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Music from anger and powerlessness - Extra focus on sensational composer Georg Friedrich Haas in November Music

Last year, Austrian Georg Friedrich Haas caused a stir at the Holland Festival by openly talking about his master-slave relationship with his wife Mollena. If possible, even more startling was their joint production Hyena. Mollena Williams-Haas told a blood-curdling tale of how she rehabbed from her alcohol addiction, her husband providing the hypnotic music. This year, Haas is one of the central... 

Read More "Music from anger and powerlessness - Extra focus on sensational composer Georg Friedrich Haas in November Music

'I am interested in situations or people that are overlooked in everyday life.' - Meriç Artaç two seasons guest composer of Day in the Fire.

'I always draw out my characters before I start composing. They are inspired by people I see on the street, personalities I admire, details that make someone special... I usually focus on one specific aspect of a character, a dominant mood that I then highlight in my composition.' Born in 1990 in Istanbul, Meriç Artaç was already... 

Read More "'I am interested in situations or people that are overlooked in everyday life.' - Meriç Artaç two seasons guest composer of Day in the Fire.

'It deals with a serious subject, but I also laughed a lot.' This is why Anne-Gine Goemans wrote a cheerful book about nuclear weapons

A cheerful novel about nuclear weapons, that was to be Holy Trientje. Writer Anne-Gine Goemans based the book on the true story of American nun Megan Rice, who - at an advanced age - managed to enter the United States' most heavily secured nuclear bomb complex with nothing more than a pair of concrete scissors. 'I thought it was so beautiful, brave and naive.' Hiroshima 'failure' Every... 

Read More "'It deals with a serious subject, but I also laughed a lot.' This is why Anne-Gine Goemans wrote a cheerful book about nuclear weapons

At Leiden University, the end of patriarchy is shining. 

This weekend, there was some fuss on Twitter. Something about a Nazi comparison that didn't quite work out. Now there is quite often a fuss on Twitter because of a Nazi comparison that doesn't quite work out, but this time it concerned one of our cultural figureheads. Kees Vlaardingerbroek, artistic director of the NTR Saturday matinee and former head of programming at the Rotterdam... 

Read More "At Leiden University, the end of patriarchy is shining. 

Colson Whitehead writes gripping book on cruelty in US juvenile justice: 'The system is still intact'

With his slavery novel The Underground Railroad, American writer Colson Whitehead broke through worldwide. His impressive new book The Nickel Boys is once again about a gruesome page in recent American history. Torture, rape, even murder: at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, it was the order of the day. For as many as 111 years, the... 

Read More "Colson Whitehead writes gripping book on cruelty in US juvenile justice: 'The system is still intact'

Groninger Museum presents Daan Roosegaarde's Presence; where the visitor makes the exhibition

Before walking into Daan Roosegaarde's new exhibition, I read the following: "Touching? Yes, please!" I take another good look at the sign, because you don't usually associate those words with a museum visit. At Daan Roosegaarde's exhibition Presence, however, it is a prerequisite. The artist wants you to touch and experience his art. For me, that was easier 

Read More "Groninger Museum presents Daan Roosegaarde's Presence; where the visitor makes the exhibition

Colonisation is not a relationship. But we still need to establish that relationship, this Holland Festival showed.

Post-colonial criticism and reflection ran like a thread through this year's Holland Festival programme. Not only William Kentrigde and Faustin Linyekula, the associate artists with whom the festival's programmers collaborated, their work addresses the devastating effects of centuries of Western European trade and commerce. In reframing political and social history and reclaiming... 

Read More "Colonisation is not a relationship. But we still need to establish that relationship, this Holland Festival showed.

With a cohesive team, you win the World Cup. How the Holland Festival gagged all the cynics this year.

The 2019 Holland Festival was the best in decades. At least in the 25 years I have consciously witnessed it, I cannot recall a national festival that coupled so much impact with so much prestige. Whether visitor targets were met or not will be of no concern to me in this regard. It is, as Volkskrant colleague Hein Janssen once remarked,... 

Read More "With a cohesive team, you win the World Cup. How the Holland Festival gagged all the cynics this year.

