On 23 October, website Theaterkrant.nl wrote a piece on the future of the performing arts. A future that is black and gloomy when you, as a creator, count on growth, or even survival at all. In short: so much money is going away from the Performing Arts Fund, that from next year only between 50 and 60 applications can be honoured, in...
'We will never be 'the same' enough, we fringe characters: bipolar, borderline, gay, lesbian, indeterminate, narcissistic, autistic, hysterical - and we are all fatally insecure and we all need a hug.' Permanent, seemingly inevitable insecurity is peculiar to the theatre industry. Ramsey Nasr hit that sharply in his speech on receiving his second Louis D'Or. The courage, or sometimes almost masochistic...
Ensemble Modern presents world premieres by German-Dutch Iris ter Schiphorst and Turkish Zeynep Gedizlioğlu in November Music. And that is good news, because the female composer remains too often invisible even in 2019. In the brochures of any Dutch orchestra, you will find none, or only a single work by a woman. On the new Heart & Soul list of...
Our administrators and elected representatives will not openly admit it, but they do not really care about a healthy cultural sector, let alone the position of individual creators and artists. Indeed, making a Fair Practice Code compulsory without increasing the budget for culture is a slap in the face for everyone working in the arts sector. 'Then be...
Members of the States General, This year about 72 years ago we had the first Holland Festival. After years of enslavement and tyranny, hope for a better future literally came from above, in the form of Maria Callas. Eyewitnesses who saw the lights in the Stadsschouwburg turn red that day would never forget that image. 72 years later, it seems...
De poppen zullen dansen, de rapen zijn gaar en de poep heeft de ventilator geraakt. Het Amsterdam Museum vervangt ‘Gouden Eeuw’ door het neutrale ’17e eeuw’. Een typisch voorbeeld van oikofobe omvolking en politiek correcte taalzuivering, of een nuttige aanpassing aan een veranderende tijdgeest? Tijd gaat het leren, maar explosief is het wel. Bij mij roept het vragen op. Dat…
Some critics thought the opening performance of Festival Noorderzon in Groningen was so bad it made you cry. Others were less negative. Those certainly have a point. But then you have to look beyond what you are used to. When Bear, the hero of Noorderzon 2019's opening show, is imprisoned in a tower, he laments his fate through an eloquent yet sad...
The Theater aan de Parade is slowly but surely starting to become the blot of cultural politics in Den Bosch. The outdated theatre has too low ceilings, too much plush, asbestos and past to still be a credit to the Brabant provincial capital. Viktorien van Hulst, director of the now 35-year-old Theatre Festival Boulevard, made a point of saying during her opening speech on 1 August that the...
Eye Xtended presents extraordinary VR. This time an experiment by the always challenging artist Paul McCarthy. Embedded in a package of films that served as inspiration.
‘Hier ga ik niet iedereen blij mee maken.’ Deze woorden sprak minister Ingrid van Engelshoven uit tijdens het debat over haar uitgangspuntennota, vorige week donderdag. Ware woorden. De glans van haar ministerschap is er inmiddels inderdaad wel af. Van Engelshoven is, na Bussemaker, de tweede cultuurminister die Mark Rutte’s cultuurbeleid moest uitvoeren, en niets anders te bieden had dan een…
The huge success of his novel The Miraculous Incident with the Dog in the Night - nearly ten million copies sold - brought British writer and visual artist Mark Haddon financial freedom, but not peace of mind. He recently published his new novel, The Dolphin. 'I always think: when this is done, then I will have peace of mind. But that carrot on the stick for...
Wim Hupperetz, director of Amsterdam's Allard Pierson, has resigned his position as chairman of the museums and heritage advisory committee to the Council for Culture. In protest, he says, against the irresponsible way in which the minister is now implementing the Culture Council's advice. 'If this continues, we will soon be giving millions of euros to a few...
