There is a bit of a buzz about Daan Roosegaarde. Again, we might say, because Daan Roosegaarde, it turns out, cannot be described as a creator of original work, but as someone with a rather remarkably sensitive antenna for other people's ideas. Which he then presents as his own work. From the article in the Volkskrant on this, one and...
Young artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers and other new thinkers are drowning in the effects of the Corona crisis, as a cry for help from Jett Rebel in de Volkskrant again showed. Assignments are falling away and there is little room for new initiatives. A whole generation of creative talents seems to be lost in jobs in the hospitality industry or at the GGD. The European Recovery Fund...
With his opinion piece in the Volkskrant, he drew the ire of gein manufacturers like Bert Brussen and Hans Teeuwen. In no uncertain personal attacks, 'Suck My Dick Zijp' was accused of having a 'gender-neutral rotten head', which showed that 'woke' people had no humour. Reason for the woke nerds, Marijn Lems and I, aka the...
Swart Gat/ Golden Age (Dunguu olo - katibo-ten) is a theatrical installation about Amsterdam's slavery past and Maroon culture from Suriname. The concept is by Tolin Erwin Alexander, Berith Danse and designer Bartel Meyburg. The theatrical installation, which has lost none of its urgency, has been further finished and will start again in summer 2021! From 17 June (19 June...
Godfried Bomans died half a century ago. Almost immediately afterwards, the Netherlands' best-loved writer sank into oblivion. It is time for a reappraisal of Bomans' literary work and even his political views. I delved into the archives, also looking for the few traces of Bomans in Amersfoort. First some round figures. Seventy years ago, he delivered a lecture...
Rather unexpectedly, it was announced this week that cultural and entertainment venues will be test sites for reopening society next month. It came rather out of the blue, as everyone was still working on petitions and other pleas to reopen cultural buildings. After all, they have their corona protocols in place there better than the Albert Heijn on my corner....
Stage poetry is usually held in lower esteem than written poetry. While stage poets can touch so powerfully. Only during the Night of Poetry, every year in Utrecht, do we honour the performers among the poets. Then it's back to the 'jokers' who can rhyme, as was recently written about Ingmar Heytze in a podcast announcement. Spoken Word, the...
Marion Koopmans, Cécile van Els, Maarten Keulemans et al on everything we now know about covid-19 What do we now know about the coronavirus? Are vaccines resistant to the prevailing mutations? What has the corona crisis done to Dutch trust in government and institutions? And what is the damage to the Dutch economy? In an interactive talk show on Monday 15...
Wopke Hoekstra, would-be boss of the Netherlands, stood last week on the ice of an ice rink that was closed to all but Sven Kramer. Because of Corona. The CDA frontman received a justified storm of criticism. After Grapperhaus, the country's second top executive who thinks his own rules only apply to others. Last week, Laura van Dolron, played...
Weismann strikes me as too brilliant and intelligent a director to throw himself into an adventure that could break him for good. An alpha male, a big ego, it was well known. And couldn't keep his paws off young women.
Therefore, from 25 to 28 November, the PLEIN THEATER presents The Week of Karina Holla: An in-depth look at the performance War Women and an ode to the work of Dutch mime player, actress, choreographer and director Karina Holla and her significance for theatre.
An in-depth look at the performance War Women and an ode to the work of Dutch mime player, actress, choreographer and director Karina Holla and her significance for theatre.
'Writing this book has made me realise that I cannot prepare my children for the world in which they will be adults. I cannot teach them now what they will need later in a society that does not yet exist.'
Every dancer is nostalgic. Heroes or icons of the dance world are given a special and honourable stage place in the inspiration of young dancers, of choreographers and also of the public. So too Koert Stuyf and Ellen Edinoff, and their Contemporary Dance Foundation.
Disturbing reports, over the past few days, in various media. First, there was Patrick van IJzendoorn in De Volkskrant, who observed that life had moved away from London's business heartland. I saw a few confusedly delighted reactions come along from friends on my cultural timeline. After all, the article made a clear connection between the closure of museums and theatres and the...
My story about cultural big earners turned out to be the talk of the town in the cultural sector. Not publicly, i.e. mainly behind the scenes, I was approached. One of the few people who did speak out publicly was Henk Scholten. On Facebook, he responded to a column by journalist Aukje van Roessel about the questions raised by The Hague city council
On Monday 29 June, the Lower House will discuss the advice of the Council for Culture. An advice that, as the Volkskrant rightly noted on Friday 26 June, receives much more criticism than previous advice. In doing so, the newspaper reaffirms what we already wrote down immediately after its release on 4 June: there is a total lack of transparency, a...
An artists' protest in Albania deserves extra attention. Especially as EU accession negotiations resume. Indeed, the protest action is impressive and offers a view of EU accession from an interesting perspective. That of a people who are committed to democratic values, who value their own history and culture, who do not want to give way to...
In April 2020, the Persgroep, now DPG Media because it smells better internationally, will stop regional art supplements in its newspapers. No more art reports and interviews, hardly any reviews. Local bookshops will lose their stage in all Dutch regions, as the publisher of Volkskrant, Trouw and AD has a regional monopoly. The message, brought by a reporter from the Eindhovens Dagblad, struck...
The new year often starts with new insights and resolutions. A critical reflection can then help. We were therefore delighted to read the Volkskrant of 2 January, in which columnist and theatre critic Merlijn Kerkhof concludes that in 2020, he wants to enjoy all that the Netherlands has to offer in terms of culture a bit more often outside 020. And that is only right,...
As an intro, the percussionist of orchestra the prize of honour played a cadenza of air beats. When he unexpectedly gave a cutting blow on his snare drum, everyone was startled. Thus, with Bewegung ohne Bewegung for cello and ensemble by Jan van de Putte, opened the anniversary concert of the ensemble founded in 1979 by Wim Boerman. Last year,...
Real writers debut before the age of 30, some publishers say, but there are also publishers - and authors - who do not care about such conventions. Fortunately, because Niets is gelogen (Nothing is Lied), the debut novel by art historian Sacha Bronwasser (b. 1968), who is also a former art critic for de Volkskrant, is a great read. A book in which art, looking and feeling play a leading role. Funeral map Main character is...
The puppets will dance, the turnips are cooked and the shit has hit the fan. The Amsterdam Museum is replacing 'Golden Age' with the neutral '17th century'. A typical example of oikophobic repopulation and politically correct language purification, or a useful adaptation to a changing zeitgeist? Time will tell, but explosive it is. For me, it raises questions. That...
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...
Some critics thought the opening performance of Festival Noorderzon in Groningen was so bad it made you cry. Others were less negative. Those certainly have a point. But then you have to look beyond what you are used to. When Bear, the hero of Noorderzon 2019's opening show, is imprisoned in a tower, he laments his fate through an eloquent yet sad...
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,...
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