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The uncomfortable truth of the paraglider. What I took away from the opening performance of @tfboulevard

About 18 years ago, while on holiday in the Auvergne region, my wife and I picked up a paraglider that had ended up rather unhappily in a meadow full of indignant cows. We were happy to do something. The paraglider looked grateful, although he was a little worried about the car in which we were going to take him back to... 

Major concerns over fate of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov - eight weeks on hunger strike in Russian captivity

Human rights organisations from around the world and thousands of filmmakers and artists express support for Oleg Sentsov, sentenced to 20 years by Russia. This Ukrainian filmmaker has been on hunger strike since 14 May. His life is in serious danger, according to the European Film Academy.

Swinging parachutes and twitching muscles at Playful Arts Festival: 'If the visitor does nothing, the work does not exist'

Occasionally it chafes at Playful Arts, an intimate festival that brings play and art together. It's all about interaction, doing it yourself, experiencing it. Some visitors have to cross a threshold. But then something does happen. Those dancers must be in really good shape," I hear someone behind me mutter reverently. On the other side of the street, a man points to... 

Ruth Mackenzie's latest Holland Festival promises to be just one of the most exciting

Here it is. The one and only interactive Culture Press Holland Festival Special. A special that has already been deployed over the past few months, and will be added to in the coming month. During the festival, we have regular reviews and reports, and podcasts. A new edition of this Special will appear every week. On Mondays. And then you can also subscribe via... 

La clemenza di Tito: scorching performance by Teodor Currentzis & musicAeterna

Classical music matters again. - At least if we judge by the protests against the Stockhausen project and the fierce polemics about opera directors' interventions. Teodor Currentzis and Peter Sellars' La clemenza Di Tito, for instance, caused controversy even before its Dutch premiere. They deleted the interminable recitatives and added music from Mozart's Mass in... 

'Saigon' director (@hollandfestival) seeks extreme emotions: 'I don't want any more distance between the story and the audience.'

'Never, never would I make a performance about my mother, or about myself. Jamais.' Caroline Guiela Nguyen, child of 'a marriage between a Vietnamese mother and a 'pied-noir' (Algerian colonial) is not into personal stories. The theatre-maker captured audiences' hearts at last year's Avignon Festival with the play Saigon. This moving, deeply human play... 

Fanny Mendelssohn: in the shadow of Felix

Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847) was the four-year older sister of Felix Mendelssohn. They both received a solid musical education, with her surpassing him in virtuosity at the piano. Her relationship with Felix was intense, but also suffocating. At his hands, Fanny Mendelssohn failed to build an independent career as a composer. To this day 

Whether thriller writer Tomas Ross (73) has now mastered writing after dozens of books? 'Sometimes I shudder at my own sentences'

Tomas Ross, also called the godfather of Dutch 'faction', concludes his trilogy on the Dutch East Indies with his new thriller Het verdriet van Wilhelmina. ,,Readers often say: with you, we never know what is true and what is false. You might find that an objection, but I think it's a compliment.'' Arnie Springer The new thriller by Tomas... 

Why it is good that the Holland Festival is putting the focus on Africa, rather than opting for a single artistic director.

Faustin Linyekula. Foto door: Joe Mabel [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia CommonsWilliam Kentridge en Faustin Linyekula. Onthoud die namen, als je niet al kende, want ze gaan het komende jaar het gezicht van Nederland mede bepalen. Ze zijn door het Holland Festival aangesteld als ‘associate artist’. Hiermee zet het festival het fenomeen ‘artistiek leider’ buiten de deur. Een… 

Leila Slimani and Fatma Aydemir: two young writers who are really changing my view of the world. You can meet them at Winternachten 2018

Tijdens de komende editie van Writers Unlimited/Winternachten in Den Haag komen twee schrijfsters langs die met hun werk en hun succes voor spannend nieuws zorgen. Fatma Aydemir, journaliste uit Berlijn, schreef met ‘Ellebogen’ een schurend debuut over een Turkse meid die wat minder goed op haar toekomst voorbereid is dan iedereen zou willen. De Parijse auteur Leila Slimani won in… 

Aribert Reimann: 'I cherish both musical tradition and modern developments'

Despite his advanced age, German composer Aribert Reimann (1936) is still very active. In October 2017, his opera L'invisible had its world premiere at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, based on a play by Maeterlinck. On 14 December, the first performance of his cycle Die schönen Augen der Frühlingsnacht will already be heard at Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. He composed it for soprano Mojca Erdmann and... 

Witte Corneliszoon De With. Schilderij van Abraham van Westerveld

Why it makes sense for Witte de With to be renamed

Goede timing blijft altijd lastig. Net nu de middenstand klaar staat voor het Sinterklaasseizoen maakt de Raad van Toezicht van Kunstencentrum Witte de With bekend dat de naam gaat veranderen. Die naam kwam ter discussie te staan in de golf van publieke opwinding over appropriatie, unionistische beelden en genoegdoening voor het slavernijverleden van Nederland. In eerste instantie leek het te… 

Why it's good that the Holland Festival gets this general manager #HF17

Annet Lekkerkerker is one of the few women in the cultural sector for whom the glass ceiling is no longer an obstacle. That she is now, after several years as 'business director', formally becoming top woman of the country's most important performing arts festival is wonderful for more reasons. She is not only the first woman at that high position. Her appointment also makes clear why... 

Forbidden Music Regained: web archive of persecuted composers

On Wednesday 20 June, Kajsa Ollongren launched the Forbidden Music Regained website at the Uilenburgersjoel in Amsterdam. The capital's deputy mayor and alderman for culture quoted astronaut Neil Armstrong, calling the project 'a giant step for mankind'. She continued, "The website is also important for the city of Amsterdam, because we cannot and must not forget what happened in our city seventy years ago. 

Dries Verhoeven's Phobiarama is a pointless machine #HF17

I went to Amsterdam to face my social anxieties on the once infamous Mercatorplein. I saw a sunny square with a trendy bar and bakfiets mothers around a play fountain for white children (brrrr! gentrification), old veiled and un veiled women chatting on a bench (help! multiculture) and a performance in a converted bumper car tent (Waaaah! Holland Festival). What I didn't... 

Boris Charmatz

Danse de Nuit in the Bijlmer: 'Of course we want to influence public space' #HF17

Boris Charmatz has been a guest at many editions of the Holland Festival with impressive, provocative, socially engaged, finely composed and conceptually strong dance performances: Aatt enen tionon and Con forts fleuve (both in 2001); 50 years of dance (2010), Enfant (2011) and Manger (2015). His latest choreography, danse de nuit, premiered in Geneva last September. During the Holland Festival... 

Mira Feticu interviews Mircea Cărtărescu: 'My readers deserve a medal'

Earlier this year, Mircea Cărtărescu, Romania's greatest writer, was a guest at the Winternachten festival. Writer Mira Feticu, who was born and grew up in Romania and even received lectures from Cărtărescu as a student, interviewed her former compatriot and professor for A Quattro Mani. A beautiful conversation about their homeland, truth, literature and poetry. 'My books are... 

View on the Acropolis and Partheon, Athens (photo author)

Documenta 14: You have 100 days to discover Athens

Every five years, the art world turns upside down. Then it is time for the fourteenth Documenta. At that time, the German city of Kassel turns into a veritable Mecca for art connoisseurs and art lovers, snobs and connoisseurs. And, of course, tourists looking for that other Efteling. This year's Documenta has a sizeable Dutch contribution. But there is more: for the... 

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