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Why the National Ballet should stay and Melle Daamen should become chairman of the Culture Council.

Update
Meanwhile, in NRC Handelsblad reacted somewhat panicked to the opinion of Melle Daamen, whom he calls an impatient entrepreneur: "You can imagine structurally subsidising two instead of four dance companies anymore. The other two could apply for grants for projects from the Performing Arts Fund, which should then get more funding."

Art or Kitsch? Decide for yourself at thirty essential works by Pan Amsterdam

On Sunday 24 November, the PAN officially opens its doors to the public. Here, over a hundred galleries and dealers will show what is for sale in art, antiques and design. A small museum, then, but one where everything is for sale. A painting worth a million euros is no exception. Yet there are also objects for sale for much less.

Red, Yellow and Blue (photo: Bob Karman)

Isabelle Beernaert is successful. Four reasons why it's not just down to SYTYCD.

The dance industry is not doing very well at all, people say. I spoke to a dance marketer who told me that venues are often only a quarter full. And that includes dance makers who have a  Oscar for dance have won. What does attract a lot of audiences are fairy tales. And Isabelle Beernaert.

What explains the success of this Belgian choreographer?

Erwin Olaf's sets in context, or: why should your visitors come back to your museum?

Erwin Olaf has a thing for wallpaper. The art photographer, known for his hushed and ominous compositions, thinks what is on a wall is at least as important as what happens in front of it. The New Institute has now managed to combine that idea nicely in an exhibition that shows both the sets of Erwin Olaf's most famous works and a few wallpaper designs from the quivers of great artists. It works and is absolutely beautiful to see, but what's in a corner of the ten...

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Figaro and The Fonz on a scooter in entertaining choreography for set pieces

It is the turnout of the evening: riding around on a scooter, barber Figaro gets involved in a crazy adventure in which Count Almaviva wants to snatch the beautiful Rosina from the hands of her guardian Doctor Bartolo. Three Bertas, meanwhile, literally tear Basilio's clothes off in an ingenious dance in front of three sets in which the action moves at lightning speed from inside to outside and... 

Hold on. Three Bertas?

Yep, director Laurence Dale dares to make Rossini '...

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Einojuhani Rautavaara makes flute dance on the wind

Tonight in Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn, the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra plays the Flute Concerto Dances with the Winds by Einojuhani Rautavaara. Originally, Peter Schat's Spring Concert was scheduled, but soloist Jacques Zoon chose to swap it for the Finnish composer's piece.

Son said: 'Peter Schat wrote his flute concerto for me in 1993 but after the premiere he was not happy with it and made a new version of it. He was happy with the performance though, maa...

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Figaro! Figaro! Figaro! Reisopera on tour with Rossini's masterpiece on order

'Give me a shopping list and I will set it to music,' the Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini is said to have said. Perhaps apocryphal, but fitting for the man who composed faster than musicians could rehearse his scores. Where Wagner needed a lifetime for 14 operas, Rossini wrote triple that. In barely fifteen years.

Along with Bellini and Donizitti, Rossini is the master of bel canto opera, and these three composers wrote in more or less the...

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IDFA 2013 opens with battle in Syria

A bit decadent it was last night. In a festive mood with glass in hand to the kick-off of the 26th edition of the documentary festival IDFA in Tuschinski, and then an hour and a half of watching the fortunes of a group of Syrian rebels in the completely destroyed city of Homs.

Talal Derki's Return to Homs, realised with support from the IDFA Bertha Fund, shows, in the form of unpolished direct cinema, a picture of the struggle as we see it - all media to sp...

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Everything, everything I know. Rest, rest then, rest you god. With Götterdämmerung, the Amsterdam Ring approaches its final end.

Forget the hours that preceded, don't think about the two hours to come. This is the moment. The Nibelungenhaat motif and the Hagen motif resound, but distorted. They clash. They cannot agree, We hear something vaguely triumphant, but at the same time threatening.

"Are you sleeping Hagen, my son?" sings Alberich.

Forget the long road the ring has travelled, forget how it will soon be acquired from the flames by the Reindaughters. In this moment, everything comes together.

Dreams Hagen...

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Co-operation is co-operation: Culture Press after Lost-painters now joins forces with Bijlage.tv

We were actually still missing a good video event, and the people behind Annex.tv, the online TV channel for XS4all subscribers was still missing a good online presence in the cultural sector. And so that's where we could help each other. We thought. So we try out what we can do together.

More museum visits due to museum annual pass. So money should probably be added.

20 per cent more visits to museums thanks to the museum year card. This will earn museums a sloppy 14 million euros extra this year. The jubilant press release about the study by a renowned agency does not lie. Or does it? After all, six months ago featured in NRC Handelsblad still read that the Museum Card Foundation was in cash trouble.

