In Nederland wordt de visie op opera vooral gestuurd vanuit de concertpraktijk. Daarmee wijkt de Nederlandse omgang met dit genre flink af van wat in de rest van Euroa gangbaar is. Dat blijkt alleen al uit het feit dat er de afgelopen eeuw vooral werd geïnvesteerd in concertzalen die direct dan ook tot de beste ter wereld horen: het Amsterdamse…
This week the Holland Festival erupts and we are there. We are producing a Dodo Festival Day newspaper with a sizeable team of professional journalists, as we did before for Springdance and The International Choice of the Rotterdam Schouwburg, for example. We follow the festival closely to bring news as it happens. We go to see performances where others...
De vorig jaar aan longkanker overleden Künstler Christoph Schlingensief – alleskunner, provocateur, regisseur, levenskunstenaar – krijgt op het Holland Festival een uitgebreid eerbetoon: de openingsvoorstelling Mea Culpa, een programma met zeven speelfilms, en Schlingensiefs zwanenzang Via Intolleranza II.
Doodziek vatte Christoph Schlingensief het wilde plan op om in Burkina Faso een operadorp uit de grond te stampen, Remdoogo. Een zelfvoorzienende vrijplaats waar mensen vanuit verschillende culturen elkaar zouden kunnen ontmoeten, en om daar voor langere tijd samen kunst te maken. Dit in navolging van vergelijkbare initiatieven zoals het Avenida Theater in Mozambique, opgezet door schrijver Henning Mankell. Schlingensief streefde naar het samenvloeien van kunst en leven. Gedreven uit een jarenlange fascinatie voor de rijke Afrikaanse cultuur, en geïnspireerd op de idealen van zijn grote held Joseph Beuys.
Via Intolleranza II is Schlingensiefs poging om in een maalstroom van documentaire, muziek, beeldende kunst, film, performancekunst, lezing, opera en theater het prille wordingsproces van Remdoogo vast te leggen. Een voorstelling over een proces. Tegelijkertijd lijkt Schlingensief ook zijn eigen motieven te bevragen. Via Intolleranza II was zijn zwanenzang – hij stierf drie maanden na de première. De voorstelling krijgt op zaterdag 4 juni de Nederlandse première.
When even André Rieu gets involved, the asparagus is done. In Maastricht, but also in The Hague. Because André Rieu, that's Limburg, that's popular culture, that's, according to the ministry, the country's most important export product and if it says you have to keep your hands off the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, then you keep your hands...
'Your audience will love it.' That was the last thing Liz Lecompte of the Wooster Group heard from the heirs of playwright Tennessee Williams shortly before the premiere of Vieux Carré. Since then, the trustees of the estate of this American monument have been keeping quiet about the performance Lecompte created. It was the end of a long period in which...
Cover of Spalding Gray At the Holland Festival, two minds wander. The loudest is that of Christoph Schlingensief, Germany's most independent filmmaker, theatre-maker, activist and enfant terrible, always good for controversy. After being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008, he processed his anger and fear in Eine Kirche der Angst vor dem Fremden in mir, presented in 2009 at...
This year, the Holland Festival brings the extraordinary French-Algerian co-production Nya, which combines achievements of modern and classical dance with hip-hop and, in addition, Ravel's Bolero sounds alongside Houria Aïchi's Algerian evergreens.
There is no such thing as the perfect human being. We are all crooks. Or is there a way to get it right? Ilay den Boer and the actors of De Utrechtse Spelen / De Warme Winkel each explore in their own way at the 26th edition of Festival aan de Werf. Wasn't my grandfather just an asshole? That...
Case in point: more people are against cuts than the ministry would have us believe. On page 32 of the now heavily controversial brochure 'Cultuur in Beeld', the ministry writes: "In the CDE, carried out at the end of 2010, citizens were asked to indicate from 17 policy fields whether they think the central government should spend (a lot) less or (a lot) more money on...
The opening images are apt: Joop van den Ende among men in togas, behind a real Pedel (the man with the bells), apathetic. And rightly so, of course. Because the once head man of cultural-entrepreneurial Holland, who started out in a party goods shop, achieved academic status without ever studying. For the man who always felt somewhat disadvantaged by the cultural and intellectual...
