From today, it is not Leeuwarden, Amsterdam, Utrecht or The Hague that is our country's cultural capital, but Den Bosch. For eleven days during Theatre Festival Boulevard, there will be more to see in that city than all to follow. Lots of new and unique work for Den Bosch, but also some performances that have already played in other places. Herewith our five recommendations. Have...
In this Van Gogh year, the painter has become part of a real group, an artist community, something he never managed to do during his lifetime. With the exhibition 'When I Give Myself, I give Myself', the Van Gogh Museum connects 23 contemporary artists to the lonely Van Gogh, who had hardly any friends during his life and sold only one painting. The...
It is a lovely summer book: Harem, the new novel by Ronald Giphart. And for the first time in years, a good dose of sex appears in a book by the Utrecht-based writer. 'Just the other day at a reading I was announced by a librarian: "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the man who knows all about sex!" Interview so with...
Laser projection opens new vistas for digital film screening. On Wednesday, the JT cinema in Hilversum had the European premiere of Dolby Cinema with the screening of Inside Out.
Watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by the Dutch Comedy in 1964, or Live, the 1979 video ballet by the Dutch National Ballet. You can now do so at the Theatre Encyclopaedia. Thanks to the crowdfunding campaign Being/Not Being. For some time, the Theaterencyclopedie had wanted to put videos of some of the crown jewels of Dutch theatre performances on the internet. A nice start has now been made on that. Through a Voordekunst action, even more money has been raised...
Last week, graduates of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague showed their graduation projects in an exhibition. An exhibition that every year is far too big to see everything in one week. But this year, above all, an exhibition that provoked: to think, to wonder, to smile and to come back again and again.
Concert & Congress hall De Doelen in Rotterdam will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. That is, 50 years ago, the current venue was festively opened. The building by architects Kraaijvanger and Fledderus was the first major public building of the reconstruction after German bombs destroyed the city on 10 May 1940. However, its name goes back much longer. The at...
For the second time, tenor Joseph Calleja performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam on Monday night 22 June, accompanied by the Gelders Orchestra conducted by Frederic Chaslin. A native of Malta, Calleja (b. 1978) is a world-renowned top singer. His timbre evokes memories of the finest voices of yesteryear: the controlled vibrato of Jussi Björling and the crystal-clear, powerful pitch of...
Cathedrals are 'in' Utrecht has a thing for cathedrals. The Dom was once a cathedral, but since the Reformation stormed its way through the Roman Catholic heritage, the real cathedral with the archbishop's chair is now a few hundred metres away. In the early 1990s, theatre-maker Aram Adriaanse renamed the former stables of the veterinary faculty 'Horse Cathedral',...
There was an air of more expensive perfume in the foyers than at a Dutch gala premiere. The women were younger and smoother, or had a better botox doctor than usual. The jewellery looked very expensive, as did the dresses. Russian sounded everywhere. It seemed as if Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg had been moved for a while to PC Hooftstraat, a few hundred metres away....
Two choreographers exploring how a dancer and the eye of the audience interact. Dance makers who rattle common ideas about identity and sexuality. Artists who confront us with the dreams of perfection and glamour that advertising and marketing throw at us. The famous Cullberg Ballet made a striking choice by performing choreographies by the...
Last night, Nazmiye Oral, together with a large group of Turkish colleagues, played the performance Niet Meer Zonder Jou for the third and, for now, last time. It is an intimate and overwhelming theatre production by Adelheid Roosen, Female Economy & Zina, co-produced by and performed during the Holland Festival at Broedplaats De Vlugt, far west in Amsterdam-Slotermeer. Tearing die Nazmiye Oral calls...
Theatre maker Corinne Jaber received nothing from her father about his roots, except his passion for cooking and good food -she says in an interview. The outbreak of the Syrian civil war made her curious about her father's background. Together with Palestinian author Amir Nizar Zuabi, Jaber interviewed Syrian refugees in refugee camps. The result is this monologue, in which a fictional, half-Syrian-half...