Colin Benders plays Concertgebouw flat on closing night of memorable Holland Festival 2019

Stereo is primitive. Cinema operators have known that for a while, and so has anyone with a 7:1 set to go with their TV. Two speakers, no matter how good and big or small, remain two speakers. Now, of course, we also only have two ears, but they can place 360-degree sound thanks to some clever ribbing and our own smart brains. So sound should be... 

Read More "Colin Benders plays Concertgebouw flat on closing night of memorable Holland Festival 2019
Fenomenaal ballet heeft geen boodschap nodig voor het Holland Festival 2019

Phenomenal ballet needs no message for Holland Festival 2019

With all the socially critical, exotic and personal life art at the Holland Festival, Van Manen, Forsythe, Arqués is actually an outlier, a statement without a message. Dance has enough on its own, expresses itself full-length. And how. Work of overwhelming quality. How much better can it get? At most by giving it a message anyway. There is room there. The rest is complete.... 

Read More "Phenomenal ballet needs no message for Holland Festival 2019

Four reasons to go to Pelléas et Mélisande #HF19

The Holland Festival, with its ample offerings, is sometimes its own competitor. For instance, I missed Turan Dokht and the premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande because I was at aus LICHT. To attend a performance of Debussy's only opera, I had to pass up Abd Al Malik's concert. - Cultural choice stress, frustrating on the one hand but a blessing on the other. Was it... 

Read More "Four reasons to go to Pelléas et Mélisande #HF19

Why, as a total layman, I did three days AUS LIGHT. And came out as a different person.

Music critics were unabatedly enthusiastic. And even opera lovers came, saw and were pleased. Of course, there was the chorus of monuments, led by a Flemish antiquity, who liked Maria Calllas better seventy years ago, but its members are only the necessary minority needed for something as unprecedented as AUS LICHT, the Magnum opus of the 72nd Holland Festival. Beforehand, it seemed... 

Read More "Why, as a total layman, I did three days AUS LIGHT. And came out as a different person.

And Stockhausen saw that it was good - aus LICHT in Holland Festival #HF19

'Then he could split into three and was a singer, dancer and trumpet player,' says a girl on the screen prior to Michael's Jugend. She is one of the little children who tell at the beginning of each day what aus LICHT is about. A good find by Pierre Audi and his artistic team, because the universe that Karlheinz Stockhausen gives us... 

Read More "And Stockhausen saw that it was good - aus LICHT in Holland Festival #HF19
Antony and Cleopatra, Tiago Rodrigues. Foto: Magda Bizarro.

'I have no problem at all if spectators want to see Anthony and Cleopatra. But for me, it's about something else.' Tiago Rodrigues writes theatre for dancers.

Anthony and Cleopatra is exactly the kind of repertory piece that people look forward to during the Holland Festival, or any other prestigious stage. Director and writer Tiago Rodrigues manages not so much to deflate that grandiose expectation as to reduce it to the intimacy of a duet and a play with extremely basic theatrical gestures. His two actors are dancers, an experienced choreographer duo 

Read More "'I have no problem at all if spectators want to see Anthony and Cleopatra. But for me, it's about something else.' Tiago Rodrigues writes theatre for dancers.

In the greatest spectacle, ultimately the smallest detail touches your heart (which is why The Head and The Load had to be the royal opening of the Holland Festival).

Some stories are too big to tell. Too big, but no less important or true for that. Like the story of the millions of Africans who died in World War I in the service of the warring factions there: Britain, France, Italy and Germany. No one knew that last story. At least, nobody I knew knew about it, and neither did I myself. It... 

Read More "In the greatest spectacle, ultimately the smallest detail touches your heart (which is why The Head and The Load had to be the royal opening of the Holland Festival).

Podcast! Four strings live in four helicopters, for Stockhausen's 'Aus Licht': 'We still need to do something about those carrier pigeons in terms of planning.'

In 2016, the Holland Festival, De Nationale Opera, the Royal Conservatoire and the Stockhausenstiftung joined forces to stage the German avant-gardist's magnum opus at Amsterdam's Gashouder. Light far surpasses Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen in ambition and scale. Against the four full-length operas of his older colleague, Stockhausen places 'Sieben... 