How bad is it really? A few lied lines in a Ministry of Education, Culture and Science booklet? Pretty bad. Because it's an outright lie, and a government that lies is not to be had. Because: how can you trust them anymore?
Of course, you were all lining up for that legendary Richard III by Orkater with music by Tom Waits. Or you had locked yourself in for Oostpool's small-room gem 'Till the fat lady sings', or you just didn't want to miss an episode of O O Cherso and The Voice of Holland. Anyway: now you know what you...
Russian conductor Valeri Gergjev was back in Rotterdam for a while, for one concert. He conducted his own orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), in de Doelen. The famous orchestra played repertoire that we in our country know inside out: Gustav Mahler's 1st symphony and Dmitri Shostakovich's 1st piano concerto. A now historic combination: because the Netherlands has become fused...
There is an interesting 'drone' underneath, and that may strike someone as menacing. In any case, the video at the end of this article has more meaning than many culture lovers might think. The fact is that the sweeping cuts made by the UK government through their 'Arts Council' have met with hardly any protests in retrospect, while the disproportionality in the cut...
[View the story "Theatre sector versus Council for Culture" on Storify]
Je fietst er als Utrechter makkelijk aan voorbij, de Basis voor Actuele Kunst (BAK) in de Lange Nieuwstraat, maar internationaal kunnen maar weinig mensen eromheen. BAK is big. Het centrum is onder leiding van de even onuitsprekelijke als sympatieke artistiek directeur Maria Hlavajova uitgegroeid tot een toonaangevend centrum in de wereld van de actuele kunst. Een paar jaar geleden mocht…
Although the announcement of 'sonic tapestry: Shoes, part V' by Tomoko Mukaiyama can be read as a variant of Sex and the City on classical music, Sarah Jessica Parker would forever look at her Manolo Blahniks differently after seeing Mukaiyama's performance. This very special piano recital was Saturday 7 May at LP2 (Room 2 of the Rotterdam...
About a decade ago, on the main stage of Rotterdam's De Doelen concert hall, there stood a frail and still searching young woman, a singer-songwriter in a language other than English. Sometimes in Portuguese but mostly in the criollo of the Cape Verde islands, this Sara Tavares presented, with minimal accompaniment, her CD 'Mi ma bô' that would later give her international...
It was predictable. Now that the Culture Council has given the secretary of state a go-ahead for massive and very deep cuts in dance, the first press releases are appearing with the outraged reactions. The National Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater are aggrieved: 'How
We at culture press did not use the word cheese slicer, so it is not about us, but still. Today, the Council for Culture is reacting rather furiously to the many negative reactions to its advice issued last week. Of course, it is also kind of unfortunate that the Council has to issue an opinion that it itself does not support at all, and then the...
Admittedly, our method of reviewing (see our contributions on Springdance and De Internationale Keuze) is new to the Netherlands, but in the States a few were already doing it. For example, the two yummy guys Andrew and Andrew are doing well with their iPhones, doing the same as the Dodo with the Kodak Zi8 (no shares, though we would love to be sponsored...
State Secretary Halbe Zijlstra does not like whining. Don't come to him with email bombardments, Twitter campaigns, angry letters and abusive language. He is not only insensitive to it, it even backfires on him. At least that is what he told
Our overview of Twitter responses to the Council for Culture's advice, released on 29 April. [View the story "Twitter reacts to Council for Culture advice" on Storify]
Once again, we are using a new web service. Just to see how it works. Feel free to let us know (in the comments) if you find us too geeky. We'll do something about it. [View the story "Springdance 2011" on Storify]
On Wednesday 27 April 2011, we reported on the annual symposium of the Royal Association of Booksellers. Interesting bi9jeen meeting, we can say, but of course not every speaker was as brilliant as Eppo van Nispen tot Sevenaar, the director of the Collective Propaganda of the Dutch Book Foundation, whom from now on we will call the John and Jesus of the storytelling industry...
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