Young Talent Performance (Fugaz Floor)

Talent development new buzzword in dance world: 3 encouraging initiatives

The fact that it is difficult to get a job after graduation is also well known in the dance world. Therefore, partly at the government's insistence, companies are focusing on talent development. They also hope for a better connection with schools. Young dancers are now more likely to be on the front line of ballet: the theatre, and that is good news for audiences. Because the energy is fresh and the level has advanced considerably.

Whether a better connection between school and company is really going to solve all the problems is no...

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Rutte and Bosma don't do vision or substance and bend culture debate to their will

Culture debate 2013: Rutte and PVV shake hands. It was about Caro Emerald. About Zwarte Piet. And the classic: subsidy on opera tickets. And briefly about carnival. And it made all the news. Geenstijl. Radio 1,2,3 and 4. What else was the debate about? Um... no idea.

Lower chamber talked about art. We followed the debate for you

We kept a liveblog. Nice and old-fashioned, from the days when every month there was uproar somewhere about the government's handling of art. Now there is peace in the tent, as the PVV sardonically points out, because 'The Left' is now the bearer of policies devised by the PVV. The PVV predicts a black future for 'The Left' once the PVV comes to power.

Below are our updates, which paint a picture of a room that still doesn't really know where it is in d eculture ...

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Gergiev under fire. How a silly statement and half-hearted attempt at nuance worries Rotterdam. And exposes a bigger problem.

Protests abound again tonight at a concert conducted by Valery Gergiev, this time at London's Barbican. Many of the protesters are demanding that the orchestra emphatically distance itself from the Russian star conductor and speak out openly against gay legislation in Russia.

Boukje Schweigman's wordless philosophy

Even before she graduated from mime school, Boukje Schweigman swore off language. She worked out a wordless philosophy in her performances. She seeks the mystery of life. However vast and elusive her starting points may be, her performances give the audience the most direct, immediate, skin-tight sensation imaginable in a theatre.

From 12 November, Boukje Schweigman and her group Schweigman& will tour Dutch theatres with their own festival: H...

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Turning back the clock 26 years. Four questions and one answer on Bussemaker's letter

Jet Bussemaker is satisfied. For the next few years, there will be little whining about the subsidies under her regime. She states this in her letter this weekend. After all, the basis of the system is fixed: there are great museums, symphony orchestras, opera and theatre clubs whose subsidies are cast in concrete. Or rather carved from classical marble, because money gets you

Asscher throws piggy bank of flex-working artists into bottomless pit

A reduction in the ww premium spend on a scheme to keep more people in work is not going ahead because more and more people are becoming unemployed, forcing the premium up. See here the positive effect of austerity by the government. The less you spend, the deeper the problems, the less you can spend, the worse it gets, the less you can spend. And the arts may again be the first to make that clear.

Art was spared, right?

That art is better off under ...

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Realistic-optimistic The Rocket wins double award at Cinekid

"Children are the best judges of what makes a good children's film," a member of the Cinekid children's jury spoke confidently. There may be room for improvement on that, but the fact is that at the awards ceremony on the festive closing night of the Cinekid festival, there was remarkable agreement with the adult jury.

Not only did both juries nominate the same film twice (The Rocket and Your Beauty is Worth Nothing), but they both chose The Rocket as the final wi...

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In 1935, the Pieten were black, or were they white after all?

We had still so decided not to say anything about the Black Peters Discussion. But still. Whoever is right, and whatever has been said, written and fantasised about it historically, we now have images. In those images, from 1935, we see Sinterklaas (a starring role by the famous actor and director Eduard Verkade) (thanks Peter van Bokhorst for the info), surrounded by men in some kind of noble costume, on horseback. For a moment, we thought this was proof of the existence of white Peters, but maa...

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The National Theatre prevented Stopera from becoming The National Theatre

It would have been so nice: The National Ballet together with The National Opera at The National Theatre, like you have in the capital of any self-respecting country. But so that didn't happen. The home of our National Opera and Ballet clubs is now called 'Nationale Opera en Ballet'. The National Theatre made sure of that, which, like the Nederlands Dans Theater, is not in our capital Amsterdam, but in its residence in The Hague.

'Figure it out with your books': Bussemaker does a Silk Road trick

Those who think the library's collection is so important then, should see how they fund its preservation. So says culture minister Jet Bussemaker in response to questions by MP Bergkamp (D66). Bergkamp had asked these questions in response to the report that the post-1950 collection is not considered heritage by the ministry, and is therefore shreddable.

In her reply, Bussemaker reiterates her earlier position, but ends her answer with a statement...

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