The Shadow of Ideas (De Umbris Idearum ... The Acousmatic Memory Palace) is the title of one of the pieces played by electronica duo Mouse on Mars with Ensemble Musikfabrik. The shadows are indeed shooting against the scrap of the Muziekgebouw. Ideas, however, have not yet formed. Nudges to do so roar loosely through the space. Transported elsewhere Akoesmatic music...
Flexing is a street dance style from Brooklyn, New York. Thirteen men, three women strong is the formation that has caused a furore in America in various guises (HyperActive, MainEventt, Ringmasters), from the local talent show Flex in Brooklyn to America's Best Dance Crew. Now the crew, led by pioneer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray, is on a world tour with a show, which they will perform with the...
Rito de Primavera, on show at the Holland Festival early this week, is a group choreography for fifty young dancers. Choreographer José Vidal has loosely based himself on Sacre du printemps, Stravinsky and Nijinsky's 1913 piece for the Ballet Russes. Fragments of Stravinsky's music have been turned into 4-quarter beetz by DJ Jim Hast, while Vidal has minimised the ritual aspect of the sacrifice, essential to the many versions made throughout the 20th century (besides Nijinsky's primal version, Massine, Béjart and Bausch, among others).
What remains is an overwhelming visual experience of a gigantic mass of dancers looming out of the darkness. The coordination of the group, at times dancing wildly through each other, at other times circling the stage in long procession, is impressive. It produces a fascinating, eye-opening aesthetic, but the group dance in no way challenges the audience. You could call it a pile of kitsch, or opium for the people. Either way, it is a form of spectacle that I consider unworthy of the Holland Festival.
The performance begins like a school trip. Near the box office, spectators are prepared in groups for what is to come. They are kindly requested to take off their shoes upon entering the theatre, and then walk barefoot, hand in hand with fellow spectators, through the dark. Regularly, someone calls loudly for silence, as the performance has already started. There is also something uncomfortable about the nervous manner in which the audience, which is supposed to line up in rows after the instructions, is marched away to the performance space two buildings away.
The initiation of the visitors continues in the Purification Hall, when they pass through the pitch darkness hand in hand with the cool sand at their feet. It provides one of the few ambiguous moments during Rito de Primavera. Where is this going? What fairy tale are we being led into here? From which tourist boat have we fallen off, to now attend the rituals of which people again?
At first, the total experience that so many contemporary theme parks are looking for really takes shape. For half an hour, I stare at a stage in the dark. I see and feel a lot of people there, I think naked because sometimes there is a clever flash of soft light, but the dominant darkness prevents me from getting a grip on it. Ethereal singing composed by Andrés Abarzúa - a single chord sounds gurgling from many throats - accompanies the entrance of all the other spectators for half an hour.
The bleachers surround the playing surface. It is only the red and white bicycle lights of the guides of the many groups of spectators that give you some orientation in the space. It has something of Tintin in Takatukaland. An audience paying to be at a miraculous, never-before-seen, spring nymphing ritual.
The artificiality of the setting gives a certain tension. In the darkness, as a spectator, you can imagine all sorts of things about what is to come. But at some point, the bicycle lights go out, a sign that all spectators are seated, and the dancers all put on trousers. The light increases and the first beetz cum stravinsky supplants the singing. When, after the uncertain introitus, the actual spectacle begins, its logic becomes all too clear. A perfectly organised group choreography takes over.
In what follows, nothing is left to chance. And that is no luxury with so many dancers in semi-darkness, especially as half of them are also new to the work, because from the Modern Theatre Dance Department of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. The group makes pulsating movements, dialogues with a neighbour, runs in groups, starts singing again, postures and occasionally lifts a single person in the air.
But just as the darkness gets used, so does the group. They are all very young people, fairly relaxed dancing together. The uninhibited attitude with which the complicated group choreographies are performed is touching. A naive kind of surrender or faith speaks from it.
