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Johan Simons to Ruhr, Rotterdam, Den Bosch, Vienna, Ghent. And Varik.

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... 

Meanwhile, the Manifesta continues as usual in Petersburg. Is that choice?

Ongeveer tegelijk met de trein van Donjetsk naar Charkov arriveerde gisteren een persbericht in mijn mailbox van de Manifesta. Onze culturele trots in Sint Petersburg.  Deze weken organiseert het Nederlandse festival een audiotour door Rimini Protokoll, het vermaarde sterk politieke gezelschap uit Duitsland. O. En, als derde item: er is vanavond een gesprek over wat de Biënnale vermag in tijden van politieke onrust.
In die aankondiging geen woord over het neerhalen van 298 vrije wereldburgers do...

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Ayn Rand was haunting Dutch theatre as early as 2006.

Ivo van Hove has not only a play made based on Ayn Roland's novel of ideas The Fountainhead. In 2006, the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam even wanted to base a whole new design of the theatre system on it. Eight years later, we can see that only the negative aspects of Van Hove's vision have been realised.

4 ways to quiet a room: Jelinek strikes at Holland Festival

This year's trip will go to India and Nepal. Because that seemed nice to him. Visitors to the Dutch premiere of Jelinek's Die Schutzbefohlene were looking forward to the summer. Next year they would visit a friend in Vietnam. Little hassle to get a visa. As a white European, the whole world is yours. You can go anywhere. The man did not realise how privileged he was.
Toen ging het zaallicht uit en stonden er op het toneel opeens allemaal mensen zonder een visum of een verblijfsvergunning....

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Johan Simons receives 150,000 euros: 'I thought, that must be for Elsie'

This year's Prince Bernhard Culture Fund Prize goes to Johan Simons. At the announcement, in a meadow below Utrecht, the director was surprised: he suspected the prize was meant for his wife, Elsie de Brauw, widely regarded as one of the best actresses in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Tom Waits exists thanks to Partch. 7 reasons to go see Delusion of the Fury. And listen.

'Harry Partch knew exactly what he was doing. He chose very specific bourbon bottles to fill in those 43 steps in the octave. So he made music that is very accessible, but also very elusive. And that's what good art should do.'

Director sues own orchestra to death

Het was groot nieuws. Het ene orkest legt beslag op de instrumenten van het andere. Alleen het klopt niet. Net zoals veel niet blijkt te kloppen in de brief van dirigent Jan Willem de Vriend in de Volkskrant van afgelopen donderdag.
Omdat wij de orkestenruzie tussen het Nederlands Philharmonisch en het Nederlands Symfonisch al een tijdje nauwgezet volgen, wisten wij al dat De Vriend met zijn uitspraak, dat het juridisch gezien nu 2-2 tussen beide orkesten stond, niet de waarheid sprak. Het staat...

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6 Reasons why Holland Festival 2014 will be the best ever. And War Horse.

 "The only one who still dares to go for the elite". On his way to the car park under the Passengers Terminal Amsterdam, the retired newspaper reviewer who once had a page on music sighed at the feeling of his part of society. It was after the press conference where the programme of Holland Festival 2014 was presented. He was talking, as we sank deeper and deeper, about Pierre Audi, the artistic director of that Holland Festival, who this year announced his last - and most glorious - programme ever.

The tough weather in hard figures - economic research Dutch film industry

Are these the figures that will make it clear to Minister Kamp that incentives for the film industry really need to happen? That hope could be heard during the discussion of a report by Oxford Economics implemented research to the economic position of the Dutch film and av industry.

Dutch Academy For Film - for a good story about Dutch cinema

De Nederlandse filmwereld is een nieuwe club rijker. Nederlandse filmmakers kunnen zich aansluiten bij de Dutch Academy For Film (DAFF). Met als doel, kort gezegd, de Nederlandse film beter voor het voetlicht te brengen. De DAFF werd op 24 juni van dit jaar opgericht naar voorbeeld van soortgelijke academies in bijvoorbeeld Engeland, Zweden, Denemarken en Duitsland. Een persconferentie op het Nederlands Film Festival was vandaag de gelegenheid er meer ruchtbaarheid aan te geven.
Waren er dan nog...

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Wagner in Düsseldorf: opera jewel or publicity stunt?

When both nu.co.uk, BBC news and virtually every German newspaper simultaneously cover an opera, something must be going on. And there is: Nazis! Wagner! Outraged spectators! More than that: doctors had to be called in!
Aanleiding: de nieuwe enscenering van Wagners Tannhäuser in Düsseldorf voor Opera am Rhein. Regisseur Burkhard Kosminski verplaatste de handeling van de Middeleeuwen naar de jaren veertig van de vorige eeuw. Niet wereldschokkend, maar hetgeen hij toonde...