Read More "Podcast! Four strings live in four helicopters, for Stockhausen's 'Aus Licht': 'We still need to do something about those carrier pigeons in terms of planning.'

Morgan Knibbe does not shy away from heavy subjects: 'film is an empathy machine.'

In 2014, Morgan Knibbe (1989) made the short film Shipwreck, about the aftermath of a horrific shipwreck on the coast of Lampedusa in which 350 refugees drowned. Shortly afterwards, he made his first feature-length documentary, also about refugee issues: 'Those Who Feel the Burning'. This very impressive, original and visually strong film was one of the best Dutch films of the last... 

Read More "Morgan Knibbe does not shy away from heavy subjects: 'film is an empathy machine.'

Tannhäuser at DNO: not director's theatre but subtle take on hypocrisy surrounding courtly and earthly love

A petition was recently started to restore Olivier Keegel's press accreditation by The National Opera. He was denied press passes because he frequently expressed negative views on Pierre Audi's programme choices on the blog Operagazet and in Het Parool. Moreover, he denounced his penchant for "director's theatre", in which, according to him, the content falls prey to a far-fetched... 

Read More "Tannhäuser at DNO: not director's theatre but subtle take on hypocrisy surrounding courtly and earthly love

CLASH is an ode to art

Art at a music festival often degenerates into decoration, but that certainly does not apply to Groningen's CLASH. 'We don't want art to be left out of the programming, but rather to be given full attention. We think it deserves that,' says organiser Milou de Boer. Fifty per cent of CLASH's programming budget goes to the arts, and that was too... 

Read More "CLASH is an ode to art

On the other side of the North Sea, it works: the national 'City of Culture'. Time to take it seriously in the Netherlands too.

Hull. Who knows that city? I only from hearsay. A boat sails there, and by train you can get there in just under nine hours. For those of us with flying shame. And it's in Yorkshire, which we know from Monty Python. But beyond that? I've been wiser since Wednesday 27 March, thanks in part to a promotional party it... 

Read More "On the other side of the North Sea, it works: the national 'City of Culture'. Time to take it seriously in the Netherlands too.

The Book Ball. Everything you must have done once in your life

There I stood. Next to THE RED LOPER. In THE PRESS box. Everything you must have done once in your life and this was MY MOMENT. THE BOOKBALL at THE CITY BURY which was renamed ITA because of the boss' career. To my left TEAM VOLKSKRANT, to my right a cute KRULLENBOL from the LINDA and in between them a journalist.... 

Read More "The Book Ball. Everything you must have done once in your life

'I had thought beforehand that this night would end with sex, and felt I deserved it.' Tom Stranger and Thordis Elva co-wrote a book about rape

His heart skipped a beat in 2005 when he saw an email arrive from his former Icelandic girlfriend. The mail revealed a truth that Tom Stranger had tried to push away for years: he had raped his girlfriend Thordis Elva. Their equally shocking and courageous story Elva and Stranger shared in a TEDx lecture and a joint book, 7200 seconds -... 

Read More "'I had thought beforehand that this night would end with sex, and felt I deserved it.' Tom Stranger and Thordis Elva co-wrote a book about rape

An app won't get you there. Why the minister should make archiving all arts mandatory

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)... 

Read More "An app won't get you there. Why the minister should make archiving all arts mandatory

Small artists tested for 'payback'. Culture Council wants a large 'revolving fund' for loans to the arts.

The art world needs to be more entrepreneurial. The VVD thinks so, D66 thinks so, in fact the entire Lower House thinks so. But how do you get that combined with the 'intrinsic value' that the last two culture ministers say it should also be about? The Council for Culture has now, in response to a question from minister Ingrid van Engelshoven in March last... 

Read More "Small artists tested for 'payback'. Culture Council wants a large 'revolving fund' for loans to the arts.

*With sound!* Why the Holland Festival show doesn't have to stop for now

'Please stop the show!", shouted an 83-year-old former reviewer from the back row. Theatre Frascati fell silent for a moment. There had never really been such an interruption at the Holland Festival's traditionally festive press conference. And that while Faustin Linyekula had just got into his stride, telling about the projects he is carrying out with his Studio Kanako in Kisangani. They provided... 

Read More "*With sound!* Why the Holland Festival show doesn't have to stop for now

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