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DUS retains grant, leadership leaves

The Netherlands' most remarkable company when it comes to handling grant money has been saved. The Theatre newspaper reports that the central government has agreed to the new adjusted budget, which had to be prepared after earlier this year a loss of over 2 million euros had arisen. So the company keeps the one and a half million euros and artistic director Jos Thie and his business partner Jelle Snijder are chased out of the city with pitch and feathers, where they can join the Supervisory Board that had already turned a little too blind eye. After all, putting in an overpriced production to make up for the deficit from an earlier run of that same overpriced production: no entrepreneur would ever allow that.

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Art for all: €3 per person, per month

The discussion was and is endless, but now we have figures. Thanks to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science's new 'key figures', we now know how much the state (all of us) are spending for the opportunity to experience art: per inhabitant, the state spends 38.90 per year on subsidies for dance, theatre, museums, youth theatre, opera and orchestras. So that's just over 3 euros a month. Indeed something to get into each other's hair about, we think.

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New impetus by young dance talent at PUNCH! Festival

PUNCH! is a fantastic festival. It shows how much beauty, news and surprise is created when the line between dance and performance is dissolved. PUNCH! promotes a refreshing view of the world and shakes loose entrenched interpretations. The young dance makers and performers show tremendous originality and creativity that you will not only enjoy watching, you will go... 

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Nederlands Kamerkoor 75 years young

Amsterdam, 10-10-2012 - Already last summer, the Dutch Chamber Choir (NKK) through our country, working with amateur choirs at surprise station concerts to draw the general public's attention to its seventy-fifth anniversary. In the coming weeks, this anniversary will be celebrated with a series of concerts in seven different cities, under the recruiting title 'A tradition of renewal'.

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Marion von Tilzer wins Women's Composition Prize MCN with Rote Schuhe

Amsterdam, 8 October 2012 During the well-attended Classical Music Day at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ the prize winners of the competition for women composers were announced this afternoon. The day was organised for the 11th time by Music centre Netherlands (MCN), which will cease to exist on 1 January. Thanks to an anonymous bequest, explicitly intended for women composers, three prizes could be awarded.

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Archives Wim Kan and Louis Davids not in dumpster

The Theatre Museum's entire collection has been saved. The archives of luminaries such as Wim Kan and Louis Davids, as well as 50,000 theatre reviews, 30,000 theatre posters, 146,000 photographs of 22,000 performances, 26,000 portrait photographs of 2,450 theatre-makers and an extensive audio and video collection will be housed at the University of Amsterdam.The move is possible now that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), with the ever-money-hungry State Secretary for Culture Halbe Zijlstra, is no longer seizing the reserves of the Theater Instituut Nederland (TIN).

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Artists paint artists in 'We, the Artists'

Unruly Gallery, a tiny underground art gallery on Amsterdam's Cliffordstraat, presents the group exhibition We, the Artists. Featuring portraits of artists created by other artists. How self-referential do you want it to be? Very worthwhile nonetheless. Unruly Gallery is one of the few artist-run galleries in Amsterdam with a refreshing do-it-yourself attitude. The gallery was set up by Niels Meulman and Adele... 

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Der Schatzgräber II: Van Hove exposes core and weaknesses

"That fairytale world has never been my world," director Ivo van Hove declared before the premiere of Schreker's fairytale opera Der Schatzgräber. Remarkable, as Van Hove and his regular scenographer Jan Versweyveld were previously responsible at De Nederlandse Opera for Tchaikovsky's Iolanta and Janáček's The Makropulos case - also fairy tales rather than grand dramatic works.

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Order of the Day renews theatre

I did it just like that. Proclaimed a show as the most important theatre innovation for 20 years. That's daring. Even though I made the term a bit more vague in a subsequent tweet, because, yes, there has been quite a lot of innovation in recent years, left and right in theatres. So let's stick to 'the last few years'. And then... 

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Eric de Vroedt: 'Eventually reached Obama too'

Winning two awards in one weekend, that doesn't often happen to a person, not even in the award-winning art world. Eric de Vroedt is a theatre-maker and writer who did happen to one. Entering his final season 'MightySociety' he got the Amsterdam Prize (35,000 euros) and the Prize of Criticism (a statuette), determined by a jury of newspaper reviewers.

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Halbe Zijlstra: 'nothing to do with local arts policy'

Halbe Zijlstra is proud of his policy, and keen to come and tell it in front of the entire cultural sector. So on Sunday 26 August, he appeared on stage during the annual 'Paradiso Debate' to reiterate how well things had gone with the 200 million cut in the arts sector. He praised the resilience of the affected art world, and would be happy to do the same again.

