thus, the opening concert was a measure of what modern music lovers could expect up to...
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...
If theatre can do anything, it is to put us outside reality. Not even to make you dream away, but to stop that reality for a moment and look at it in a different way. Call it the Ti-Ta-Wizard moment. To stop the action at the dramatic climax, to take the sting out of the wasp, or the fuse out of the powder keg....
'When Paul moves his little finger something happens. They have a scene where Jochem draws a picture of Paul. Paul is posing naked. And that lasts. That takes a long time. You and I, as amateurs, would fill that with all sorts of poses and movements, but Paul doesn't do anything. You think. And all sorts of things happen. HIj is doing something, then, but....
You expect a lot from a festival dedicated to early music, but not contemporary music theatre. Yet that is exactly what artistic director Xavier Vandamme has in store for us. On Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 August, street theatre group Kamchátka presents Musica Fugit, a performance about refugees. Visitors become part of the story. This way, they experience for themselves what it means when fleeing is a...
After the sudden death of her loved one, trans woman Marina must fight for her right to grieve and mourn. Sebastian Lelio shows her as an amazing woman who can do without an LHTB label. He told more about it in Berlin.
Especially for our regular readers and subscribers, temporarily available for everyone to view: the e-book with all the stories about Theatre Festival Boulevard 2017 listed. Members and subscribers can also download the book, and read it on their e-reader.
Wine tasting and listening to medieval music are usually things people only do with very serious faces. So it took five glasses, three drunken singers and a good hour before the mob in the sober Heilig Hart church in Den Bosch loosened up a bit. With a Frontignan to boot. You do start fantasising about the amazing dinner you had at...
Anyone who is young, a little nicely educated and otherwise generally of good character does not go on a North Sea cruise. A cruise on the North Sea, that's what you do if you have no imagination, have bad legs or are too sick for anything else. Believes Wunderbaum. The theatre collective that likes to take care of the vulnerable of this planet is...
The prize for the longest and most artful kiss of 2017 has been given away and goes to Conny Janssen Danst. In a small tent on the square below Bossche Sint-Jan, this danced kiss forms the technical and dramatic highlight of Clarity. Two dancers, spinning pirouettes while keeping their lips connected, a video artist and the floating music performed live by iET were on Saturday ...
Heroes are not always the smartest people. Indeed, most acts that have gone down in history as heroes have been thoughtless actions. That happened to succeed. Pure luck. Against every heroic act, therefore, there is an unknown but not negligible number of senseless deaths of would-be heroes. The main character of the theatre play The Heroes, which I attended in Den Bosch on 4 August,...
Most young artists only find out after their studies that they lack important entrepreneurial skills. That is why ELIA, the network organisation for colleges of arts in Europe, is organising the conference: Making a Living From the Arts. On 14 and 15 September, academics, cultural entrepreneurs and artists from different countries will gather in Amsterdam. Together, they will discuss creative solutions for...
Opening speeches. Every festival has one. Or two. You have to go through them. As a guest, but also as a host. Something should be found on it. Of course a point has to be made, a flag raised, a champagne bottle bang introduced. And also the sponsors should be thanked. In these times of a retreating government, there are more of them every year. And.
Would like your interpretation of the cover girl's look on the Theatre Festival Boulevard programme book. It may be projection, but I see a slightly overwhelmed desperation in those eyes, whose eyebrows have been replaced by two playfully placed arches of St John's, above: Den Bosch on my mind. Where to start, mostly. In the book, especially abundance. Glassily designed...
An Arts Festival has taken place in an insignificant corner of West Flanders every summer since 1980. It smells like hops and a growing number of visitors come from the Netherlands. What is Watou's secret? How on earth does a hole of 2,000 inhabitants, which barely appears on your car navigation, end up with an Kunstenfestival that rules the village for two whole summer months every year?....
I held my heart. Patrick Nederkoorn and Oscar Kocken had been tempted by television to bring their brilliant gem 'Zomaargasten' over to the living room. NPO3 still. The channel targeting millennials. I had visions of channel managers, dramaturgs, audience specialists and gussied-up boys and girls well over forty that these two little artists would...
The advantage of being a subscriber to Culture Press is, of course, mainly that we can exist thanks to you. So our independent sound remains audible, so you get the interpretation of the news as you get it nowhere else. In June, a total of 14 authors hit the road for you to see as many Holland Festival performances as possible....
Even abroad, it is noticeable that Jiří Kylián's work is not showing at NDT. Even though the so-called embargo is expiring and this is his anniversary year. No Kylián past three years The Financial Times reported. Laura Cappelle describes a fine performance by Nederlands Dans Theater in Paris and concludes that Kylián's work is not among the...
Smoothly they descend the stairs of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw. Lucas and Arthur Jussen are dressed to kill. With their fussy-cut, see-through costumes, they have already won their first battle before they have even played one note of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Mantra. Not only in their outfits, but also in their quirky playing, the young pianists show guts. Lovely, such a...
Lucas and Arthur Jussen are 'hot'. You could call the young piano brothers the headliner of this Holland Festival Proms. Well before the start of their concert, visitors are therefore already gathering in the corridors around the main hall of the Concertgebouw. Everyone is out for a good seat. To sit, because standing, as we know it from...
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