Almelo has been on the map for a few years now thanks to theatre. I went to see Van Katoen en Water on Thursday, an open-air spectacle with well-timed downpour and a full-moon rise like you can only experience in the almost gentrified old-industrial heart of Twente's poorest city. Mashed potatoes were served beforehand, with a johmas salad. Wine flowed profusely. In...
Let's start yesterday with a fundamental dialogue with the entire arts sector, using the vitality and creativity of the arts as inspiration, both for the sector itself and for society as a whole. Our sector talking, thinking, participating, deciding! in good times and in bad times. Never be silent again ...
The Turfsteker rejected The mayor was angry. The councillor was angry. Everyone was angry because the A municipality wanted to put up a work of art by a locally highly regarded sculptor as a tribute to the peat cutter, but was denied a grant by the province. The Cultural Council had advised negatively. The relevant advisory committee lamented the artist's figurative work; it left nothing to...
'We met only pleasant, committed people with their hearts in the right place for Rotterdam culture.' So reads the last sentence of a report by Utrecht-based consultancy Rijnconsult on the future of Rotterdam's Arts and Culture Council (RRKC). Based on that study, alderman Said Kasmi (D66) decided this week to replace the RRKC from 1...
Culture and Media State Secretary Gunay Uslu today presented her recovery plan for the cultural sector. Recovery, renewal and growth are central. This year, it involves €135 million structurally and then rises to an extra €170 million a year for culture. The future of the cultural and creative field has been under great pressure due to the corona crisis and is...
It is obviously good news: the German federal culture minister is increasing the budget for culture by 148 million euros to 2.3 billion. At a time when cultural funding, especially in the 'developed West', has been steadily declining (since 2010), such an increase is of course wonderful. For the Dutch, who point out with some regularity how well the arts are doing in Germany: per head of...
A rather voluminous (331 pages) report was published today by UNESCO, the UN organisation that deals with culture, development and education. In it, the organisation evaluates the extent to which the goals set by the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of Cultural Diversity have been met. The picture is not rosy. Mainly because of Corona, job losses are...
The virus may be unpredictable, but how we respond to it need not be. The Cultural and Creative Sector Taskforce calls on the government to quickly come up with a predictable government strategy aimed at different stages of the pandemic. Indicate at which corona signal values restrictive measures for the cultural sector come into effect or can be lifted. Link...
It all goes into effect only in 2023, at the earliest, but the first gusts of fresh wind blowing through the Performing Arts Fund are stirring the treetops. Under new director Viktorien van Hulst, the Fund wants to put an end to the many subsidy schemes that in recent years, under the guise of 'customisation', have become a bureaucratic jungle...
He will not be thanked, the headline above this article. After all, if there is one thing you don't want, it is to give a minister of a Rutte cabinet a compliment. And certainly not one of culture, the sector that, under Rutte's 10-year premiership, suffered the heaviest blows in post-war history. Rutte is the...
The uncertainty of the events sector and cultural institutions, after 17 months of lockdowns and one-and-a-half-month openings, is not only disastrous for the mood of directors, artists and spectators. According to the Creative Sector Taskforce, much more is being lost. In fact, a 'Marshall Plan' is needed to get the cultural and creative sector back on its feet,...
Down to the union, the message was shared: outgoing culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven had allegedly gone overboard with her diversity policy and now wants to ban non-diverse art from universities. It was big in the Telegraaf and former cabaret artist Hans Teeuwen got a few hundred thousand likes with it on Instagram. Meanwhile, it has also reached the columns of Het Parool thanks to 'artist'
It is a great thing that there are comedians who keep a finger on the pulse of society. Hans Teeuwen, for instance, has once again made himself angry. He has joined the small chorus of (mostly) men who see the end of the world coming because of a rebuttal. That is the rebuttal that now comes via social media
Even though she has lived in the Netherlands since she was three, journalist and radio TV presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb (47) is still not considered a full-fledged compatriot. In her book 365 dagen Nederlander, she gives a disconcerting picture in short sketches of how non-white Dutch people or Dutch people with a migration background are treated. Biology teacher to class 'This is what you call olive-coloured skin. You can...
Those blessed with the surname 'sheep' not only know that they come from a rich and honourable lineage, but also know by heart all the proverbs, sayings and name jokes, offensive or otherwise. Up to and including comradely blathering chiefs of art. Then the fact that Flemish theatre company FC Bergman is producing a show titled 'The Sheep...
'To strengthen the position of self-employed workers, a regulation could be revisited that would make it easier to enter into several short-term contracts throughout the year with interim retention of benefits.' There is a lot of useful stuff in the Culture Council's advice published today, but this sentence made me the happiest. Not so happy yet...
The most recent bulk of cultural rescue money was distributed to municipal councils without the obligation to actually spend that money on culture. Indeed, that so-called 'earmarking' was too cumbersome and time-consuming, according to now outgoing culture minister Ingrid van Engelshoven. (Malicious parties suggest that this way Rutte and Wiebes were willing to cross the bridge, because the money would not...
Shall I just start straight to the point? I am angry with my sector colleagues. Not at all of them, but at a very large proportion. I am angry at all those big youth theatre companies that have figured out from their marketing departments with fat subsidies that a registration for youth theatre is only worth 2.99. So taking the whole family to watch...
Today we are talking about youth theatre. A genre I myself first encountered in 1994, thanks to 'Mirad, een jongen uit Bosnië' by Ad de Bont, performed by Theatergroep Wederzijds. Marijn Lems got his love for youth theatre from his mother, who, like his father, was a librarian in Tilburg. What we agree on, in this podcast, the...
On 24 December 2020, the provincial hearing and objection committee issued an opinion to the Provincial Executive of the province of North Brabant in response to eight submitted objections. Then -only a month later- on 26-1-2021, a communication dated 26-1-2021 from the Board of GS to Provincial Councils and a press release to the cultural institutions that submitted an application 2021-2024 appeared....
'There is no other sector in the Netherlands that is as controlled and regulated as the cultural sector.' D66 MP Salima Belhaj sighed this towards the end of the debate organised by the assembled cultural sector lobby clubs on Monday 8 February. 'It takes an incredible amount of work, time and especially money. And the basis is distrust.' The most culture-friendly party of...
No making shows for a while as if nothing happened, but developing concepts, experimenting, boldly going where no one in this sector has dared to go so far (sorry, I watch a lot of Star Trek during the lockdown). That strikes me as an excellent use of grant money and could also bring back some momentum in these crappy times.
To get a subsidy in the Netherlands, you have to jump through a lot of hoops. Every farmer knows that, and so does every artist. In the cultural sector, for instance, it is important that you have a form of organisation that is controllable and approachable. You cannot have a profit motive either. That is why you can usually only apply for funding as a foundation, so you have statutes, a board and a...
Cinecitta Tilburg gets 280,000 euri a year from the province of Brabant, or rather the founder's mother. Despite there being quite a lot wrong with the application.
Good news from Friesland. The five larger theatres in the Netherlands' most independent province are going to cooperate intensively to tackle the corona crisis together.
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