A girl stands waving and around her a rain of soap bubbles descends, so many that it almost seems as if the girl is taking off. She stands swaying and her ecstasy and tears of joy slowly turn to deep despair and disbelief. What she sees cannot, cannot be true, because it destroys everything she is - to what she...
More than 10,000 lines of verse comprise Englishman John Milton's poem Paradise Lost (1667). It cannot be easy to capture that in an hour-long dance performance and yet that is what choreographer Samir Calixto set out to do. Earlier, the young Brazilian cut his teeth on Schubert's Winterreise and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. On Friday, he opened with Paradise Lost the...
20 years of Writers Unlimited's existence, and the anniversary, now in The Hague, comes at a time when free writing worldwide is under heavier pressure than ever. Perhaps that is also why the audience is more numerous than previous editions. All nights are rigidly sold out, making for a rather sweltering atmosphere at the Theater aan het Spui. Apt opening of...
Georges Vermeersch comes home early from prison, where he was serving a sentence for incest with his daughter Christiane. In the meantime, his wife Jeanne has had a child by younger neighbour Erik. So how to move on? Casper Vandeputte directed an intense, haunting version of Hugo Claus' play Friday at the Nationale Toneel. Lead actors Stefan de...
Twenty-five per cent of people have a room they can no longer enter because it is too full of stuff. This is oppressive and it is no wonder that some resort to the other extreme: radical consumerism. In TROEP, theatre group Firma MES follows Barbara, a woman who wants to live with no more than eight objects. Just like Buddhist monks. This results in a delightful, witty play that is seriously thought-provoking and shows how giving up can become just as oppressive as keeping it.
The winners of the Dans Publieksprijs 2013 have been announced. On Friday 14 February, the prizes, divided into seven categories, will be awarded at The Hague's Theater aan het Spui. Besides winners Pascal Schut (Introdans) and Davide Cocchiara (The Red Piece), they are choreographers Conny Jansen Danst for the performance 'How Long is Now' and Isabelle Beernaert for the performance 'Red, Yellow & Blue'.
It's because of Facebook. Says Ton van de Langkruis, artistic director of writers' festival Writers Unlimited: "You can no longer be that anonymous figure bombarding the world with hermetic texts from a locked attic room. The market is no longer for it. Your main means of communication is facebook. There you have to be open to questions, you communicate with your readers. We are back in the village square where the first stories were once told."
Writers Unlimited is the most fun literary festival in the world. We can know, because we have been there twice now. Whether the comparison with all those 20 million other literature festivals in the world is entirely pure, we don't know. We do know that a lot of the writers who attend Writers Unlimited agree with us. At least during those few days and especially nights in January.
A few reasons.
As the government has killed the entire circuit of production houses and further education, seven theatres have jumped into the gap. They are joining forces to enable a number of 'young' makers to develop their work after all. By offering a number of performances in advance
It is incredible what an energy the men of Manar can generate. These six - dressed in djellabas - percussionists play Dekka al Marrakchia: an insanely rousing form of traditional Moroccan drum 'n bass party music and religious Gnawa. After a solemn, almost ritualistic beginning - in which the band comes jogging onto the stage of the Theater aan het Spui in a goose-step, accompanied by the menacing sounds of two huge horns - the drums erupt and the dance floor is full of swinging visitors.
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.