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'Versace broke the traditional male-female image' - exhibition on fashion designer and 'kitsch king' Gianni Versace at Groninger Museum 

Why is the largest retrospective on Italian designer Gianni Versace yet on show in Groningen? "Why not?" jokes Andreas Blühm, general director of the Groninger Museum. Indeed, it seems like a bizarre choice, but if you look a little closer, you will discover a few commonalities between the museum in the down-to-earth north and the maximalism of Gianni Versace, who on 2... 

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Comfort Birds

Goed rouwen om het verlies van een dierbare leidt niet naar Prozac of een zielenknijper. Integendeel, een beetje levenskunst helpt, zoals in ‘Verdriet is het ding met veren’ van Max Porter, Jacob Derwig en Erik Whien. Nadat vroeger eens een tragedie m’n familie trof, troostte ik me met het voorlezen van het prentenboek Kikker en het Vogeltje voor van Max… 

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Een eruptie van schoonheid in het Drents Museum

‘Napels zien en dan sterven’ waren Goethes beroemde woorden. Als de Duitse filosoof net zo omgeven was door schoonheid als ik tijdens de nieuwe tentoonstelling Sterven in schoonheid – De wereld van Pompeï en Herculaneum, dan begrijp ik zijn uitspraak wel. Voor het Drents Museum is het een eigenaardige keuze: een expositie over een al veel besproken periode en samenleving.… 

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Rumours are true: theatre can tap new audiences through local roots. Head to Enschede to see it.

Before, when I used to write about theatre for a national morning paper, my travel schedule was partly determined by the reach the paper had in a particular region. So, if I necessarily wanted to write about a theatre performance in Enschede, about Enschedean states, my chief's question was: how many subscribers do we have in Twente? So usually it didn't get there 

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Melle Daamen is better on the pitch than in the paper

Voor Melle Daamen koester ik sympathie. En al lang: vanaf de keer dat hij als jonge VPRO bestuurder bij me op bezoek kwam op zijn ronde langs mensen uit de cultuurwereld. Hij kwam om advies vragen: hoe kon hij de sector binnenkomen? Want een baan in de cultuur was zijn ambitie. Zoveel jaar later passeerde hij me in de procedure… 

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We are all fluid. Alum makes tangible in Metamorphoses II how comforting that is

Marietje d'Hane Scheltema, her name be praised. How corny I used to think she was, with her neat rhymes with which she managed to transform classical Greek and Roman drinking bouts into Kralings-judged bake sale parties. And how wrong I could be. Because how well her translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses works in the hands of the people at Alum. Yesterday was the premiere... 

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Van Binsbergen brings shimmering South African story in sound and language #novembermusic

A trombone screeching like an elephant, violins like imploring songbirds and an oboe rippling a scale like a stream: so opens A Skin of Sound, a performance featuring winds, string instruments, percussion, a South African poet and a pop singer. With bated breath, dozens of visitors in the Great Hall of the Bossche Verkadefabriek listened to the premiere of this shimmering piece.... 

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FAQ in Den Bosch: An alchemists' festival full of niches, nerds and drones #novembermusic

Not everyone thinks music is also something to look at. Not a crazy idea, considering that some music is so layered and complex that you need all your attention for listening. So modern electronic music largely takes place in the dark, I experienced during two evenings of FAQ Festival in Den Bosch. There, I discovered that I... 

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Time flows through you; The Years of Eline Arbo at HNT as poignant as it is stunning

Squeezing village society and family, escape with harsh deflowering, student pleasures crushed by bloody abortion, inescapable marriage and childbearing, scorching relationships with men, fierce longing with loneliness, and finally resignation with grandchild; against the backdrop of war, reconstruction, stifled revolution, years of hope and finally in prosperity and cynicism extinguished idealism. Time flows through Annie, Annie flows through the... 

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The cultural sector needs to be protected from itself. Maryam Hassouni makes that crystal clear in What the Fak!

Patronisation! Woke terror! These were some of the reactions from the film world when there were calls for the appointment of an intimacy coordinator at Dutch film productions. As if anyone could allow or display sexually transgressive behaviour in a studio with 40 other staff around it. Impossible! Yesterday, the book Wat de Fak! by award-winning actress Maryam Hassouni was published and in it, it states... 

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4 Reasons why theatre performance Light in Leidsche Rijn is not all that nice by chance

Light is the name of the latest production by NUT, a theatre company with close ties to Utrecht's Leidsche Rijn district. It is theatre in a bubble in Utrecht's largest city park, and it starts with good food and drink. I went to see it, and again became even more of a fan than I already was. A few reasons, why that came about.

Jeroen Spitzenberger lets New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra shine

Jeroen Spitzenberger lets New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra shine So typically Rotterdam is this performance, just right, because of the space the lauded actor grants to a rather unknown 11-member male orchestra. For weeks, we happily watch Spitzenberger as Tim in the excellent TV series Oogappels, just as we intensely enjoyed The Year of Fortuyn at the same NPO in which he (also)... 

