Moments for yourself
Major Eddy Posthuma de Boer exhibition at Berlin's Museum für Kommunikation proves major crowd puller
Berlin
Nora Krug's visual stories on Ukraine bundled: 'Not just standing idly by'
Heartbreaking diary entries from the Ukraine war formed the basis for Nora Krug's new book. 'The drawn image has the power to provide a different perspective on reality.'
On mothers, men and children: Rineke Dijkstra 'back in Berlin' with exhibitions at two locations
The Berlinische Galerie is hosting a major exhibition by Rineke Dijkstra. It portrays her as a photographer who looks beyond the times. For her personally, it is a return to Berlin, where she lived for two years at the invitation of the DAAD in the late 1990s.
Ben Okri in Berlin: "I can show you magic in a handful of earth."
With Ben Okri, the Internationales Literatur Festival Berlin (ILB) has brought in the grand master of contemporary literary storytelling. 'See the magic of things around you.'
Boulevard makes you feel what white balls cause #tfboulevard
White balls are quite in the news, lately. For instance, they molest compatriots as a holiday pastime. Or they shout 'Snollebollekes' at a black champion. So the fact that white balls can also be fine is news. You can experience it at Festival Boulevard, where in a small, narrow tent, thousands of white Styrofoam balls, driven by huge fans, give you a fine massage shower,...
Support for rapid test society pilots proves extremely shaky
'The task force is critical of the costs and the course of events surrounding the assignment to the Open Netherlands Foundation. Parliamentary questions have now been asked about this; we await the minister's answers to these.' So it is somewhere at the bottom of Kunsten'92's weekly update, but it is clear. That whole pilot with quick tests evokes rather mixed feelings. The interest group...
Theatre of Concordia, at home on the tube
With the lockdown in full swing and the curfew shackling us to our homes, the theatre performances at Concordia Film | Theatre | Visual Arts in Enschede continue as usual. With no less than three diverse, musical performances in the coming week that can be followed via a livestream, so you can still get your much-needed dose of culture.
Mistake BNR. Germany does not do more for the arts than the Netherlands. They just sell it better.
Germany has 80 million people, the Netherlands 17 million, so we can multiply the Dutch aid by five if we want to test the German claim. Still, we arrive at an amount three times higher.
Gisèle Vienne and Ryuichi Sakamoto associate artists for Holland Festival 2021
French-Austrian theatre maker Gisèle Vienne (1976) and Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952) have been appointed associate artists for the 2021 Holland Festival.
Greg Nottrot offers vision of a new future for theatre at the time of Corona with 'Graves'
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...
Film tip this week: Festival of short film Go Short goes online
The short film is the poetry of cinema. This statement by a Berlinale programmer is cited with approval by Go Short. This internationally highly regarded festival for short films - stepping stone for the Oscar and other awards - was supposed to have taken place in Nijmegen in early April. But, unsurprisingly, corona drew a line under it....
Divided loyalties, racism and a split house in HBO's The Plot Against America
I had the chance to attend the 500th anniversary - it took place at the beautiful Teatro La Fenice - of the first Jewish ghetto during my visit to Venice in 2016. One of the speakers was historian Simon Schama. During his lecture, I was given a brief history of Jewish suffering in Italy. According to...
70th Berlinale, under new direction, opens with My Salinger Year and commemorates Hanau victims
"We are hopeful," is the reply when I speak to a colleague just before the start of the Berlin film festival. For curious as to how the choice of Carlo Chatrian as the new artistic director has fallen among German critics. Chatrian, previously director of the leading arthouse festival in Locarno, lies well, I understand. Whether this 70th Berlinale will see all that new momentum...
Why I hope to meet those youngsters from that particular reading club here: Olga Neuwirth composes soundtrack to Die Stadt ohne Juden
Emerging fascism is becoming increasingly parlous. Especially among young people, I discovered recently at a concert by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra at the Concertgebouw. A reading club of twenty-somethings said they enjoyed James MacMillan's Second Percussion Concerto. They joined me in denouncing the draconian cuts to culture. But suddenly it sounded carefree: 'We are all voting for Thierry.' When I was dismayed...