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Wishful thinking in press and politics? "Culture subsidy saves Iceland's economy"

Het is al even hardnekkig als het bericht dat in Duitsland alles beter is. Geplaagde liefhebbers van cultuur die het opbreken van de status quo door het haatbeleid van Rutte I nog steeds (en terecht) verafschuwen, roepen dat vaak. We schreven al eerder dat het Duitse wonder op zijn minst tegenvalt, en moeten nu hier melden dat de boom van de creatieve sector in IJsland niet vanzelfsprekend de redding is van de IJslandse economie.
Bron van het succesverhaal is een nogal WC-eend-achtige situatie. ...

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Germany investing in culture? Not really.

Ook wij hebben het geretweet: “Duitsland verhoogt cultuursubsidie met 100 miljoen”. En we gaven zo voeding aan een halve waarheid. Die halve waarheid is, dat Duitsland een hemel is voor cultuurliefhebbers, een toevluchtsoord voor mensen die de kille bezuinigingen van de regeringen Rutte zat zijn. Duitsland lijkt misschien leuk, maar, zoals Volkskrant-correspondent Merlijn Schoonenboom in maart van dit jaar al opmerkte, er wordt daar minstens even hard bezuinigd als hier.
What went wrong?
Het ber...

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'Collective copyright abuse is global problem'

A while back, there was a fuss in the Netherlands about the BUMA, the club that collects copyrights for musicians and publishers. Money had been lost in speculation and a director was engaging in nepotism. These cases do not appear to be isolated. At least, they are also mentioned in an overview of all known cases of abuse of power and corruption at collecting societies worldwide.
Van Ghana en Nigeria tot Brazilië, China en, inderdaad, ook Nederland en Frankrijk: het ver...

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Eric de Vroedt: 'Eventually reached Obama too'

In één weekend twee prijzen winnen, dat overkomt een mens niet vaak, zelfs niet in de met prijsuitreikingen overladen kunstwereld. Eric de Vroedt is een theatermaker en schrijver die dat dus wel is overkomen. Bij het ingaan van zijn laatste seizoen 'MightySociety' kreeg hij de Amsterdam Prijs (35.000 euro) en de Prijs van de Kritiek (een beeldje), bepaald door een jury van dagbladrecensenten.
Hij spreekt in dit skype-interview over zijn drijfveren, en over hoe je met een voorstelling die soms ma...

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Blood-soaked Macbeth fits festival theme perfectly but fails to touch #HF12

Imagine Arjan Robben. The much-troubled frontman of the Dutch national team has just seen a brilliant move rewarded with a penalty and he is ready to take it. Up comes a field hand with a new set of adhesive letters for his shirt because the numbers are no longer legible from the stands. Lots of lashing, shirt off, seconds glue. Circumstances, in short. After two minutes, the fielder is gone, the number readable and the referee's whistle sounds. Then try to hit the target.

How two orchestras sold an international revenue model as regional

Recap: There are too many orchestras in the Netherlands, the government thinks, and so a few have to go. Or merge. Now that forced merging doesn't seem to go very heartily. But you can make money out of it. In Gelderland and Overijssel, this leads to bizarre scenes. It would have been comical if it hadn't cost so much money.
Om vijf ton extra binnen te kunnen halen, trekken het Nederlands Symfonie Orkest en het Gelders Orkest één lijn. En met succes: de provinciale overheden van Overij...

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Berlin 2012: Christian Petzold scores high marks with haunting GDR drama Barbara

Can a filmmaker born and raised in West Germany strike just the right tone in a film set in the former East Germany? I hadn't really thought about that before, but the Berliner Zeitung raised that question in response to Christian Petzold's Barbara, about a Berlin paediatrician who, after requesting to go to the West,... 

Berlin Film Festival opens with a messy Versailles

The 62nd Berlinale opened tonight with Benoït Jacquot's Les adieux à la reine, a French costume piece that does not play by the rules. The dresses worn by Queen Marie Antoinette's servants get dirty and one of the main characters stumbles in her haste and passes out twice. As the film begins we write 14 July 1789, and the... 

Friday the 25th. Bergen puts extra money into art, while new disasters emerge for the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

Amsterdam - Mayor finds cuts to Rijksakademie "beyond comprehension" During the official opening of RijksakademieOPEN 2011, Mayor of Amsterdam Eberhard van der Laan expressed his concerns about the government's severe cuts to the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. "Cutbacks are necessary. Capitulating is not necessary. There are limits." The mayor stressed that a healthy art climate is important for... 

Die Zeit comes up with text from porn poem Frederick the Great. But we are earlier.

Update: the poem in question was not meant to convince Voltaire of the Prussian thrust, but an Italian, Francesco Alegerotti. A scrabeus poem by Frederick the Great has surfaced. A poem, whose existence but content was unknown. Until now, that is. Today, the German quality magazine Die Zeit comes out with the full text. And Bild Zeitung has... 

Successful Holland Festival closes record edition amid uncertainty over future

Photo: Pierre Nydegger To conclude. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we were able to meet with... 

#HF11: We chat with Jeroen Stout, Daniël Bertina, Fransien vd Putt and Wijbrand Schaap.

  In conclusion. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we had a great time with our new... 

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