But gradually the effects, of the group choreography, of the light that creates the photographic vistas, the repetitive singing and beetz get boring. The repetition of moves is effect-laden, rhetorical, self-affirming. Nowhere a moment of debacle, of faltering. No one who has a question, can't keep up, is mistaken
Boris Charmatz has been a guest at many editions of the Holland Festival with impressive, provocative, socially engaged, finely composed and conceptually strong dance performances: Aatt enen tionon and Con forts fleuve (both in 2001); 50 years of dance (2010), Enfant (2011) and Manger (2015). His latest choreography, danse de nuit, premiered in Geneva last September. During the Holland Festival...
Vorig jaar barstte een kleine rel los toen het Holland Festival bekendmaakte in 2019 een grootschalig project op te tuigen rond de opera Licht van Karlheinz Stockhausen. Modernemuziekhaters schreeuwden moord en brand, want wie zit er nou te wachten op de akelige piepknor van de Duitse notensmid? Toch ontstond er meteen een run op de kaarten. Ook na zijn dood…
Sinds 2012 organiseert Yoram Ish-Hurwitz elke zomer het Oranjewoudfestival in Friesland. De even ondernemende als avontuurlijke pianist maakt daarbij de natuur tot onlosmakelijk onderdeel van de muzikale beleving. Van woensdag 1 tot en met maandag 5 juni verrast hij zijn publiek opnieuw met concerten op bijzondere locaties. Verspreid over het gebied spelen ruim 120 Nederlandse en internationale topmusici de mooiste…
Wat krijg je als je schaduwspel, Weimar cinema, gamelan en Javaanse mythes combineert? Een mix die veel vraagt van het publiek, maar die een genot is als je je er aan over wilt leveren. De Indonesische regisseur Garin Nugroho maakt geen gemakkelijke films. Vaak zijn ze visueel prachtig, zoals Opera Jawa, maar zit de plot een beetje in de weg…
In het Stijljaar kijken de manifestaties vooral terug op de kunststroming die honderd jaar geleden begon. Toch zijn er ook hedendaagse initiatieven die vooruit kijken, zoals in Amersfoort. In de Keistad wordt van steigermateriaal het Stijlpaviljoen gebouwd. Twintig hedendaagse, veelal jonge, beeldend kunstenaars geven aan de buitenkant van het paviljoen een eigen invulling. Ze laten zich hierbij inspireren door het gebouw…
The play La Democrazia in America (to be seen at the Holland Festival on 4, 5 and 6 June) is of course about democracy in America, but actually more about The Democracy in America. And the two should not be confused. For The Democracy in America is a 1,200-page book by French jurist De Tocqueville. This...
It is dark. Basses thump. An intoxicatingly sweet female perfume hangs in the air, a child cries. AquaSonic has just started, and already I want to leave. What possesses a musician to go head-to-head? Our Danish correspondent went to find out. AquaSonic is an ode to water, played by Between Music, a collective of five Danish musicians. They make...
For new music, the primal performance is often also immediately the last time a piece is played. The scores await the archive or dusty drawer; recordings are nowhere to be found. David Dramm searches for these gems of stilted notes. He presents them in the Holland Festival's Orphanage: three evenings of forgotten compositions from the rich...
Arjan Peters talks 12 May 19.30 during ILFU in Utrecht with Paulien Cornelisse, author of the office novel De verwarde guia, and Gerd Busse, who translated Voskuil's ultimate office novel Het Bureau into German. There, office workers are usually not portrayed too positively. High time to change that. Office worker and writer Suzanne Brink takes...
Wondrous story: Utrecht had a famous jazz club between 1957 and 1967. It was founded - including egg cartons on the vault - by jazz-loving teenagers. Not only the fine fleur of Dutch jazz performed there, but also many an international big name. As part of Utrecht's Cultural Sundays, last Sunday (23 April), a wharf cellar on the...
Something is changing considerably in the world of literature. Libraries are closing or turning into flex spaces for poor freelancers. The sold circulation of an average successful novel remains in four figures. Young people no longer watch TV or listen to the radio, but make their own well-watched and generously paid films on YouTube. Or they sit the...
