"In America, when you put two guys on stage, the audience expects them to beat each other up, or fuck each other. In this play, neither happens, but in the theatre it's almost always about two men fighting or fucking." Legendary words from Samuel D. Hunter. He wrote the play 'A Case for the Existence...
I used the word 'revolutionary' when a camera crew from Theatre Rotterdam asked me what I thought of Closed Eyes. I don't know if my otherwise extraordinarily enthusiastic response will make it to the final edit, but a day later, that feeling is not gone. What Alida Dors, artistic director of Theatre Rotterdam, has shown is a revolution in the world of...
Grieving well for the loss of a loved one does not lead to Prozac or a shrink. On the contrary, a little life skill helps, as in 'Grief is the thing with feathers' by Max Porter, Jacob Derwig and Erik Whien. Once, after tragedy struck my family, I used to console myself by reading aloud the picture book Frog and the Little Bird by Max...
Director Alida Dors is pushing for inclusion at Theatre Rotterdam. What does this mean for a 44-year-old white director with great success with traditional audiences, as now with 'Sadness is the thing with feathers'? A Q&A. "Erik Whien's theatre is all about the human being. About the head and everything that happens in it. Every human being has thoughts, in the mind...
Rotterdam and theatre, quite tricky. I should know, I was born there and it was a subject of several working groups during my Theatre Science studies in the 1980s. Since the last theatre reform, a merger in which independent performers would work together to provide all the special theatre in Rotterdam, but...
No making shows for a while as if nothing happened, but developing concepts, experimenting, boldly going where no one in this sector has dared to go so far (sorry, I watch a lot of Star Trek during the lockdown). That strikes me as an excellent use of grant money and could also bring back some momentum in these crappy times.
'The story of Anders' (8+) is the new Dance Theatre AYA performance created by Ryan Djojokarso, new resident choreographer with the company. A performance full of dance, absurd humour and crazy twists. Sometimes you just have to look at things differently.
Let's just start with the good news: De Staat is a regular fixture in the Netherlands from now on. And so we are talking about the band De Staat. Who make fantastic music videos these days. They have been promoted from a four-year grant with the Performing Arts Fund to a four-year grant according to the Cultural Basic Infrastructure (BIS). With 55 other newcomers. All weighed...
Just like in the world outside culture (call it capitalism), in the cultural sector itself you also see a huge payment gap between creators and 'the plush'. Only you can't talk about that taboo without being seen as a traitor.
'How do I make the world a little more beautiful? That's what I ask myself in everything I do.' Romana Vrede, award-winning actress with Het Nationale Theater, 'table lady' on De Wereld Draait Door and Summer Guest, likes to look positively into the world. So will her contribution to SPOT-Live, the performing arts symposium taking place in Rotterdam on 28 May, be optimistic...
'We are on the brink of a new cultural revolution. We need to move away from our paradigm and art can play a role in this. Art can show us images of a different future, a different thought. Artists can help bring that realisation in.' Speaking is writer and journalist Philipp Blom. In 2017, his...
'What we so often forget is to just talk about our love for theatre.' Eric de Vroedt, artistic director of The National Theatre, wants to talk about substance for once. And then with the entire performing arts sector. Soon there will be SPOT-Live, the renewed Congress of Performing Arts, and there he wants to talk about love. 'Quite by chance, it happened a month ago....
The Council for Culture has just proposed the new Basic Infrastructure (BIS), and it has become a very big, in traditional terms 'prosperous', baby. Since the Council is not allowed to name names, and can only list functions, we have already made a fill-in list here, in which we list (very briefly, because little time and not knowing about everything) which existing cultural...
Eight cultural institutions started the first Zero Waste Expedition Culture this year. During this expedition, the first steps were taken in terms of waste separation and waste prevention. The Maaspoort in Venlo, Kunstlinie Almere Flevoland, Luxor Theatre Rotterdam, Museon, Paradiso, Tivoli/Vredenburg, the Zuiderzeemuseum and the Van Abbemuseum are the frontrunners in the expedition, setting an example for their...
Last week, while walking the dog, my neighbour Stefanie asked, "What is that anyway, this Holland Festival?", and I almost caught myself wearily going to explain that it was the most important performing arts festival the Netherlands and its environs and that everyone with a bit of education should know it. But I held back. And wondered: how...
Danez Smith is quite something. Or rather two, because the American poet likes to be addressed in the gender-neutral, or rather gender-plural plural form. A form of address not yet very common in Dutch, and thus avoided by everyone. Thursday night, 31 May at the former ro theatre, now Theater Rotterdam - Witte de With, fell around the...
Toneelgroep Amsterdam and Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam will continue together as 'Internationa(a)l Theater Amsterdam' (ITA). Not to be confused with the just-removed Internationaal Danstheater Amsterdam. I find the name 'ITA' rather chilly. Maybe as cold as Toneelgroep, but at least that still contained the word 'group'. That has something cosy about it. ITA is something like ING. Great ambition and no roots. For a moment...
Champagne at BAK in Utrecht, deep disappointment at The New Institute in Rotterdam: the Council for Culture has spoken. Today, Thursday 19 May 2016, the first advice after the draconian art cuts by the first Rutte cabinet came out, and heads are rolling. Amsterdam loses prestigious presentation institution De Appel, in The Hague fellow institution Stroom has to redo its homework. The Orkest van het Oosten and the Gelders Orkest have to come up with merger plans within two years. In Utrecht, the city company Theater Utrecht will no longer receive funding despite artistic appreciation. Het Zuidelijk Toneel in Eindhoven Tilburg must make new plans and Opera Zuid must quickly raise its artistic quality. These are the main conclusions of the Culture Council's opinion.
As dramatic as some of this may sound, the advice is actually not, when you look over the whole battlefield. Thanks in part to
On Monday 14 March, Theatre Rotterdam will present its plans for the upcoming arts plan period. On Thursday 10 March, Bianca van der Schoot already told about it during a public meeting with a class of Utrecht theatre scholars. What became clear from her story is that she has little desire to start bringing world repertoire with the old Ro theatre share in Theatre Rotterdam. She has a lot of...
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