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Culture Press ratings: thick 300,000 minutes of attention

With paper, you never know ('0.3% of newspaper readers read the reviews on the art page'), and with TV it's always a bit of estimating and extrapolating too, but the internet is rock hard. We know how many times you read one of our pieces, and how long you lingered at our videos. Well: we were already proud last year, now we are well over 200,000

Anna Mikhailova: 'Black Perfume is about addiction and fear'

Amsterdam, 10-12-2012 - Last weekend the Babelfestival began at the Ostade Theatre, an initiative of the Diamond factory. Founded two years ago, this production group offers young creators the chance to develop small-scale musical theatre. This weekend sees the premiere of Black Perfume, by Russian composer Anna Mikhailova and the Dutch director Annechien Koerselman, to the story Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov.

Are we saying 'No' to EU culture money again?

If the Netherlands consistently sticks to previously adopted PVV positions, the second chamber will say 'No' to a European investment in culture, innovation and media on 21 November 2012. However, if the current Rutte government sticks to the pro-European stance included in the coalition agreement, the Netherlands will cease its opposition to the 1.8 billion euro contribution to strengthening culture, which has now been approved by all other European member states.

Death Grips is 20 min of breathtaking frenzy

The experimental hip-hop / noise band Death Grips plays frothy twang noise. But very exciting, interesting branch noise with paranoid, surreal lyrics. Live, it was a breath of fresh air. In their concert in Bittersweet (presented by Paradiso), vocalist MC Ride (Stefan Burnett) and drummer Zach Hill unleash a 20-minute hurricane of breathtaking fury.

41.5 million a year for improving cultural education

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is investing time and money in improving cultural education in primary schools in the coming years. Through a combination of existing pots and money contributed by the state, municipalities and provinces, 41.5 million euros a year will be freed up for arts education in the coming years. And before every self-employed artist starts making plans now: that money will mainly go towards research and procedures, with the most concrete goal being: 'the development of a curriculum for cultural education'.

Netherlands closes a special embassy

This week, the curtain officially fell on the Theatre Emabassy, a club of inspired people who had Dutch artists collaborate with artists in developing countries such as Honduras, Bhutan and Congo. The resulting performances were only sporadically seen in the Netherlands, but every now and then a project made a broad impression here too, such as a 'On Hope of Blessing', played by real fishermen, but from Mali.

'Collective copyright abuse is global problem'

A while back, there was fuss in the Netherlands about the BUMA, the club that collects copyrights for musicians and publishers. Money had been lost in speculation and a director was engaging in nepotism. These cases do not appear to be isolated. At least, they are also mentioned in an overview of all known cases of abuse of power and corruption at collecting societies worldwide.

Archives Wim Kan and Louis Davids not in dumpster

The Theatre Museum's entire collection has been saved. The archives of such luminaries as Wim Kan and Louis Davids, as well as 50,000 theatre reviews, 30,000 theatre posters, 146,000 photographs of 22,000 performances, 26,000 portrait photographs of 2,450 theatre-makers and an extensive audio and video collection will be housed at the University of Amsterdam.The move is possible now that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), with the ever-money-hungry State Secretary for Culture Halbe Zijlstra, is no longer seizing the reserves of the Theater Instituut Nederland (TIN).

Gergiev Festival full of Sunday afternoon music

What could be the matter with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival - the official name to emphasise its international appeal anyway? As soon as you enter concert hall de Doelen, you immediately get the feeling that you have arrived at an ordinary, weekday concert, even though Valeri Gergiev is on the posters. No decoration of the large rooms... 

Culture Council knew about 'Hole of DUS'

Theatre company the Utrecht Games, city company of the Netherlands' fourth largest city, is on the brink of bankruptcy. It was recently revealed that the company led by artistic and business director Jos Thie has a deficit of €2.1 million. Correspondence that has since surfaced shows that it was already clear in May this year that problems were getting out of hand. That was a month after the Utrecht subsidy advisory committee issued its laudatory opinion, and a few weeks before the Council for Culture issued its very thrifty advice.

Bold p***o on the euro note?

There has been another interesting cultural twist to the 'Europe debate'. Someone has called out that it watermark of the new series of euro banknotes will include a picture of 'the rape of Europe' by the Greek supreme god Zeus. The anti-Europe and anti-Greeks in the various timelines need no more to frame the banking mafia's conspiracy against European citizens.

Halbe Zijlstra: 'nothing to do with local arts policy'

Halbe Zijlstra is proud of his policy, and keen to come and tell it in front of the entire cultural sector. So on Sunday 26 August, he appeared on stage during the annual 'Paradiso Debate' to reiterate how well things had gone with the 200 million cut in the arts sector. He praised the resilience of the affected art world, and would be happy to do the same again.

'Windfall cuts': bricks saved, people sacrificed

The major research and management consulting firm Berenschot has calculated that, on balance, the cuts to the arts turn out to be not too bad. Client of the study, De Volkskrant, then headlined that big. And indeed, it is kind of good news that the pile-up of cuts (the state 24% less, the provinces 20% less and the municipalities only 9 % less) is so low in net terms. We were surprised for a moment, but when we asked around, we found out

Culture Council hands out in second round

Yet money for the National Academy of Visual Arts, money for an orchestra merger in the south of the Netherlands and 4.7 million for a knowledge institute for amateur art. The clear-cutting of the Dutch cultural sector has become a little less extreme thanks to a second advice from the Council for Culture. Besides the aforementioned positive assessment, there is also money for a knowledge institute for the creative sector 

Maastricht on slippery European ice with arts subsidy

Maastricht is going to do things differently. Starting next year, the city council will determine what art is needed, and art institutions will be allowed to submit plans that fit within that framework. If their plans do not comply, they will not get any money. Sounds nice, but the capital of Limburg is treading on thin ice.

Baldwin Live

On Wednesday 1 August 2012, the Performing Arts Fund will announce the results of the lottery that granting arts subsidies has now become. Huge cuts are looming: companies and makers that by now seemed to be a permanent part of the Dutch arts landscape will disappear. Exactly what it will look like, we know

Halbe Zijlstra should fund Culture Card after all.

It was the issue on which he lied the hardest, as we demonstrated a year ago, but the country's most hated secretary of state did not care. Despite its great success, the culture card for schoolchildren had to be killed off, and on spurious grounds. Now the card has been saved by the chamber. A majority voted in favour of a motion by CDA and PvdA,... 

Theatre Museum collection to be lost for good

[July update: the 2nd chamber passed a motion instructing the cabinet to save the collection from destruction. Where this is to be paid for, however, is still unclear]

It is now becoming clear where the laissez faire-laissez mourir (let it be done, let it die) policy of Halbe Zijlstra, Martin Bosma and Mark Rutte will lead. Of the dozens of institutions that will close, downsize or die off in the coming months due to vacancy of quality staff, the demise of the Theatre Institute of the Netherlands (TIN) is starting to take on very tragic proportions.

#hf12: Addio alla fine is matchless dance, but the boat trip there and back does not bring the message out strongly enough.

We live in destructive times. Nature, art and culture, the inner life: they are breaking down under the tyranny of money, commerce and efficiency. Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten take a stand against this. Addio alla fine is an all-in experience in the form of a boat trip to an unknown place, where the audience is immersed in dance, music and... 

Classical musicians: stop thinking in money, think in ideas

Classical music audiences have been declining by 1% a year for 20 years. Structurally. That means that since 1992, 1/5 of the audience has already disappeared, without anything else taking its place. According to Johan Idema, strategist and author of a useful book on new methods for early music, the sector is entirely self-inflicted.

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