interview
City of the Blind is ethical research and sensory experience in one
An old man strolls into the hospital ward with a transistor radio. 'Where did you go blind?' the blind people already present ask the newcomer. 'In a museum,' he replies. A moving conversation then unfolds about what was the last painting he saw, and the possibilities are projected onto the wafer-thin canvas that separates the audience from the sick room. This tot...
Chekhov's helpless, poetic creatures - three actresses on Three Sisters
Three Sisters by Chekhov directed by Theu Boermans is back with the Nationale Toneel. Two and a half years after its original performance, the play will play nine times exclusively at the Royal Theatre in The Hague. There is news about all three "sisters". Anniek Pheifer (Masja), Ariane Schluter (Olga) and Sallie Harmsen (Irina) talk about their careers and about Chekhov....
Theo Verbey: 'A composer is first and foremost a songwriter'
Dutch composer Theo Verbey (Delft 1959) writes music of lush tonal beauty, in which the achievements of centuries of musical tradition resound. He made his name with works such as Triad (1991) for orchestra and Expulsion (1988) for large ensemble, and with orchestrations of pieces by composers such as Modest Mussorgsky and Alban Berg. For the closing concert of De Vrijdag van Vredenburg, he wrote Traurig wie...
La Re-sentida (Chile) charges against leftist church in Holland Festival 2015
The 1970s have for some time been the target of what we shall conveniently call the up-and-coming generation. And so we are talking about the 1970s as the glory years of hippy-dom, the jubilant times of the left-wing church and everything else that, with today's knowledge, is dirty and dirty. They were the years when...
Orfeo ed Euridice: opera aller opera’s
Vanavond brengt de Nederlandse Reisopera de première van een nieuwe enscenering van Orfeo ed Euridice van Gluck, opera aller opera’s. Met dit meesterwerk maakte de Duitse componist in 1762 een eind aan de wanpraktijken uit de Barok. Niet alleen was er aan de libretti geen touw meer vast te knopen door de eindeloze reeksen subplots, maar ook werd de zaak danig…
Catinka Kersten in Images by the Sea - one year after academy
Museum Beelden aan Zee placed a concrete sculpture by 26-year-old artist Catinka Kersten on the patio at the end of March: 'And everyone held their breath during that fraction of centuries'. It consists of five concrete human figures stacked on top of each other, which appear to be made of fabric. Kersten completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague in 2013 with a series of hunting animals in plaster and cotton. The museum, with associated scientific institute and plaster library, is considered one of the figureheads of sculpture in the Netherlands. How did this museum come to choose such a young artist and what does inclusion in its collection mean for her?
The great stories of Genesis: Johan Doesburg's farewell at the National Theatre
Adam and Eve. Noah. Babel. Joseph. An entire book of the Bible Johan Doesburg casts in his farewell performance with the Nationale Toneel. 'Genesis' lasts 6 hours including intermissions, has 65 speaking characters and plays with the space of Scheveningen's Zuiderstrandtheater. But above all, the outgoing director wants it to tell two stories. In conversation with Johan Doesburg and actor Dries Vanhegen, whose character Jacob plays a special role in the play.
Minimal Music Festival figurehead: 'I'm not a minimalist'
Wednesday 8 April kicks off the fourth edition of the biennial World Minimal Festival at Amsterdam's Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. For five days, the capital will be dominated by the immensely popular music movement, which invariably attracts packed halls. Several parts of this instalment are already sold out, including the opening concert with special guest Terry Riley. There are still...
Supervisory failure at HET Symphony Orchestra: drama that could have been avoided
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...
Clark Terry: a jazz legend airs his heart
Jazz musician and teacher Clark Terry died last month. Jazz journalist Jeroen de Valk looks back on a candid interview with one of the greatest trumpet players of all time. It was only on 21 February that he fell silent, Clark Terry. He was 94 and had been in the musician's business for at least 75 years. Go figure: he made his living as a trumpeter as a young teenager and...
Neanderthals knew quite a lot about art
Nathaniël Mellors is one of the funniest artists whose work is on show at Art Rotterdam. No moving painting, no coarse-grained fluid slides and no Arnoud Mik either: Mellors' latest work: The Sophisticated Neanderthal Interview, is well-acted comedy about a serious intellectual subject: the art world. Building on the discovery that Neanderthals were not at all the primitive bat-wielding losers where...
Thijs Borsten breaks through with unique musical concept 'The Challenge'
Thijs Borsten blurs boundaries. Under the slogan 'The Challenge', he puts completely different artists on stage together. After years of struggling, the concept is now being embraced by media and audiences. Thijs has a chance of winning his 6 minutes of fame in DWDD in the near future. Bringing artists from different cultures together and labelling such a thing as a 'challenge';...
