How to visit an art museum? Johan Idema, consultant, cultural entrepreneur and advocate of innovation in the art world, has written a book about it: 'How to visit an art museum'. He thinks there is room for improvement and change. And that after reading his book, people will experience their museum visits differently and especially better. And of course: that museums will also have the...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Just one more point. Then we're almost through.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Continue quietly, we have until half past five.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'We have a problem with real estate. A lot of inner cities are empty. Shop premises are empty, downtown office buildings are unrentable. What do the municipalities say? Put artists in them. Cost nothing, because for free rent they do...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Now on the role of cities. One of the reactions on our site is about the role of the randstad in cultural policy. Melle Daamen puts the primacy in the randstad, and goes further than the council in this.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'The council has no position yet.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'But there is something in the Culture Outlook. Cities form...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Next hot issue. Copyright is mentioned in a few passages of the Cultural Exploration. I am also affected by that in various ways. There is, of course, that new author's contract law, which is going to be discussed in the chamber one day, maybe. Nice about that is that the creator's position in that law has been strengthened.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Rightly so.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'But.
Hooray! We have a new name. Nederlands Symfonieorkest was not allowed, *****Orkest everyone thought was a joke and reverting to the perfect name Orkest van het Oosten is not possible, because loss of face. What then?
Wijbrand Schaap: 'There has been much talk about the change in Council attitudes under your leadership. After the confrontation course under your predecessor Els Swaab, you seemed appointed by Halbe Zijlstra to act as a kind of applause machine.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'I was not hired by Halbe Zijlstra, I was appointed by the queen. Isn't that nice?...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'When it comes to talent development and embedding in society, it is also very much about the absolute basics. It also touches on the minister's two functions: education and culture. Arts education in primary schools does not really help embedding. No attention has been paid to art in the pedagogical academies for years....
Amy Tan - a guest at the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam - personally introduced her new book to Dutch audiences this week: Valley of wonder. She gave a very personal lecture at the Amstelkerk on the difficult lives of her mother and grandmother in ancient China before the great agitator Mao. The setting: early 20th century...
This Friday break on Radio Futura members of Dood Paard and tg STAN are pondering what art is, and how much it should cost.
More than a century we had to wait, but at last Arnold Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder also to be seen. Surprisingly, it is not. Reportedly, the composer was against it, as it concerns a cantata. However, director Pierre Audi and conductor Marc Albrecht show very convincingly with this scenic world premiere that Gurre-Lieder hid an opera that yearned for the stage light.
On the phone, it takes some getting used to. 'Good morning, Holland Symfonia speaking,' you hear as you listen to the orchestra in the Amsterdam Q-factory studios calls. But that's not the orchestra's name at all. In fact, Holland Symfonia has a new name: The Ballet Orchestra.
Art has rapidly become unimportant. Artists have been effectively dismissed by populists as subsidy-addicted scum. Media leaves no opportunity to downplay the consequences of the ensuing cuts. Putin is about to bring a third world war to Europe. In Amsterdam on Saturday, September 6, three of the Netherlands' last daily newspaper critics talk to artists about...
By Melle Daamen 'What do you want then?' was a question I received quite often in response to my articles last year in NRC, in which I expressed my concerns about the state of the arts in the Netherlands and especially its future. I argued for a fundamental debate from within the arts sector itself, focusing on the future, including...
I published two articles in NRC Handelsblad last year. The first (6 July 2013) was critical of government policy. There was little reaction to this. The second article (7 December 2013) was critical of the arts sector: it needs to make its own sharp choices. That did cause a stir, although I am convinced that many colleagues largely agree with the content...
Since the Amsterdam Uitmarkt is no longer run by the Uitburo but by a separate foundation, things have become a tad more commercial. The folder-fair-with-bands that has become the national opening of the cultural season over the past decades has to. The government has found art scary for a while now, usual suspects are pulling out as sponsors, and malaise is hitting...
Declining visitor numbers, shrinking subsidies, impoverished programming: most Dutch theatres are struggling, research by NRC Handelsblad recently showed. Theatres welcomed 12 million visitors in 2012, according to NRC figures, a quarter less than in 2008. Festivals, on the other hand, are on the rise. More and more are being organised, and they are attracting more and more people - in total...
In various studios around the country, for almost a year, many boys took dance classes at the Billy Elliot sCOOL to qualify for one of the most coveted roles on the dance stage: Billy Elliot. Eventually, these participants were brought together for lessons at Stage Entertainment's beautiful new building at Zuidas in Amsterdam. Under the watchful eye of admirer Joop van den Ende, six young dancers were eventually selected by professionals from England, among others. Vanafrom 4 November in Scheveningen in the compelling ballet musical Billy Elliot with music by Elton John.
This is startling. On Friday, De Volkskrant reported that prices for cultural activities in Amsterdam have risen by a whopping 37.3% since 2009. Nu.nl picks it up immediately, soon followed by TROS Radar. Then it must be true. The news taken over unquestioningly by everyone refers to a report on the BBC site. That post...
There is a world outside Amsterdam. There is culture there too. High-quality even. And of course, Amsterdammers know that too. After all, that whole world comes to Amsterdam every year for the Holland Festival, and if it were up to the director of the Amsterdam Stadsschouwburg Melle Daamen, a lot more would come from abroad. Ballet, for example. Our national...
The 300-strong audience stood up as one after Leonard Bernstein's infectious performance of Candide at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam last night. The performance of this 'pocket version' of Bernstein's cheerful musical/opera about the incorrigible optimist Candide, produced by the Nationale Reisopera, took place indoors, in the hotel's ballroom, due to the weather conditions. After all, the Grachtenfestival has to be...
John Jansen is squatting in front of his immense printer. Holding his breath, he very carefully places a piece of paper in just the right place. The inlay for the black metal band's new cassette Northward. Black typography on black board. Monk's work. He sighs with relief. "And so I have to do 88 of those. All by hand. Do you understand how many hours go into a tape like that?"
The great theatre maker Johan Simons has made it known that he wants to come to Rotterdam, to set up a major European theatre. He sees his chance now that a spot will become available in two years' time in the artistic direction of the Maasstad's city theatre company, the ro theatre. When they appoint Simons, they can think big, Simons says. And.
He is the greatest director in the Netherlands. But also the least honourable theatre-maker we know: Johan Simons. The man whose star has been rising since the 1980s is now in Munich. But he is not staying there. After putting the local company Kammerspiele even more firmly on the map internationally, he is looking for new challenges. Den Bosch earlier reported...
It is the most ambitious summer festival in the Netherlands: Festival Boulevard in Den Bosch aims to showcase not only the finest theatre theatre theatre in the low countries, but also the fattest shows, and youngest new creators and the merriest bus drivers. And all that in 10 days, in once tad where the local newspaper does its best to promote culture as scary as possible to make. We briefly summarise it for you in eight enticing words.
He could have become an important director, but was at the wrong time, in the wrong place. In the end, his illness fatally bothered Matthias Mooij. Yesterday, this still young theatre-maker died of lung cancer, more than a year and a half after the premiere of his first large-venue production: Mogadishu. With that performance, of a play written by the English writer Vivienne Franzmann, Mooij put a new tone in the theatre: no longer did he fall back on theatre-familiar, mainly German and Austrian repertoire, opting instead for British authors.
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