Amersfoort's cultural scene is in turmoil over a series of possible austerity proposals. In recent weeks, the public was allowed to give its opinion. The city council will make final decisions in May. Meanwhile, beloved theatre De Lieve Vrouw is already in dire financial straits. Amersfoort has been under financial supervision by the province of Utrecht since the end of 2014. The municipality mainly suffers...
The money at HET Symphony Orchestra has run out. Despite all the extra millions from the province and after years of writing off tons of general reserves, the end is in sight. And so the orchestra is scrapping concerts, will be seen less in theatres in Deventer and Zwolle, stops CD recordings and shuns any risky performances. To keep the...
'Not ripe for decision-making'. That is the verdict of the Amsterdam Arts Council today on the plan presented by culture councillor Kajsa Ollongren last week. In that plan, the role of the arts council would be minimised, and a system would be set up with a basic infrastructure of large institutions, and a bunch of loose stuff that would be subsidised through a fund. This model, derived...
It sounds great, that Amsterdam Arts Plan 2017-2020. The city is increasing the culture budget to almost 90 million a year. And there suddenly seems to be a vision: away with all those different advisory bodies, one capital 'basic infrastructure' and for the rest there is the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AFK). The municipality should stick to the main lines, not with individual subsidies....
The misery in Groningen is a bit bigger than we thought. Meanwhile, the Grand Theatre appears to be at least 250,000 in the red. And counting. Money that the theatre subsidised by the city of Groningen owes mainly to artists. Choreographer Dunja Djocic, for instance, had received €90,000 in subsidies to create performances at the Grand for 2 years. Theatre-maker Andreas Denk had received...
Britain's Arts Index stands at 111. This puts the cultural AEX of a country that likes to call itself the world's cultural No 1, four points lower than last year, but still a point higher than in 2012, the year when the government also began cutting subsidies in Britain. The 'National Campaign...
82% cut in Overijssel's culture budget No, the VVD did not become the largest party in Overijssel in the last provincial elections, the PvdA attracted 1.6% more voters, but if there is a province where Halbe Zijlstra's nationally initiated policy had an effect, it was that province. Residents soon noticed this, but research by consultancy firm
We took another close look at the news surrounding the near bankruptcy of Groningen's illustrious Grand Theatre. Yesterday, it became clear that that theatre is in serious financial trouble. Problems that the municipality does not want to solve simply by an extra injection of thousands of euros. And they are right. After all, the Grand's coffers are as leaky as...
The Grand Theatre in Groningen is dying. Yesterday, the city council of the northern university city decided that no more money should be poured into the theatre, which is in acute cash trouble. Bills from suppliers and independent artists have not been paid for several months, and financial reserves are more than depleted. We have received reports from artists...
Classical music is elitist, most conductors and orchestra members don't have a clue what they are doing and audiences have absolutely no clue. Subsidised art should be both accessible to a large audience and socially engaged. I also believe that The Joshua Tree is perhaps the best album ever. Signed, Hero Brinkman...
100 Dutch plays were presented to them, the 224 Dutch heavy users of our theatre seats who took part in a survey by the Amsterdam Institute for Theatre Studies. Plays that ranged from fairly well-known, such as Herman Heijermans' 'Op Hoop van Zegen' from the beginning of the last century and Joost van den Vondel's 460-year-old tragedy 'Lucifer', to completely unknown, such as...
Use arts funding for research&development, attracting venture capital and crowdfunding with public money. In this way, according to the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the same public money can yield more. In an 'exploration' presented to the government today, this advisory board breaks a lance for more daring and commitment from the government to strengthen the Dutch cultural sector: 'Increasingly,...
Of Dutch people, the province can cut back even more on Culture. This week, Ipsos Synnovate presented a survey to that effect, and it was another slap in the face for the sector. Apparently, the image of art as an expensive kind of leftist hobby has not yet been eradicated by three years of optimistic NLPing by culture minister Jet Bussemaker's PR machine....