Director Wolfson bids farewell to Film Festival Rotterdam - three puzzles in advance for successor
Today, the International Film Festival Rotterdam announced that director Rutger Wolfson is handing over the baton after the 2015 edition. About his decision, Wolfson says in the press release: "Eight years is a long time to lead an important film festival and with the 44th edition, which is going to be very strong, I have achieved everything I wanted to achieve. Together with my family, I have...
Questions, stillness and resistance: choreographer Nicole Beutler's new Echo and earlier work on tour in the Netherlands
5:Echo, choreographer Nicole Beutler's most recent production, is a curious show. All focus is on two famous pioneers of Dutch dance in the 60s and 70s: Ellen Edinoff and Bianca van Dillen. Yet Echo mainly shows how impossible (and perhaps undesirable) it is to want to revive past glories. Dancer Kelly ...
4 lessons you can learn from Stromae: everything is about connection
We staan er meestal niet bij stil, maar marketing is overal om ons heen. En dat terwijl we heel veel kunnen leren van al die goede voorbeelden. En zeker ook van de minder goede. Onlangs zag ik op TV een interview met de wereldster Stromae. Deze jonge Belgische rapper en muzikant is de laatste jaren zeer succesvol. Of je nu…
Four reasons to go to Words & Beyond II: Nan Sul Hun
After the world premiere of Words & Beyond II: Nan Sul Hun by Seung-Won Oh yesterday at the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ, the audience stood up as one to applaud Slagwerk Den Haag and the soloists. It was therefore a magical performance, which will be repeated at De Doelen in Rotterdam and at Theater aan de...
Belgium beware: artists defending subsidies. You can do better.
With a new government in Belgium, the debate on art subsidies has also erupted there. The issue there is only 0.7 per cent of the national budget. The cut of a mere 10% is less substantial than in the Netherlands under the PVV's noose, but the arguments are the same. Though they are often better articulated. Josse de Pauw, international...
All feature films of Theo van Gogh (1957 - 2004) at EYE, tribute to a free spirit with a big heart
"Theo van Gogh tried so hard to be an enfant terrible that we almost forgot that he was one of the Netherlands' most creative and productive filmmakers." I wrote this for the GPD papers on 2 November 2004, after an editor called me with the terrible news of the filmmaker's violent death. Soon, that murder was exactly ten...
Make amateur videos! And 6 other tips from experts for art institutions on YouTube
This post should have been a video. I was planning to go into my garden with the ipad, to tell you, in the company of my dog Rufus, how important video is in contemporary art communication. And not a good, beautifully shot and rap edited video, but wonky, home-made, not very to-the-point video. Which is very personal though....
Joop Daalmeijer Marathon (closing): 'But who knows anything about it? They are all generalists sitting there.'
Wijbrand Schaap: ‘De amateurkunst. Ik heb zelf de bezuinigingen aan den lijve ondervonden bij het Utrechts Centrum voor de Kunsten in Utrecht. Eerst is daar in 2001 al zwaar op bezuinigd onder Leefbaar. Dat hebben ze overleefd, en nu waren ze er net een beetje bovenop…’ Marathon-interviewNaar aanleiding van de ophef rond Melle Daamens opiniestuk over het kunstbeleid zijn we…
Joop Daalmeijer Marathon (7): 'If the knowledge is lost, so is the heritage.'
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Just one more point. Then we're almost through.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Continue quietly, we have until half past five.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'We have a problem with real estate. A lot of inner cities are empty. Shop premises are empty, downtown office buildings are unrentable. What do the municipalities say? Put artists in them. Cost nothing, because for free rent they do...
Joop Daalmeijer Marathon (6): 'The Rijksakademie will go to pieces if we don't intervene'
Wijbrand Schaap: ‘De basisinfrastructuur is door Zijlstra gekilld terwijl die nog niet rijp was. Die loopt nu in zijn kleinere variant het risico om tot verdere verstarring te leiden.’ Marathon-interviewNaar aanleiding van de ophef rond Melle Daamens opiniestuk over het kunstbeleid zijn we uitgenodigd voor een ‘gesprek over alles’ met Joop Daalmeijer, voorzitter van de Raad voor Cultuur. Het gesprek…
Joop Daalmeijer Marathon (5) "All balls on Amsterdam", I'm not into that at all.
Wijbrand Schaap: ‘Nu over de rol van de steden. Een van de reacties op onze site gaat over de rol van de randstad in het cultuurbeleid. Melle Daamen legt het primaat in de randstad, en gaat daarin verder dan de Raad.’ Marathon-interviewNaar aanleiding van de ophef rond Melle Daamens opiniestuk over het kunstbeleid zijn we uitgenodigd voor een ‘gesprek over…
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