She could barely tell a sparrow from a wren, and almost gave up bird watching. But now writer Nicolien Mizee effortlessly recognises a barred siskin or a dipper. Nicolien Mizee's Bird Book is meant to encourage laymen like herself. 'You just experience so much more of your surroundings.' How romantic: the wild swan brought writer Nicolien Mizee and her husband Rob...
The opening images of West Side Story (2021) already tell a whole story. It is contained in a few frames. A billboard showing a grandiose new housing project. The camera glides past it almost casually as we glide over rubble of a New York slum, not with the characteristic fire escapes along the facade, as in the first film adaptation (1961) of this 1957 musical theatre piece,...
This Christmas holiday, the performance Nietsnut! by Theatre Group Who Whale is playing at Plein Theatre! To be seen from Boxing Day 26 December to 2 January at 13:00 and 16:00. The performance is an ode to nonsense. To a world you only see when everything falls silent and you have time to look very carefully. A world full of fantasy that you...
A safety net scheme for freelancers in the cultural sector: fifty interest and industry organisations this week appealed once again to the cabinet and the Lower House for financial support for this large group. This concerns 70 per cent of so-called cultural workers, i.e. a majority who do not have permanent employment. Due to the just reintroduced evening closure of venues, they are seeing their income once again...
Pure panic and existential angst: that's the picture you get when you approach makers in the arts personally about the effects of trickle down (the trickle down of corona funding from the government to those makers). The Creative Coalition may be making a fist for them, talking to the minister about it, the institutes debating it, but the creators are silent....
Patricia Goduto (37) was on stage in major Stage Entertainment shows early this century when an old childhood trauma played up and plunged her into a years-long psychosis. Her life changed irrevocably, she became addicted to drugs and alcohol and was declared incurable by her practitioners. Now she has been on stage for a few years, cured of her...
It is perhaps his most ambitious novel to date, and at the same time the first he would rather not talk about. For in De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company, writer Auke Hulst (46) broaches a sensitive and personal theme: mourning for an unborn child. Near future The Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company is a novel as only Auke Hulst writes it....
Starting this year, in the form of an election, Jakunst gauges the opinions of artists and art lovers about Dutch media coverage of visual art. To do so, we ask you to express your opinion by answering a few questions. Taking part will cost you two minutes or even less, because to take part,...
In the second episode of the podcast KunstZINnig, I talk to art curator and writer Hanne Hagenaars about how art gives meaning to her life: 'Art has deepened and, in a way, saved my life'. Hanne Hagenaars wrote the book 'No Cloud: How Art Saved My Life' in 2016. In this book, she discusses artworks that...
Creating a character you really feel involved with as an audience is what dance maker Sandra Kramerová is rock solid at. Her solo performance Majka drags me along from the start. But precisely because she performs her choreography so strongly, I am left afterwards with the feeling that I am missing something. That's a wonderful experience. It's not going well...
He will not be thanked, the headline above this article. After all, if there is one thing you don't want, it is to give a minister of a Rutte cabinet a compliment. And certainly not one of culture, the sector that, under Rutte's 10-year premiership, suffered the heaviest blows in post-war history. Rutte is the...
Whenever a technology is presented that I am not yet familiar with, I like to explore. A museum with holographic glasses? Do it! However, it turned out to be the content that will stay with me for a long time. The Museum of Austerity by Sarah Wares and John Pring is no easy read. But essential for understanding the impact of austerity on disabled people...
DocLab has been the most exciting part of IDFA for 15 years. This is the place for experimentation in form, technology and content; pushing and stretching the boundaries of the medium. I like to plunge in, sometimes with skin and hair. The VR installation Symbiosis gives that opportunity quite literally. You get to enter a post-apocalyptic world, where people are forced to make connections...
Teun Toebes (22) shares kitchen, bathroom and toilet not with fellow students but with people with dementia. He wrote a book about it: VerpleegThuis. The book came in at number 1 in the Bestseller 60 last week, much to his delight, because Toebes wants to reach as many people as possible with his mission: to change care for people with a faltering brain. 'It...
We are approaching episode 200 of Pearl Radio, a series of audio material that matters. Face of the cultural podcast is independent radio maker Stefanie Visjager. Delving into listening archives, interviewing creators and carrying the audience along in calm storytelling voice are all part of her remit. Since the birth of the term podcast in a 2004 Guardian article, it has been running wild...
IDFA-DocLab is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Leading platform for all kinds of interactive or non-interactive, virtual or physical projects through which artists give us a different window on reality.
For the second time, Asko|Schönberg organises Words & Music, a festival full of cut-ups & fuck ups. A rush of sensations: fantastic, grim, absurd, disruptive and with humour. A day of cut-up, cut-up and brand-new performances in Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ and Tolhuistuin. After the successful first edition in 2020, Asko|Schönberg will once again bring together makers from different disciplines in unique ways,...
On Friday 26 and Saturday 27 November 2021, the Amsterdam Museum is organising an English-language symposium on the Dutch colonial past and the ways in which this history is treated and shapes contemporary practices in cultural and academic institutions. The Amsterdam Museum is organising the symposium together with ASCA, NIOD, Rijksmuseum, The Black Archives, University of Amsterdam, NMVW & Vrije Universiteit and Stadsarchief Amsterdam....
On Sunday 14 November, November Music closed the 28th edition of the festival with the announcement of the composers in focus for 2022: Joey Roukens and Bryce Dessner. Joey Roukens will be commissioned for the Bosch Requiem 2022 to be performed by Nederlands Kamerkoor and Amsterdam Sinfonietta. Also from guitarist and composer Bryce Dessner - known from The National -...
As a physicist, Paolo Giordano was deeply concerned about the development of Covid-19. As a writer, he could interpret those feelings of concern and share them with the public. Giordano's articles are collected in What I Don't Want to Forget. 'It would be a sin if all this suffering and all these deaths were in vain.' Aware of the danger When he...
'If you introduce a lockdown, do it at places where many infections take place. In fact, due to careful compliance with the Corona Entrance Ticket (CTB) in theatres, concert halls, museums and cinemas, there are few infections there. So targeting that measure precisely at the cultural sector is going to make little difference. Bite through precisely where the risks are highest...
IDFA 2021 will kick off on 17 November. Again largely on location. A pleasant surprise this year is the rich crop of Dutch documentaries.
November Music 2021 kicked off on Friday 5 November with a sold-out Bosch Requiem composed this time by Hawar Tawfiq. The kick-off weekend featured a variety of concerts including FAQ's electronic music nights and Dez Mona's beautiful pop songs with baroque orchestra B.O.X. November Music continues until 14 November. Some 55 more concerts are in the offing on...
The Every (The Everything) is the name of a successful and widely loved company, the world's largest combination of a tech giant and a commercial giant. Dave Eggers describes this in his latest novel "The Every", follow-up to bestseller The Circle. On sale from mid-November 2021 at Amazons and Bol.Coms, but those who wanted it earlier could already...
Friends call him brother. His children say daddy. One day he hopes to become a grandfather. Sam Bettens (49) was known worldwide as the lead singer of Belgian band K's Choice when he decided to transition. And now he walks the beach in swimming trunks: 'I never want to hide myself again.' Tomboy As a young girl, Sam Bettens was a tomboy and wore the...
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