28-year-old Jeremy Dutcher is a sensation. With his reinterpretation of native songs by Canadian Indians, he won the Canadian equivalent of the Grammy last year; names like Arcade Fire, Feist and Kaytranada preceded him. Amsterdam Roots Festival is now bringing award-winning Canadian musician Jeremy Dutcher to the Netherlands for a performance at the Bimhuis on 10 July 2019. When...
Vanmiddag is er een hoorzitting in de Tweede Kamer over de uitgangspuntennota van Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven. Die nota waarvan iedereen inmiddels doorheeft dat het een sigaar uit eigen doos is. Insprekers hebben hun mooiste speeches voorbereid, en er zal na afloop zeker het een en ander viraal gaan binnen de verschillende culturele social media-bubbels. Ik werd een beetje moedeloos…
Crash Park - La vie d'une île (2018) by French director Philippe Quesne performs 19th-century values in their 21st-century elaboration. The elitist explorer has become a modal tourist, moving in well-organised groups to every corner of the world in search of ultimate experiences, provided they don't get in the way of a return ticket western...
Anthony and Cleopatra is exactly the kind of repertory piece that people look forward to during the Holland Festival, or any other prestigious stage. Director and writer Tiago Rodrigues manages not so much to deflate that grandiose expectation as to reduce it to the intimacy of a duet and a play with extremely basic theatrical gestures. His two actors are dancers, an experienced choreographer duo
Djino Alolo Sabin (1990) sits there, relaxed, in the morning at the hotel in Brussels. The night before, he has danced his solo Piki Piki for the first time, which will also be shown at Theater Frascati during the Holland Festival. The performance touches on many intense themes, but is anything but melodramatic. Rather, it expresses a relentless optimism....
'How do I make the world a little more beautiful? That's what I ask myself in everything I do.' Romana Vrede, award-winning actress with Het Nationale Theater, 'table lady' on De Wereld Draait Door and Summer Guest, likes to look positively into the world. So will her contribution to SPOT-Live, the performing arts symposium taking place in Rotterdam on 28 May, be optimistic...
The Cinéma Arabe festival is a stage for Arab cinema and aims to contribute to social debate. It celebrates its 15th anniversary this year, but is struggling with a tight budget.
A fortnight ago, we reported that the unique open-air theatre group Vis à Vis had started a petition. Reason: the Almere city council was reportedly planning to convert the company's permanent site on Almere beach into a residential area. This would go against an earlier promise made by the alderman. Since that alderman has since ceased to be an alderman, it would...
Dankzij een tip van een lezer zagen we dat in Eindhoven gedoe is rond subsidies. Nu gebeurt dat wel vaker, maar hier was iets speciaals aan de hand. Het Eindhovens Dagblad meldde (Blendle link €) dat de voltallige Raad van Toezicht van de Stichting Cultuur Eindhoven was opgestapt. Er was stront aan de knikker omdat, zo schrijft het ED, de…
Ook de Nederlandse cameralieden voegen zich in het koor dat zich zorgen maakt over de Nederlandse film. Het New Deal-manifest draagt suggesties voor verbetering aan.
When the Council for Culture released its long-awaited musical advice a month ago, its president Marijke van Hees was remarkably nervous. This was particularly evident in her choice to act as moderator at her own presentation. When there, at Amsterdam's Allard Pierson Museum, came (very mild) criticism of the advice, she shot to the defence. That became...
'Heinz' and 'Buñuel in the Labyrinth of the Turtles', both out on 18 April, signal an important development in the field of feature-length Dutch animation. A breakthrough is in the air. On stubbornness and co-productions, Anne Frank and Miss Moxy. And what else is on the horizon.
Our government leaders, united in Europe, have come up with something to combat the masking of corruption. It is called UBO register. The Netherlands is also going to introduce it in the near future. This has consequences, also for cultural foundations and associations. Because every organisation has to determine who is a UBO (Ultimate Beneficial Owner). This causes some complications. In the cultural sector, it is...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.