The SER report published on Friday 21 April rubs it in nicely: the cultural sector is on the verge of collapse. It is even worse than a year ago. This shows that the patience of a PvdA culture minister over the past four years has not helped. Indeed, Halbe Zijlstra's multiplier of misery is doing its job entirely as expected....
On Tuesday 12 April 2017, Finnish pioneer of avant-garde electronic music Mika Vainio passed away. He was 53 years old. According to Finnish media, Vainio died in an accident while on holiday in France. Shock Mika Vainio is considered a shining example and inspiration. Many artists from the electronic music world are therefore stunned and reacted on social media in disbelief....
Wednesday 5 April kicks off the fifth edition of the biennial World Minimal Music Festival. For five days, the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ will be filled with hypnotic rhythms, trance-inducing melodies and conjuring drones. Alongside well-known works by pioneers such as La Monte Young and Terry Riley are new compositions by Kate Moore and Bryce Dessner. There will also be performances by the Master...
Het Duitse platenlabel Raster-Noton bestaat twintig jaar. De verjaardag wordt gevierd met showcases op meerdere festivals en met een drie kilo zware catalogus. Plaatjes voor bij de plaatjes dus en géén boxset met de muzikale hoogtepunten. Een bijzondere aanpak, van een hoogst bijzonder label. Geluid én beeld Een label dat een forse catalogus uitbrengt, dat is geen alledaags verschijnsel. Een…
Doe het. Maak het. Trek je niets aan van anderen. Denk niet na over de consequenties. Dan zit je maar even op de blaren, die helen wel weer. Even honger lijden voor de kunst is ook niet erg. Kies dus je eigen pad en geniet van elke stap. Bovenal: leef in het hier en nu, de hele tijd. Geschiedenis wordt…
Saai hoor, al die films, reclames en youtube-filmpjes waarin altijd maar weer naar dezelfde (achtergrond)muziek gegrepen wordt. Bij een verstilde scène of zielige docu krijgt de kijker Pärt voorgeschoteld. Spannend klinkt zo, en als het noodlot toeslaat hoor je dit. Gewoontedieren Ach, ook film-docu-& TV-makers zijn net gewone mensen en grijpen graag naar hetzelfde. Dommage! Want er is zoveel meer…
Rewire staat weer voor de deur. Van 31 maart tot en met 2 april speelt het festival zich af in de binnenstad van Den Haag. Het jonge festival doet dat met een keur aan kleuren en smaken, (net) buiten de mainstream. Dus: daar waar avontuur en het grote ongewisse juist pré’s vormen – diametraal tegenover Guus Meeuwis op het hoofdpodium.…
Bruce Nauman is considered one of the most influential artists of the moment. He creates work that crosses genre boundaries - as well as breaking down with them - in an exploration of body, language and performance that has now spanned 50 years. Nauman expresses his often provocative and invariably innovative ideas in a multitude of media and materials. As a result, his work is...
In een discussie (op facebook, waar anders) over het vertrek van NRC Handelsblad uit Blendle, liet een redacteur van die krant zich zeer laatdunkend uit over een lezer die 30 cent had betaald voor een van zijn artikelen. In een recent artikel op Frankwatching concludeerde een deskundige dat onderzoeksjournalistiek alleen nog zou kunnen overleven als we kranten zouden gaan subsidiëren.…
While Jan Martens' latest work, The Common People (2016), was at Amsterdam's Stadschouwburg last weekend, Utrecht's Theater Kikker is showing two older hits this week: Sweat Baby Sweat (2011) and The dog days are over (2014). Sweat and Dogdays are blockbusters and have already toured the world. At Kikker, they can now be seen as part of a...
Museum Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam hosts the largest exhibition in Europe of Surrealists. Famous names like Salvador Dali, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Man Ray, Paul Delvaux and Roland Penrose. But also lesser-known gods like the outstanding Leonora Carrington and Francis Picabia. In 1970, the world-famous surrealist Salvador Dali visited the Boymans museum in person....
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