Power and leadership, can one exist without the other? Toneelgroep Amsterdam presented a sampling of three types of leaders on Sunday 14 June at the Holland Festival with 'Kings of War'. Three historical plays by Shakespeare about the struggle for power between the Houses of Lancaster and York together provided the fuel for this performance. With large black letters on a white...
Had Anton Chekhov lived now, he would have written for television. Not drama, and certainly not film. Indeed, innovative as the great Russian playwright was during his short life (1860-1904), he would now have done something with selfie sticks and contact microphones. The result would probably have been something like what Brazilian artist Christiane Jatahy has now created. She took the text...
Over 70% of the talking heads on TV are men, Simone van Saarloos told us in the introduction to her own talk show. Niña Weijers and she thought that surely something like this could be done better, without talking about glass ceilings and other women's topics. And so, in October 2013, they launched their sexist talk show series with guests from the arts, literature, politics and...
There is something crushing about the massiveness. Choreographers Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten have brought the dancers of the Ballet National de Marseille and of ICK Amsterdam to the stage in Extremalism, thirty in all. A huge 'corps de ballet'. Greco and Scholten and the dancers take root in classical ballet, but also break away from it. The classical footwork with...
Every company 50,000 euros more. Youth theatre in the Netherlands should be very happy with the letter culture minister Bussemaker sent to the chamber last Monday. After years of squeezing under Halbe Zijlstra, finally more air for the makers. But the investment of 4 tonnes a year turns out to be a cutback. In fact, Bussemaker is only giving a gift to eight companies. Company...
It was a touching moment when director Cherry Duyns drove a frail Misha Mengelberg onto the stage on Tuesday 9 June, after the premiere of his opera Koeien (Cows). Dressed in a bright orange windbreaker and wearing a cap with an oversized visor, the recently turned eighty improviser and rudderless disruptor looked around uncomfortably: is this applause for me? Yet he visibly enjoyed himself and...
Where minister Bussemaker tries to sell the same overall budget as "an extra investment of 18 million" with the new "cash shift" and municipalities like Amsterdam use the old-fashioned cheese slicer to make cuts, the municipality of Enschede uses the blunt axe. Despite fierce opposition and 27,000 signatures from concerned citizens, the city council agreed to an additional annual cut of 600,000 on the library and...
It is a niche sector in marketing, but cultural marketing is fast becoming mature. In recent years, cultural organisations have had to be creative and inventive with increasingly limited budgets. This often manifested itself in sensational marketing of performances, exhibitions and festivals. Not without results: these five marketing cases have bravely drawn attention last cultural season....
Manger, de nieuwe voorstelling van Boris Charmatz en Musée de la Danse, geeft toeschouwers alle ruimte. Waar je je opstelt om te kijken of juist om te luisteren, naar wie of wat je kijkt en voor hoe lang, maak je zelf uit. De Zuiveringshal op het Westergasfabriekterrein, majesteitelijk leeg en galmend, zorgt voor een wonderlijke sfeer in deze voor Charmatz’…
A confession. There is no other way. So: yes. I was lying between immaculate white sheets in a comfortable bed with actress Lina Issa and it was beautiful. She whispered soft words in my ear, put a hand on my hand and it was very quiet around us. Thanks to that whispering, the noise of the big city fell away. Trams...
Emio Greco and Pieter Scholten rehearse their new performance Extremalism in Marseille. The two dance companies under their direction, ICKamsterdam and Ballet National de Marseille, have merged for this occasion: 30 dancers on stage, six authors and designers in the auditorium, and the crew of technicians is also made up of Amsterdamers and Marseillais. They are working together on the biggest production that Greco and...
Fort Nieuwersluis is de grootste verrassing van de kunstmanifestatie Gimme Shelter. Tot anderhalf jaar geleden was het verdedigingswerk een no go-area. De BB (‘Bescherming Burgerbevolking’) zat er tot 1989 om telefoonlijnen te beschermen tijdens, maar vooral na de Derde Wereldoorlog, als de rest van Nederland onder de keukentafel zou zitten te schuilen voor de H-Bom. Toen de atoomvrije vesting definitief overbodig…
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