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Marieke Nijkamp wrote an American bestseller, and her next book is also going like a rocket: 'Young people shy away from not much'

This young writer from Hengelo - she turns 32 in January - sold over a quarter of a million copies of her debut novel This Is Where It Ends in the United States. It spent 64 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. So Hengelo-based Young Adult writer Marieke Nijkamp did feel slight pressure while writing her second book, Before I... 

A museum with impact. How museums can raise historical awareness and offer people comfort, perspective and connection

Meer dan een miljoen Nederlanders voelt zich zeer eenzaam, aldus de Gezondheidsmonitor 2012. Hieronder zijn steeds meer jongeren – alle sociale media ten spijt. Misschien zouden we deze ‘eenzaamheidsepidemie’ een halt toe kunnen roepen als we ons realiseerden dat geen van ons werkelijk alleen is. Wat we zo vaak vergeten, is dat we direct verbonden zijn met duizenden anderen: de mensen… 

Brian Elstak wrote Tori. Finally a book for all children? Afke Bohle asked hers. The answer is surprising.

A Quattro Mani's pop-uprecent Afke Bohle takes up the challenge of reading a book with her sons. After good experiences with Suzie Ruzie and Susan van 't Hullenaar's The Green Hand series, she is now venturing into Tori, the recent children's book by Brian Elstak in collaboration with author Karin Amatmoekrim, touted as: 'finally a book for all children'.... 

Publicity image BOG. for KID.

'BOG.' plays 'KID.': how a simple question to the audience can lead to exciting theatre.

A collection of makers they are. A collection, but not a collective. What an 'f' can't already make up. So language is quite a thing. And crowdsourcing is quite a thing. These makers collect words from their audience, and give them back in a performance. That's 'BOG.', a still fairly young group trying to use language to make theatre to get us to... 

The only one - review in letter form (Why Peter Perrett is a true survivor)

Hey H., Tonight I went with J.P. to see Peter Perrett & Band at Paradiso, Small Hall. Sold out! I've told you about J. before, he was the deejay who gave me a 'crash course' in sincere music at the Eindhoven Bakery when I was 15 (1988). Before I tell you about Peter Perrett and why his music is worth... 

Suddenly feeling the urgency at Dancing on the Edge

As soon as I, as an art consumer, begin to suspect arbitrariness in the artist or his creative process, I drop out. Incidentally, this observation now surprises me. After all, I am no fetishist of form, nor am I a canon junkie, and I am not qualified in any of the standard artistic disciplines. Not a composer, not a performing musician and not an actor. Neither filmmaker nor director, nor a lyricist graduate.... 

Still thinking about tougher sentencing, thanks to 'Prison Monologues'

Utrecht's Wolvenplein prison is sort of empty. Anyone who doesn't happen to have a conviction behind them themselves should go there for fun. I did so myself two years ago on an art project about the surveillance society. When I returned on Tuesday, 17 October 2017, for The Prison Monologues, the impression was still there. The... 

Lavalu's nocturnal movement

High up in a posh flat, Lavalu (stage name of Marielle Woltring, Cleveland, Ohio, 1979) recently gave a try-out of her new programme at Eindhoven's FlatFest festival. For the first time now, she will tour without a band, solo with piano, in small venues where there is a good grand piano. On that Sunday afternoon in Brabant, it soon became clear that somewhere, something was... 

Kassys plays the blues (About hopeless depression and a real-life pizza courier)

Dat je een schoen aan kunt trekken. Maar ook niet. Dat het eigenlijk niet zoveel zin heeft om een schoen aan te trekken, als je hem later op de dag toch ook weer uit zult doen. Why bother? Waarom leven? Herkenbaar? Voor wie ooit in een dip zat wel. Theatergroep Kassys, onlangs nog wereldwijd een hit met ‘Total Eclipse of… 

'Crusade' by Artemis is top theatre that will make any layman a fan.

Jetse Batelaan has spent pretty much this entire century making the most extraordinary theatre in the world. At least, of my world. Often with very few words, always with a great sense of bare aesthetics and usually sympathetic with a weird twist halfway through. His latest masterpiece is an adaptation of Thea Beckman's Crusade in Jeans. Though we need at least three quarters of... 

Amsterdam Sinfonietta shines in shadow play with Kurtág and baroque

The Great Hall of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ is pitch dark. Then a spotlight flashes on the first side balcony on the right. There, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Maria Milstein, Rosanne Philippens and Jacobien Rozemond play three movements from Telemann's Concert for four violins. They end in a freeze, after which the whisper-soft, fragile tones sound from Treasures by György Kurtág. We only see... 

Side B: Adrift THE HIDDEN FLOOR © Rahi Rezvani

In Side B: Adrift, The Hidden Floor completes the madness

NDT 1 concludes its triptych Side B: Adrift with Franck Chartier's new The Hidden Floor. After the performance, I literally lose my way. Different worlds "Franck?", I call out. In the rain, an unremarkable man approaches me. Yes, reads the reply from under a cap. It's Franck Chartier, on his way to the studio in... 

