An alternative scene for classical events outside the ice palaces of classical music is growing. Last month, you could 'classical clubbing' at the Yellow Lounge at the Westergasfabriek venue. The club was sold out, indeed with a large
Entrepreneurship is in young theatre-makers' blood (...) A new theatre circuit seems to have emerged in recent years. More and more young groups, such as Stichting Nieuwe Helden, PSTheater and Circus Treurdier, work relatively independently of subsidies and almost always outside the theatre building. They seek out their audiences anywhere, whether on the street, by a canal or in a...
Amsterdam - Mayor finds cuts to Rijksakademie "beyond comprehension" During the official opening of RijksakademieOPEN 2011, Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan expressed his concerns about the government's severe cuts to the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. "Cutbacks are necessary. Capitulating is not necessary. There are limits." The mayor stressed that a healthy art climate is important for...
A bit alienating it is. Watching at IDFA the eventful account of Egypt's February Tahrir 2011 revolution while at the same time, in Tahrir Square, the second phase of resistance against the dictatorship is in full swing. A kind of 'back to the future' feeling. Tahrir 2011 is a relatively unpolished, but with a sense of urgency in...
The crisis rages on and the Arab world is in flux, but in the documentary world, the time for big stories is over. At least that was the conclusion drawn by festival director Ally Derks at a press conference ahead of the 24th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (16-27 November). Unlike a decade ago, documentary filmmakers now focus...
Gorkum - Culture sector is in dire straits (...) The major austerity exercise will come in spring when the new Culture Policy, among others, is on the table. (...) In the meantime, further consultations are being held with cultural bodies, among others, such as the Toon Foundation and the Nieuwe Doelen theatre on 30 January. "They, like the Gorcums Museum, can come up with innovative, cost-saving plans....
Groningen municipality cuts back on Gezinsbode The municipality is going to cut back 150,000 euros on publishing city notices in the Groninger Gezinsbode. The City Council wants to publish decisions and permits electronically from now on, for example on the municipality's website. (...) The number of pages in the Gezinsbode will be halved. (...) source: OogTV 10 Nov 11 Most councillors expect subsidies to be cut...
Now then. 6.5 million goes off subsidised institutions. In Amsterdam. Qua municipality. The state was already doing away with just over 40 million, leaving 36 institutions in dire straits. Now Amsterdam has decided to keep at least 13 named institutions. Should we think of Toneelgroep Amsterdam, the IDFA, Holland Festival, Concertgebouw and the Muziekgebouw...
In the country where Jan Klaasen is only allowed to beat up Katrijn with a hot-air balloon, because a puppet show clubbing is not good for delicate children's souls, Dutch professional youth theatre turns out to be unexpectedly in demand. In short, a genuine Dutch youth theatre festival in New York has already sold 2,500 tickets, and it is still going strong. Of at least two of the four productions...
"Programmatic ingenuity goes hand in hand with Fischer's ebullient and finely crafted performances". So when someone says that about you, you have earned a prize. So that is what the jury of formerly the Classical Music Prize thought of Iván Fischer, the Hungarian-born conductor who was therefore awarded the 'Ovation' on Monday 17 October 2011. And so then the 'Ovation'...
It is not very often that Dutch films attract the attention of the film trade magazine Screen International. Now that the web edition ScreenDaily happens to publish two reviews in a row, it is nice to quote something from them. Screen editor-in-chief Mike Goodridge saw Dutch Oscar contender Sonny Boy and Marco van Geffen's debut film Onder ons (international title Among Us) and came to the...
Europe in Motion (EIM) is an international exchange project, which supports the development of emerging choreographers, travelling through three Springdance partner organisations in 2011 and 2012. Last February it visited Nottdance in Nottingham and in April EIM touched down in Utrecht. During SPRINGDANCE 2011, nine choreography talents from the UK, Austria, Turkey and the Netherlands interacted privately with...
This week, the Connecting Arts festival takes place in Utrecht. This festival, contrary to the expectation raised by the title, revolves entirely around the organ. The instrument is in a bottomless identity crisis. The solution lies in connecting with other art forms: connecting arts. The organist. One of those guys with a beard. Not a meticulously trimmed weekend shadow, but a wild...
There was a time, when art did not have to draw full theatres to be accepted by the population. After all, out of the total budget of a municipality, something like art costs no more than a penny, so you don't get worse, while at best you can only get better. So is...
Director, actress and theatre designer Sarah Moeremans is holding office in the lobby of the Rotterdam Schouwburg for a year. Titled "My First Camp", she has moved into the front hall to be more in touch with the various users and visitors in the building and the world around it. Has the public space become a wilderness, which...
Has state secretary Halbe Zijlstra the Lower House lied or misled in June when he stated that rushing through the culture cuts was necessary to absorb friction costs? Or does it just turn out to be improper governance?
What art can accomplish. At least Enschede gained a church, thanks to the people of festival Grenswerk, which lasts until 2 October. Because, where there used to be a somewhat dull square next to Enschede's railway station, there is now a church made of colourful Lego blocks. Intended as a multifunctional festival pavilion. Temporary too, because the lego building blocks can...
"We are blind to the big changes in the world and meanwhile we are arguing with one-liners on Radio One." These words, penned by reporter Robbert van Heuven from the mouth of writer Abdelkader Benali during the Choice Debate on Tuesday 20 September perhaps best captures what The International Choice was all about. Artistic director Annemie Vanackere...
The Netherlands Film Festival is only halfway through, but let's list three notable premieres anyway. Three films that may not be big crowd pleasers, but three uncompromising auteur films that bear witness to a vision that goes beyond entertaining storytelling. Three films that have also received attention abroad...
The Tuschinski Award for best graduation film of the Film Academy was awarded this afternoon at the Dutch Film Festival to Anne-Marieke Graafmans for her documentary If I didn't have you. What is special about the presentation of this award for up-and-coming talent is that the commercial cinema business and independent film criticism are here together for a while. The Tuschinski Award will be presented and with 5000 euro...
Will classic cinema survive the digital iconoclasm of the future? The question is not new, but it comes to mind again upon seeing the programme of the Netherlands Film Festival, which opens tonight with André van Duren's De bende van Oss. Put that opening film next to Iconoclasm, the festival's main theme, and you see what...
Opinion pollsters take note: "People give the moderate answer to most questions they are asked in life. The characters in 'This is not a love story' are very ordinary, very average. In that, it clicks between those two. It's an ending where you feel an enormous satisfaction." Enthusiasm prevails after the opening weekend of The International Choice of the...
For the opening night of The International Choice, the Rotterdam Schouwburg was briefly transformed into Berlin's Volksbühne. The same black plastic rags on the walls, the same ugly yellow front curtain and - most strikingly - the seats in the auditorium have been replaced by white beanbags. Those beanbags, by the way, are widely despised and mocked in Berlin. They should...
Strange how quickly history detaches itself from your memory. We here had gradually come to think that the camping riot in Cairo's Tahrir Square was some kind of summer of love. That everyone there was cramming roses into cannon shells singing together and that the whole world was just there to give each other love and hugs. Time for a lesson in rebellion....
Update: the poem in question was not meant to convince Voltaire of the Prussian thrust, but an Italian, Francesco Alegerotti. A scrabeus poem by Frederick the Great has surfaced. A poem, whose existence but content was unknown. Until now, that is. Today, the German quality magazine Die Zeit comes out with the full text. And Bild Zeitung has...
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