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EZ: Investigating pain, power and manipulation at the interface between philosophy and circus #festivalcircolo

The circus performance EZ pulls you out of your comfort zone and raises uncomfortable questions like: what do we agree to without knowing it, and: what do you do when someone on stage voluntarily tortures and manipulates themselves? In their performance, the non-binary Elena Zanzu, a graduate of Montreal's National Circus School and master in philosophy at the University in... 

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Why you wish every artist peace of Camiel Corneille #festivalcircolo

There he sits, at the top, enjoying the view. Camiel Corneille has just conquered his own work, a hellish instrument made of a four-by-four wooden plate that can turn in all directions except the right one. A moving balance beam that can also give you a big whack. Camiel Corneille designed it himself and tackles the thing... 

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Fernanda Melchor's new novel will leave you gasping for breath

Paradais – ‘paradijs’ – is de cynische titel van de nieuwe, onthutsende roman van Fernanda Melchor. De wereld die de Mexicaanse schrijfster oproept, heeft meer weg van de hel. Polo, een donkere jongen van 16 die met zijn moeder in een klein Mexicaanse dorpje woont, heeft zijn leven tot nu toe nogal verkloot. Hij is van school getrapt, rookt en… 

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One more time the stage is set for Anna. Sensitive new novel by Arthur Japin

Een sensitieve roman over jezelf mogen zijn, dat is het nieuwe boek Wat stilte wil van Arthur Japin. Hij vertelt het tragische levensverhaal van Anna Witsen, wier carrière als zangeres werd gebroken in de knop. Wie kent ze nog, de negentiende-eeuwse schrijvers en kunstenaars die bekend zijn geworden als de Tachtigers? Dichters als Willem Kloos, Albert Verwey, Frederik van Eeden,… 

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We need to handle our last days differently, that much is made clear by POW-WOW by Minou Bosua. 

We die too late. Most of the time. After all, nobody wants to spend the last years of life leaking in a nursing home, cared for by ever-changing staff who do their stinking best but are incapable of the love that children, or close friends for want of it, could give. Better a pill than dementia, we say, but then you have to say 'Yes! 

Read More "We need to handle our last days differently, that much is made clear by POW-WOW by Minou Bosua. 

Gianfranco Calligarich has his characters fight a blistering psychological contest

Gianfranco Calligarich's second novel translated into Dutch is as impressive as his well-received previous one. In the embrace of the river is a thrilling story that grips the main characters and the reader until the last page. Only two years ago, the first Dutch translation of one of the novels by... 

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Harrowing novel about the hidden world of 'the Italian disease'

In his new novel When I Come Back, Italian writer Marco Balzano reveals a hidden world: that of female migrants hired by prosperous Westerners to care for their demented elderly, children and household. In Eastern Europe, there is a word for the burnout affecting millions of Eastern European domestic and care workers: 'the Italian disease'. Migration is often portrayed as... 

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Aurora Venturini's nieces: confusing, alienating, eccentric and fascinating

Argentine writer Aurora Venturini was 85 when she received the Premio Nueva Novela for The Cousins, which she had submitted anonymously. She finally got the recognition she craved, with this eccentric, fascinating story with equally eccentric and fascinating characters. In The Cousins, Yuna tells of her monstrous family of 'misfits'. Yuna herself is retarded and her younger... 

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The 59th Venice Biennale: there is so much to get behind the big and established names that has fallen away.

One might, when visiting the Venice Arte Biennale 2022, immediately shout 'woke' or 'wokism'. It's not that difficult, since the curator's choices emphasise female and non-Western artists.1 But I would find that too easy and ultimately unjustified. When you try to look fresh - forgetting all the reflections beforehand - it falls... 

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Lightness was in the genes. Dieuwertje Blok discovered her Jewish mother's war diary

Fourteen years after the death of her Jewish mother, presenter Dieuwertje Blok found her war diary. With her debut Dragging Lightness, Blok pays a warm tribute to the woman who gave her life. A profession in the spotlight - Dieuwertje Blok is no stranger to it. Her grandmother Saartje, who as the daughter of fishmongers grew up in the Joden Houttuinen... 

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With each novel, Jan Siebelink lays a new piece of the puzzle of his childhood

In Brengschuld, Jan Siebelink returns to his familiar Sievez family, adding a new chapter to the story of the downfall of their nursery. Ever since his biggest success novel Knielen op een bed violen, writer Jan Siebelink has regularly returned to his characters Hans and Margje Sievez, their son Ruben, and especially to their nursery in Velp. Also... 

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Trapeze Annemieke van der Togt

Circus provides perfect backdrop for Kees Prins' tragicomic 'Trapeze'

Stop or keep going until you drop dead? And can you build on the other? Serious life questions that the occasional duo Peter Blok and Bas Hoeflaak will answer from a trapeze on the ridge of their circus, joking and snarking. The dry humour and mugshots of Peter Blok (experienced stage, film and TV actor) and actor-cabaret artist Bas Hoeflaak (Snipers) are... 

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