If no one comes up with a Plan B...
On 23 October, website Theaterkrant.nl wrote a piece on the future of the performing arts. A future that is black and gloomy when you, as a creator, count on growth, or even survival at all. In short: so much money is going away from the Performing Arts Fund, that from next year only between 50 and 60 applications can be honoured, in...
Dutch youth film in dire straits too? Plenty to talk about during the Cinekid festival
The Cinekid youth film festival opens this week with Binti, a catchy, highly topical youth film brimming with optimism. That sounds good, because optimism is what the Dutch youth film can use right now. Too bad, then, that Binti, about a girl from Congo who does everything in her power to be allowed to stay in Belgium with her father, is a largely Belgian production....
Why youth is the future and fake art does not lead to real art at Theatre Festival Boulevard.
Bossche Theatre Artemis is, after International Theatre Amsterdam, the best theatre company in the Netherlands. The company owes this to an illustrious past (Pauline Mol!!) and to Jetse Batelaan. This director recently received the prestigious Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale for his disruptive oeuvre. This consists largely of performances in which children take power, without...
The Netherlands' Flemishest festival. Theatre festival Boulevard sees artists searching for a way forward
'As programmers, we are more often in Ghent than in Amsterdam,' says Viktorien van Hulst, director of Theatre Festival Boulevard. The Bossche arts festival, which this year takes place from 1 to 11 August under the Sint Jan and at unexpected locations around the North Brabant capital, has for years stood out for its close ties with our southern neighbours. 'The Dionysian artists are sitting...
Colonisation is not a relationship. But we still need to establish that relationship, this Holland Festival showed.
Post-colonial criticism and reflection ran like a thread through this year's Holland Festival programme. Not only William Kentrigde and Faustin Linyekula, the associate artists with whom the festival's programmers collaborated, their work addresses the devastating effects of centuries of Western European trade and commerce. In reframing political and social history and reclaiming...
'Congo' is another highlight of one of the most meaningful Holland Festivals in years.
'I think they understood.' Faustin Linyekula says it, very quietly, a little apologetically almost, to his fellow actor at the end of the performance Congo. A slightly relieved laugh can be heard in the main auditorium of Frascati, where Princess Beatrix is also seated. Shortly before, Daddy Moanda Kamono had erupted in an increasingly desperate tirade against our shared past....
'There's a limit to crowdfunding, you can only do it twice' - Growing pains of the dance film, part 2
The dance film occupies a unique place among the film offerings. Not driven purely by psychologising or text, it offers every opportunity for experimentation in form and content. But that also means it is difficult to place. And therefore difficult to make. The second part on the growing pains of the dance film features 2 dancers and performance artist....
'I now understand how complex "guilt" actually is': Takis Würger wrote novel about Jewish betrayer (and put his email address in it).
'That I have perpetrators in my family gives me the responsibility to keep remembering. Many of my contemporaries say we should never forget and that it should never happen again, but do nothing else. Being a writer gives me the opportunity to do something. To write about it, make readers feel...
After 'Prey', 'The Conductor' also goes to China
After the Dutch thriller Prooi, The Conductor has also been acquired for release in Chinese cinema.
'For a long time, history has mainly been presented from a male perspective.'
Her debut novel became an instant bestseller in Spain. The Last Gift of Paulina Hoffmann by Carmen Romero Dorr is a novel based partly on her own family history about Paulina, who emigrates from Germany to Spain as a young girl because of World War II. 'About her past, her experiences during the war, my grandmother never wanted to talk.' A beautiful family epic, that is The Last...
'Look, there's someone letting his pineapple out!' How journalist Lex Boon fell in love with the queen of fruits
Everyone has seen them before, those pineapple plants from Ikea. Many people keep them in the room for a while, until they die and end up in the dustbin. But for journalist Lex Boon (35), the moment he received such a plant as a gift from his (ex-)girlfriend was a turning point in his life. He became hooked on the crowned fruit and flew...
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