From small dance schools to big dance companies, the Dutch dance world is daring to expose itself on a stage again. Dance lovers can get back into the studios or theatres, or both, thanks to protocols, and bookings are being made enthusiastically as many performances are already sold out. After all, nothing beats dance art in the flesh. In the words of dance dramaturge Jochem Naafs: 'If you...
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...
The best book I know is called Arthur, King once and for all. That is, that's the name if you buy the latest translation by Jolande van der Klis. Everything you need to know about the world is in this book. It begins like a children's book - I started reading it too when I was a boy
94-year-old Jan Hoek from Rotterdam wrote a letter to the youth that everyone will have read by now - there has not been so much attention paid to a message from an elderly person since that string from Terlouw's letterbox. That message is sympathetic and clear: young people, just hang in there a little longer, for our sake, then you can...
That 8.6 million the fund is now minimally short of will probably be found somewhere, so the saw line will be shifted again. Then the sector can - virtually - continue for another four years. Another one and a half million may be added to shape the spread. Pleasing the art world is not that expensive, The Hague will notice.
The restless head in front of the torso, fists nervously searching for grip under the pale blue jumper. His life a relentless affliction of generations of oppression under factory labour, alcoholism and domestic violence. And deep love nonetheless, between this tormented father and son. Until almost the end of the monologue "Who killed my father?", the high bed remains untouched. Only then do they learn...
Exterior, day. A deserted street in a southern Dutch town, unusually bright daylight. No sound. A man drives up and parks at a vacant power point. He walks to the entrance of a large, empty, modernist building. He is greeted by a very very old veteran, who tells him that "the wife is in for a moment", "she asked me to go on the...
Boukje Schweigman is an artist this country desperately needs. My deep admiration for her arose with 'Klep', the performance with which she graduated from the Amsterdam mime school long ago. With eight others in a trolley, looking around through very small flaps in a world where sweet creatures are equally curious about you, after which a minimal touch has the impact of...
'For Indonesian Dutch, 15 August is definitely not liberation day,' explains playwright Bo Tarenskeen. The last day of the alternative Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch, Sender Boulevard, coincides with the commemoration of Japan's surrender on 15 May 1945. The Dutch East Indies, the colony exploited by our country for centuries, had also been liberated from the Japanese, but the end...
This week, a massive explosion of 2,700 tonnes of poorly preserved ammonium nitrate destroyed most of the Lebanese capital Beirut. For German-Lebanese writer Pierre Jarawan, who lives in Munich, the disaster is yet another black page in the history of Lebanon, which he himself has only just come to know.
Ok, the Mauerpark in the real Berlin is more grubby, but what they call the Berlinplein in Utrecht's new Leidsche Rijn centre has something in common with it. Of course, a frayed edge organised by the local government is a bit suspicious, with a megabios as its biggest attraction, but property developers, the biggest abusers of artistic frayed edges, can't do much else on...
What festival director Viktorien van Hulst, together with her team, is pulling off seems almost impossible, but it fits the tradition she has developed since taking office. For a few years now, Boulevard has been as much about massive events as intimate encounters.
According to the minister, when applying for your grant this year, the Fair Practice Code, the Diversity and Inclusion Code and the Governance Code of Culture would be decisive. In several reviews by the Culture Council in the BIS and also locally, artists have been rejected on the grounds of poor substantiation of their following the code of conduct. If not at...
In the second half of the 1980s, when Wim Deetman was still a cheese soufflé and many Utrechters of my age wore kletter vests with broken rifles, it was very easy to know what you were against. This was because of a few clear principles: anyone on the right was bad. Christians were stupid, hypocritical and scary. Anyone who rented real estate...
Illusionary Rockaz Company was due to release a new work by Shailesh Bahoran this spring. A new production for the first time in two years, after a time in which the Utrecht-based choreographer was constantly winning awards. And then Corona broke out. For Shai, reason to pause for a while: 'For Shakti, the performance that is coming up now, we have to...
The National Opera had made a mistake in preparing its application. According to the Culture Council, the multi-million-dollar national institution had failed to break down performance data between dance and music. As a result, the company had to come up with an entirely new application before 1 November. Now it turns out that was not so bad. As it turns out, the data...
'Of course Corona has an impact on me, but the impact of Black Lives Matter is much bigger. I want to get to work activating young people. They need to feel that this is our country. I think it's important to always use every stage to make that clear.' Bright Richards is twenty years after graduating from the Arnhem...
It is scorching hot in Paris on the day of the interview with Tatiana de Rosnay (58). In her new novel Flowers of Darkness, Paris suffers yet another heatwave, with the thermometer touching 48 degrees. 'The past few days have been almost as bad as in my book,' De Rosnay tells via Zoom from her Parisian study....
Traveling While Black touches you deeply and that is exactly the intention. The 20-minute or so Virtual reality film immerses you in the history of institutional racism in the US and especially what it does to people. The location is Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington DC*. We sit at a table in a classic diner with people...
That they came up with a one-and-a-half billion support package for the arts in Britain last month seemed like very good news for a while. For a country of almost 67 million people, such a rescue package, which also consists of three quarters of loans and advances, is proportionately much smaller than what there is in the Netherlands in terms of support for the arts. How keen...
Over seven years ago, I started as house poet at Sven Ratzke's Late Night Show in Utrecht's Blue Hall. It was a special time. Not for Sven, who probably came into the world singing and wearing designer clothes through a curtain of peacock feathers and imitation ermine fur. For him, the sultry, permanently ramming sold-out nightclub show was cut-and-dried. For...
Barely three weeks into her job when the corona pandemic and lockdown came. So, for Halima el Ghamarti, who started as director of the Jongeren Cultuurhuis Kanaleneiland and Overvecht in mid-February, there is no other normal than the new normal: working from home, and doing so with an organisation whose main purpose is to connect young people in Utrecht with...
With a focus on the Dutch music scene, November Music aims to highlight the vitality and creativity of composers, creators and musicians during this 28th festival edition. Besides many new home-grown works, there are several concerts with leading roles for renowned foreign names. November Music 2020 takes place from 6 to 15 November at various locations in 's-Hertogenbosch with over 80 different concerts....
I have long put myself on the 'listen first, talk later' mode when it came to how we all deal with the festering sore of racism in the Netherlands. There's so much we don't know about each other, and there's especially so much I can't know about my fellow Black people, because for a long time I felt too little...
Just over a year ago, Culture Press carried the story that Wim Hupperetz, director of the capital's Allard Pierson, had resigned his post as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Culture Council. The reason was Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven's decision to hand over control of national museums' policies to...
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