Last week, graduates of the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague showed their graduation projects in an exhibition. An exhibition that every year is far too big to see everything in one week. But this year, above all, an exhibition that provoked: to think, to wonder, to smile and to come back again and again.
Two choreographers exploring how a dancer and the eye of the audience interact. Dance makers who rattle common ideas about identity and sexuality. Artists who confront us with the dreams of perfection and glamour that advertising and marketing throw at us. The famous Cullberg Ballet made a striking choice by performing choreographies by the...
2014 was the year of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, award-winning stage adaptation by Ivo van Hove. This year, that performance has been outstripped by 'Passions Humaines', written by Erwin Mortier, magisterially designed by Guy Cassiers. Again at the Holland Festival, confirming its place as a stage for the great debate on art. Two plays in which architecture, artistry and...
Over 70% of the talking heads on TV are men, Simone van Saarloos told us in the introduction to her own talk show. Niña Weijers and she thought that surely something like this could be done better, without talking about glass ceilings and other women's topics. And so, in October 2013, they launched their sexist talk show series with guests from the arts, literature, politics and...
Every company 50,000 euros more. Youth theatre in the Netherlands should be very happy with the letter culture minister Bussemaker sent to the chamber last Monday. After years of squeezing under Halbe Zijlstra, finally more air for the makers. But the investment of 4 tonnes a year turns out to be a cutback. In fact, Bussemaker is only giving a gift to eight companies. Company...
Where minister Bussemaker tries to sell the same overall budget as "an extra investment of 18 million" with the new "cash shift" and municipalities like Amsterdam use the old-fashioned cheese slicer to make cuts, the municipality of Enschede uses the blunt axe. Despite fierce opposition and 27,000 signatures from concerned citizens, the city council agreed to an additional annual cut of 600,000 on the library and...
When you think of Carel Kraayenhof, you don't immediately think of a young squatter orating about Karl Marx in circle discussions. Yet protest resides in the musician, just like in the tango. This becomes apparent when the interview gets off to a brisk start.
Visiting M.U.R.S. without the app on your smartphone is a challenge. The performance by the infamous Barcelona-based theatre collective is a commentary on how people are unwittingly becoming part of a SMART society run by international corporations via all sorts of gadgets. Are you in or out? Is there actually anything to choose? According to Jürgen Müller, one of the founders of...
Berlin's Gorki Theatre won a prize this year: it was named the best theatre in the German language area by the German-language press. The company won the award partly because it employs many actors of immigrant origin. With its performance Der Untergang der Nibelungen, which can be seen in this year's Holland Festival, the group also thematises the...
How can you write about a three-day conference, part of which took place behind closed doors, the closing night of which looks very neat on vimeo, but where the tension in the room was palpable? With a completely open attitude and not much more background than an average newspaper reader, but with a firm belief in the power of the arts,...
Joods-Palestijns filmduo Yaron Shani en Scandar Copti over hun zinderende drama Ajami
Woensdag was de openingsavond van de driedaagse conferentie What’s Art Got To Do With It? Over kunst, politiek, en Israel/Palestina. Hoe open je een conferentie over een beladen onderwerp waar iedereen, zeker vanaf de zijlijn, een mening over heeft? Met muziek. Want hoe kun je daar tegen zijn? De avond begon gemoedelijk met een kort optreden van het Amsterdams Andalusisch…
Kan dat? Beeldloze film? Zeker, zie- of beter- luister maar naar Chapman for President van de Eef van Breen Group op 2 mei tijdens het LISFE: een filmisch klankproject met een persoonlijk verhaal als uitgangspunt. Een ontmoeting met politiek vluchteling Chapman bezorgde trompettist, zanger & componist Eef van Breen nieuwe ogen, oren én het idee voor deze film zonder beeld.…
1. Intimacy That the atmosphere in a packed hall becomes intimate enough for a girl in the audience to ask legendary American rapper-poet Black Ice the question: If poetry equals love, as he had just proclaimed, did it ever break your heart? Black Ice, the man who strings his associations together faster than Halbe Zijlstra strings his stupidities,...
Relief for Amersfoort's cultural organisations. In the proposal for the multi-annual budget 2015-2018 (presented last night by the college to the city council), they remain largely unaffected when it comes to cuts. Only theatres De Flint and De Lieve Vrouw have to make cuts. It is possible they will merge in 2017. Recently, there has been a lot of unrest in the cultural world. The...
Mea culpa and action 'It only happens when you fall on your face.' This quote by artist Job Koelewijn in De Volkskrant has hung on my toilet door for years. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a journalist is not checking facts. And OuiJAYes that mistake I have thus made: this writing creative did not check the facts....
Possible (cultural) cuts are causing unrest in Amersfoort. The population was allowed to give its opinion via a website. Cultural organisations received the most support. But what will happen with the results of the public consultation? Just a reminder: due to setbacks in the land exploitation, the municipality of Amersfoort has to cut nineteen million euros in the coming years. To this end, an overview of possible cutback proposals was made. The Arts and...
HET Symfonieorkest's financial problems have not gone unnoticed. Regional newspaper Tubantia reported last Monday that PvdA MP Jacques Monasch had minister Jet Bussemaker (also PvdA) summoned to the Lower House. In that report, Monasch passes with seven-mile boots advice, applications and decisions that have already been made or are yet to come, and immediately reports that a symphony orchestra will continue beyond 2017...
What is already going on on a small scale in Groningen, Enschede, Zaltbommel, Amersfoort, Gorinchem and Vlaardingen, is threatening to happen nationwide as well: cultural institutions falling over while politicians look on helplessly. According to the Council for Culture, the situation is alarming: 'Institutions are draining their own funds, cultural funds are maintaining schemes by drawing on reserves. We therefore make the urgent...
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...
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....
“Ik hoef er natuurlijk niet rijk van te worden…” Het is zo’n beetje de meest gehoorde opmerking als je veel optrekt met kunstenaars en creatieven. “Waarom eigenlijk niet?” vraag ik dan. Geschrokken kijken ze me aan. Onthutst dat je durft te tornen aan deze algemeen geldende waarheid. Als antwoord komt er dan iets buitengewoon vaags als “Nou, gewoon….geld is toch niet het belangrijkste?”
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....
Schouwburg De Nieuwe Doelen in Gorinchem sluit op 31 mei de deuren, wegens gebrek aan steun in de lokale politiek. De gemeenteraad van de stad, die eerder ook de muziekschool sloot, wil het gebouw graag als Dorpshuis blijven gebruiken voor amateurkunstenaars. Voor professioneel theater, zo meldde een fractieleider van CDA-huize, kunnen die paar liefhebbers gewoon naar Dordrecht. Schouwburgdirecteur Rob van Wijk…
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
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