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Volkskrant fails: not 'region' but Randstad suffers

I would like to take a moment to put this one to you. Quote from this morning's volkskrant, where editor Harmen Bockma makes a valiant attempt to list all the figures of culture carnage, but fails a little in doing so. It also remains difficult to identify the breakdown in the basic infrastructure add to the dropout at the fund, but it is proving altogether difficult to discern what

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Baldwin Live

On Wednesday 1 August 2012, the Performing Arts Fund will announce the results of the lottery that granting arts subsidies has now become. Huge cuts are looming: companies and creators that by now seemed to be a permanent part of the Dutch arts landscape will disappear. Exactly what it will look like, we know

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Paradiso full of dance energy at I Like To Watch Too

I Like To Watch Too: abundance of performances shows that dance and performance are powerfully connected to modern society. The dance moves rain down on you even before you have entered Paradiso. Tim Boerlijst tap-dances on the pavement. This infectious welcome immediately draws visitors into the atmosphere of 'I Like To Watch Too'. This festival showcases dance and performance from... 

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Of course the thunderstorm is not too bad. But follow developments here in case it does go wrong. #hf12

For the second time this month, the weather gods are threatening to throw a spanner in the works at the Holland Festival. While the storms announced on 21 June were not too bad, for tonight, 28 June, a 'code red' is currently (10:45) threatened to be issued by the emergency services.

Read More "Of course the thunderstorm is not too bad. But follow developments here in case it does go wrong. #hf12

Theatre Museum collection to be lost for good

[July update: the 2nd chamber passed a motion instructing the cabinet to save the collection from destruction. Where this is to be paid for, however, is still unclear]

It is now becoming clear where the laissez faire-laissez mourir (let it be done, let it die) policy of Halbe Zijlstra, Martin Bosma and Mark Rutte will lead. Of the dozens of institutions that will close, downsize or die off in the coming months due to vacancy of quality staff, the demise of Theatre Institute of the Netherlands (TIN) is starting to take on very tragic proportions.

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Without electric guitars, Bryce Dessner's orchestral music sounds best; Greenwood's 'There Will Be Blood' a highlight of #HF12

It is not usual, but it must be said: the Amsterdam Symfonietta is a tremendously beautiful ensemble. The musicians all look beautiful, they handle their instruments beautifully and they play beautifully. They look alert, active. That helps with being liked, we all know, and that active look is down to their formula: they usually play without a conductor and so have to be incredibly attentive to what is going on around them. Looking dully at the conductor makes you ugly.

Read More "Without electric guitars, Bryce Dessner's orchestral music sounds best; Greenwood's 'There Will Be Blood' a highlight of #HF12

#hf12 Shara Worden speaks about All Things Will Unwind. And sings a new song

Multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Shara Worden - also known as My Brightest Diamond - is waiting for me, armed with her ukulele. Just before the interview, she wrote a new song. Worden laughs: "There are way too many videos on the internet of me playing the same songs over and over. I thought I should try something new." The Dodo was there... 

Read More "#hf12 Shara Worden speaks about All Things Will Unwind. And sings a new song

Iván Fischer sets new Wagner standard

That Pierre Audi does not shy away from religious symbolism is well known, but the true miracle in The Netherlands Opera's Parsifal is in the pit. There, in the hands of master conductor Iván Fischer, the Concertgebouw Orchestra sets a new Wagner standard. Despite a gigantic orchestral strength, almost chamber music-like lightness, extraordinarily transparent and, thanks to careful tempo choices, with wonderful dramatic tension. Five hours long.

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'I have all of Shakespeare's records in my cupboard'

The press presentation of the open-air opera Orfeo ed Eurydice at Soestdijk at the time attracted just under a hundred people press and sponsors. At the presentation of the performance 'Much ado about nothing', The Utrecht Games attracted only a handful: someone from weblog cultuurpodium.nl, two people from the Stadsblad Utrecht and an indeterminate camera crew who had come exclusively for Suzan Visser.... 

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How a Martian looks at opera

Or: the familiar becomes utterly alien here. Or: embracing meaninglessness as the first principle. One hundred years after his birth, John Cage takes centre stage in HF weekend.

Ever since Reinbert de Leeuw played it in the fastest talk show on Dutch television, John Cage's 4'33" has been a well-known composition in our country. For exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, the musician does not play a single note and the audience hears nothing but the ambient sounds.

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Fedja van Huet's lost dinner jacket and other Toneelgroep Amsterdam mysteries #HF12

Anyone who might think that making a stage show is a simple one-two punch of a genius director with a good team of creatives and perfect actors is wrong. Only, as a spectator once attending the performance, you don't notice any of that. And that is just as well. You come for the performance and you won't care if... 

Read More "Fedja van Huet's lost dinner jacket and other Toneelgroep Amsterdam mysteries #HF12

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