Per-Sonat sings songs from Luther's time: surprisingly fresh and current

Bis an der Welt ihr Ende is the poetic title of a CD by Per-Sonat featuring German songs from the time of the Reformation. This ensemble of mezzo-soprano Sabine Lutzenberger focuses on music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. This CD follows the development of German song from church reformer Martin Luther to the composer Johann Hermann Schein.... 

Explosive emotions, deep waters and a refreshing spark in Dance Room 5

A field littered with landmines. This is what life feels like sometimes. In waiting rooms, for example. Uncomfortable situations. What should you say to each other? Timorous glances shoot past each other. Hidden tension pounds against your muscles. Everyone is afraid of everyone else. And of themselves. Fobia by Davide Bellotta is one of three works with which young choreographers present themselves in the programme 

Beatles tour bus (replica) Photo: Chris Samson CC.BY 2.0

You had one chance to sustainably improve arts subsidies

The decision will be official in mid-September, but behind the scenes it has already been made. The Netherlands will have a very small basic cultural infrastructure for the performing arts, and a very large fund that anyone who wants to make theatre, dance, mime or music must apply to. I asked around a bit recently, and so that's what it's going to be. That way, politicians can't... 

Chablis, riesling, bardolino and five indies: Boulevard succeeded

Wine tasting and listening to medieval music are usually things people only do with very serious faces. So it took five glasses, three drunken singers and a good hour before the mob in the sober Heilig Hart church in Den Bosch loosened up a bit. With a Frontignan to boot. You do start fantasising about the great dinner you had at... 

8 phenomena together on stage do not make phenomenal theatre at Theatre Festival Boulevard

Claron McFadden is a phenomenon. Josse de Pauw is a phenomenon. Arnon Grunberg is a phenomenon. LOD is a phenomenon. KVS is a phenomenon. Theatre Festival Boulevard is a phenomenon. I did not yet know pianist Kris Defoort, but he is also a phenomenon. As is Henry Purcell, but we've known that for a couple of centuries: also a phenomenon. After such an opening paragraph... 

Wunderbaum provokes revulsion with sacred performance about North Sea cruise at Theatre Festival Boulevard

Wie jong is, een beetje leuk opgeleid en verder in het algemeen van goeden huize, gaat niet op een cruise over de Noordzee. Een cruise op de Noordzee, dat doe je als je geen fantasie hebt, slecht ter been of te ziek voor iets anders. Vindt Wunderbaum. Het theatercollectief dat zich graag ontfermt over de kwetsbaren van deze planeet is… 

The Apocalypse is something to look forward to at Theatre Festival Boulevard

Het mooiste einde van de wereld zit in Melancholia van Lars von Trier. Zwevende populieren, een wollige planeet die ons opeet in een golf van sfeervolle mist. Ik zou ervoor tekenen. Alles beter dan de klotsende aardplaten vol gillende poppetjes in de mislukte rampenfilm 2012. Maar ook weer niet zo leuk als het einde der tijden in The Hitchhikers Guide… 

Boukje Schweigman makes you feel how weird time is at Theatre Festival Boulevard.

Industrial estates are weird. They lie souring on the outskirts of one city, only to seamlessly morph into the same site on the outskirts of another. Once they were A-locations, places of visibility and the incarnate dream of reconstruction. Now they are low-grade structures, halls with a front door, a visible office for the Dirk and a pathetic... 

Thinking won't make you a hero. Artful Flemish musical theatre on Boulevard

Helden zijn niet altijd de slimste mensen. Sterker nog, de meeste daden die als heldendaad de geschiedenis in gingen, zijn ondoordachte acties geweest. Die toevallig lukten. Pure mazzel. Tegenover elke heldendaad staat dus een onbekend, maar niet te verwaarlozen aantal zinloze overlijdensgevallen van would-be helden. De hoofdfiguur van het theaterstuk De Helden, dat ik op 4 augustus in Den Bosch… 

Celebrate art in times of gloom. #tfboulevard

Openingsspeeches. Elk festival heeft er een. Of twee. Je moet er doorheen. Als gast, maar ook als gastgever. Er zou iets op gevonden moeten worden. Natuurlijk moet er een punt gemaakt worden, een vlag gehesen, een champagneflesknal ingeleid. En ook moeten de sponsoren bedankt worden. In deze tijden van een zich terugtrekkende overheid zijn dat er elk jaar meer. En… 

Just a Guest is justified summer hit: listening always makes people interesting

I held my heart. Patrick Nederkoorn and Oscar Kocken had been tempted by television to bring their brilliant gem 'Zomaargasten' over to the living room. NPO3 still. The channel targeting millennials. I had visions of channel managers, dramaturgs, audience specialists and gussied-up boys and girls well over forty that these two little artists would... 

Hakadans van Maori in Nieuw Zeeland

Hakadans op kantoor: The Corporate Tribe

Ik heb het beste managementboek ooit gelezen! Het was tevens mijn eerste en ik denk niet dat ik snel een tweede lees. Maar wat een boek, De corporate tribe. Misschien moet er naast het stickertje ‘Managementboek van het jaar 2016’ een stickertje ‘Zeker niet alleen voor managers’ op geplakt worden. Het is een feest voor iedereen die met andere mensen… 

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