We are now a good month after the start of the intelligent lockdown. Slowly, a new normal is beginning to emerge, where we are no longer exclusively fanatically following all the tweets about corona. The concerns are still there and certainly where the cultural sector is concerned. The entire sector, nationally and internationally, is engaged in the titanic task of keeping the public...
The Holland Festival wishes you a happy 2020! The full programme of the 73rd festival edition will be announced on 11 February. You can already order tickets for the five productions below. Also in this newsletter: vacancies for a head of operations/controller, an employee development and interns for the communication & marketing and production departments; and aus LICHT named Opera of the Year 2019....
Anthony and Cleopatra is exactly the kind of repertory piece that people look forward to during the Holland Festival, or any other prestigious stage. Director and writer Tiago Rodrigues manages not so much to deflate that grandiose expectation as to reduce it to the intimacy of a duet and a play with extremely basic theatrical gestures. His two actors are dancers, an experienced choreographer duo
Peaks and valleys right from the opening night of CaDance, the festival of contemporary dance. From toe-curlingly long dance to sky-high drama. Highlights: dancer Sammie Hermans and the entire Mom:Me. Crushing New artistic director Stacz Wilhelm, in the presence of the minister during his opening speech, names the harsh years of austerity since 2013. The so-called obviousness of art he wants to...
Neues Stück 1 Seit sie - Ein Stück von Dimitris Papaioannou is a long title for an overwhelming piece, which Tanztheater Wuppertal is bringing to the Holland Festival this year. Nine years ago, on 30 June 2009, a month before she was to turn sixty-nine, Pina Bausch died suddenly. The world-famous and highly influential choreographer of experimental, haunting and unparalleled dance theatre left behind a...
'Many people find contemporary dance difficult. Especially performances by young makers who experiment and seek new ways. At the Moving Futures festival, everyone can discover how dance can touch you. We do this not only by showing good performances by young makers. We also offer activities around it, context programmes. By doing so, we give the audience tools to make a connection with...
In contemporary dance, artistic leaders are often in place for decades, at least in the Netherlands. This week, Leo Spreksel announced his departure from Korzo, as of September 2017. After 29 years, the director and programmer of dance at the theatre and production house in The Hague is calling it a day, because "in the Netherlands, commercialisation pushes away the voice of artists: procedures and formats are...
It is a new and important trend within the programming of international dance and performance festivals in the Netherlands: not only showing relevant work by international choreographers, but also paying explicit attention to dance makers connected to Dutch dance practice. Spring Utrecht opened in May with Nicole Beutler and closed with Jan Martens, while during Julidans Pere Faura was allowed to kick off with sin baile no hay paraíso (no dance, no paradise).
Tongue kissing, pole dancing, strap-on dildos and anal penetration I don't usually associate with the art of dance and don't expect in a city theatre, but for Florentina Holzinger and Vincent Riebeek nothing seems too crazy. "Europe's most provocative performance duo" - in the words of Rainer Hofmann, artistic director of Spring festival - allowed themselves to be cast for 'Schönheitsabend' inspired by their predecessors, who reinvented dance with taboo-breaking choreographies in the early 20th century. In three acts, Holzinger and Riebeek present themselves as continuers of that tradition, exploring the boundaries of theatre.
Choreographer Jan Martens' new performance, The Common People, is on show in Utrecht this weekend during Spring. Dozens of volunteer performers have a blind date on the stage of the Stadsschouwburg's main auditorium. The audience can walk in and out between performances, drink a beer for the duration of one or more duets or browse on the back stage and...
How do you get children moving? How do you stimulate their creativity? How do children learn to dance if they have little experience with dance, or other expressive artistic expressions? ICKamsterdam is developing a toolkit for dance teachers in primary education: Sensorium. By stimulating the various senses - eyes, ears, touch and nose - the body is invited to respond with movement. I am in a...
Last weekend's workshop The Relevance of Dance, organised by Dansmakers Amsterdam and the European Dance House Network, sought to answer the question: What is the relevance of contemporary dance art for audiences? Suzy Blok, general director of Dansmakers Amsterdam, opened the atelier by talking about the desire of production houses to bring dance more to the...