They are each other's opposites: Michiel Borstlap exudes luxury and relaxation, Micha Hamel a tense frown. But the two not inconsiderable gentlemen have both recently joined the Academy of Arts. They played new work last weekend and I spoke to them afterwards. Actually, I was programming Michiel Borstlap's concert for a theatre in Driebergen. In an expensive Jaguar, we drove to a restaurant for coffee...
In a chock-full DeLaMar theatre, deputy director Robert Guijt presented the 2014 Dance Audience Award and Dance Photo of the Year on 23 February 2015. This fitted well with the festive premiere of Crazy Blues by winner International Dance Theatre. Many acquaintances from the dance world performed at the DeLaMar. 'Hans van Manen is sitting beautifully on Princess Beatrix's chair,' joked Guijt. The same...
According to Rotterdam alderman Visser, the current subsidy system is unsustainable. The system, in which cultural institutions submit a plan every four years and thus have to look years ahead, no longer fits with the times. Nowadays, there is a need for flexibility and change, not rigidity and certainty. The alderman said this during the presentation of the sector analysis by the Rotterdam Council
The General Court of Auditors, a high college of state that independently audits government spending, is blowing the whistle on Culture Minister Bussemaker. Indeed, in an interim opinion, published on 12 February, the Court of Audit states that nothing at all is yet clear about the real consequences of the previous cabinet's cuts. That cabinet, with the widely beloved Halbe...
In Amersfoort, one art hall is empty and one art hall is full. KAdE, only recently completed and already successful, was dismantled five years after opening and moved to another, even newer building, across the railway line. However, the city council does not appear to have been properly informed about the financial consequences of this move and is now stuck with and noose of at least 10...
Last week, the Metaalkathedraal was celebrating. This 'creative breeding ground' in the picturesque no man's land between Utrecht and Leidsche Rijn can, thanks to a loan from a bank, grow into something that might become great fun for the neighbourhood, but also for people on the other side of town. The Metal Cathedral is an initiative of two artists. They...
Radio Netherlands World Broadcasting no longer exists. The subsidy was withdrawn because no one in the VVD knew what it was: shortwave. And because the PVV, which was also in government at the time, finds everything scary that contains the word 'world'. Bad for those who miss calls from the ANWB emergency centre at breakfast for the Alpenkreuzer, even worse for...
650,000 euros. The municipality of Enschede is prepared to lend that amount to HET Symfonieorkest. Not for a special cultural project in the city, no, for a renovation. Not surprising, since municipalities, after all, prefer to invest in bricks and mortar rather than culture. But in this case, we are talking about very special bricks. According to director Harm Mannak, the barely used bicycle shed needs to be converted into a...
Art ends its 70th anniversary as a 'Leftist Hobby' in 2015. There is not much more to predict for this year. Art goes back to the bourgeois status it held since the start of the industrial revolution. 1: Art was never left Art, of course, has never been 'left'. Subsidy may have come from the thinking tubes of social and Christian democrats, but art an sich...
Two corpses. Despairing bystanders. A blood-red photo. The cover of the Exploration, released by the Amsterdam Arts Council, makes one fear the worst. A massacre has been committed. Even if it is a scenic photo of a performance by Toneelgroep Amsterdam. Or is it all different? Are only two dead, and the rest live on? Something about shows that on must go?....
Artists who don't want to make money from their work have a hobby. At a get-together, I spoke to Marit, a visual artist. At one point, she said: 'I don't need to get rich from my work, as long as I can make some money from it'. I hear that phrase very often. I've always shouted it myself. So crazy is...
Boymans is proud. The Rotterdam museum has been able to snatch up a very nice statue, for 123,000 euros less than the asking price. And all because they bought it via an option construction. Writes NRC. That option construction did cost 22,000 euros. Money they would have lost if the dollar rate had fallen instead of risen. It is already...
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