Manger, the new performance by Boris Charmatz and Musée de la Danse, gives spectators all the space they need. Where you line up to watch or just to listen, who or what you watch and for how long, is up to you. The Purification Hall on the Westergasfabriek site, majestically empty and echoing, creates a wondrous atmosphere in this for Charmatz'...
Festival Rumor 80, an irregular regular in Utrecht at three different locations each time, will show choreographer Marc Vanrunxt's new work Real, So Real this Friday at Theater Kikker. Starting point is Three Voices, a 1982 composition by Morton Feldman. A wonderful Flemish collaboration by Kunst/Werk and ChampdAction. Dancer Marie De Corte and singer Els Mondelaers shine in Real, So Real. The...
Contemporary choreographer Sibi Larbi becomes the new director of Ballet Flanders in Antwerp. A striking and unorthodox choice. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, meanwhile, may stay away from De Munt in Brussels. What's up Belgium?
One of the rules of thumb of contemporary theatre art reads as follows: There is no middle ground in a production with an insanely long title. Such a production is either fantastic or dies of its own pretensions. At Judson church is ringing in Harlem (made to measure) / twenty looks of paris is burning at the judson church (m2m) is the latter.
It seems like a statement, opening the latest Holland Festival under Pierre Audi's direction with 'Vortex Temporum'. The collaboration between the two top Belgian ensembles Rosas and Ictus does everything that is scarce in the present day.
A gala should be festive. So the Ballet Gala of Dancers' Fund '79 Foundation celebrates. On Monday 20 January 2014, the fund's 17th gala took place at the DeLaMar theatre in Amsterdam, Joop van den Ende's glamorous stronghold.
A few tips for a successful gala.
Two men are sitting together at a table eating spaghetti. One is wolfing down the plate of pasta in no time, while at the same time telling an amusing anecdote - just barely intelligible - with fierce gestures and self-righteous grunts. The other, an elderly guy, is totally ignored. Despite frantic attempts, the poor man just cannot manage to...
Maniacally, she gallops across the stage, stomping like Michael Flatley on crack. Gravely thin and bare-chested, Marlene Monteiro Freitas tap-dances around. She squeezes her tits and pulls handfuls of (fake) hair from her scalp. "My name is Mimosa Ferrara," she panted menacingly, as her black leggings sag off her ass and linger just above the pubic area....
With two performances, "The Toxic Exotic Disappearance Act" and "House", Batsheva Dance Company shows impressive, sublime dance mastery and fresh dynamics. But also restlessness, searching and confusion. The era of happy, harmonious dance is over. A lecture on dance, prior to the performance, emphasises that contemporary dance need not compulsively oppose other dance movements. This artistic...
This year, the Holland Festival brings the extraordinary French-Algerian co-production Nya, which combines achievements of modern and classical dance with hip-hop and, in addition, Ravel's Bolero sounds alongside Houria Aïchi's Algerian evergreens.
Her full thighs clatter together. She shakes her bare arms, grinning at the trembling skin on her upper arms. She stomps furiously across the Theatre Kikker's playing floor, while her hefty body - dressed in a small, nondisguising black dress - emphatically bounces happily on all sides. You just have to dare. In her one-woman show 'Gina', Swiss theatre maker Eugénie Rebetez beyond all embarrassment. In the skin of Gina, Rebetez shows her own yearning for stardom, with plenty of self-mockery and absurdist humour. A quirky mishmash of mime, stand-up comedy, cabaret and contemporary dance.
On Thursday 14 April, the Springdance festival 2011 opens with the opening performance Sideways Rain by choreographer Guilherme Botelho and his company Alias in the Stadsschouwburg Utrecht. Springdance 2011 presents innovative and high-profile contemporary dance from around the world. Besides many premieres, the festival has an extensive fringe programme including street performances, lectures, an introduction to contemporary dance for those starting...
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