Research shows: nothing so immutable as the art public
More people go to popular art than 'high' or 'canonical' art. Researcher Andries van den Broek has researched this. Therefore, there are now figures explaining the word 'popular' and 'elite'. So
spectators
Plea for Fall Fund shows lack of realism theatre sector
Nothing worse than having to play an unsuccessful play thirty, or a hundred times, just because the show has been sold to theatres so many times. That's why it would be nice if companies could decide not to do it. Because now they wouldn't be able to.
Utrecht deploys army at opening of festive year
200 military personnel and JunkieXL are expected to cause a spectacle on the A2 motorway near Utrecht on 13 April. The roof of the new tunnel trench will be the stage for a battle of medieval proportions, in which peace will be conquered by our army over something with a wall and 'war' on it.
Ivo van Hove is God. According to New Yorkers.
Anyway: while Amsterdam's city newspaper Parool was embarking on a campaign against the Dutch capital's city company at the behest of the Flemish publishing board, the same Toneelgroep Amsterdam was winning the hearts of New York audiences with a production of the already years-old 'Roman Tragedies', which a few here did not even like overall: http://www.wijbrandschaap.nl/2007/06/romeinse-tragedies-hf2007ta/
New impetus by young dance talent at PUNCH! Festival
PUNCH! is a fantastic festival. It shows how much beauty, news and surprise is created when the line between dance and performance is dissolved. PUNCH! promotes a refreshing view of the world and shakes loose entrenched interpretations. The young dance makers and performers show tremendous originality and creativity that you will not only enjoy watching, you will go...
Order of the Day renews theatre
I did it just like that. Proclaimed a show as the most important theatre innovation for 20 years. That's daring. Even though I made the term a bit more vague in a subsequent tweet, because, yes, there has been quite a lot of innovation in recent years, left and right in theatres. So let's stick to 'the last few years'. And then...
Eric de Vroedt: 'Eventually reached Obama too'
Winning two awards in one weekend, that doesn't often happen to a person, not even in the award-winning art world. Eric de Vroedt is a theatre-maker and writer who did happen to one. Entering his final season 'MightySociety' he got the Amsterdam Prize (35,000 euros) and the Prize of Criticism (a statuette), determined by a jury of newspaper reviewers.
Classical musicians: stop thinking in money, think in ideas
Classical music audiences have been declining by 1% a year for 20 years. Structurally. That means that since 1992, 1/5 of the audience has already disappeared, without anything else taking its place. According to Johan Idema, strategist and author of a useful book on new methods for early music, the sector is entirely self-inflicted.
Dodo Holland Festival journal becomes Dodo Holland Festival Hangout #HF12
We already have one episode on it, and it was of course a huge success, but right at the climax you have to start something new. That's why tonight at 22:30 we have a new thing: The Dodo Holland Festival Hangout. Live, interactive and online. Innovative, in other words, as you know it from us. You know them: those reporter trucks with metres of spaghetti...
Dodo Holland Festival journal becomes Dodo Holland Festival Hangout #HF12
We already have one episode on it, and it was of course a huge success, but right at the climax you have to start something new. That's why tonight at 22:30 we have a new thing: The Dodo Holland Festival Hangout. Live, interactive and online. Innovative, in other words, as you know it from us. You know them: those reporter trucks with metres of spaghetti...
Final edition of Springdance closes convincingly with premiere of nonstop intense concert by Meyers, Sehgal and the REDUX ORCHESTRA
Voor de tweede keer tijdens Springdance delen artiesten en publiek het toneel van de Utrechtse Stadsschouwburg. REDUX ORCHESTRA speelt onder leiding van de componist Ari Benjamin Meyers diens Symphony X, een pulserend, up-beat (120 p/m) minimal werk. Toeschouwers, dirigent en musici – mag je hen nu gewoon muzikanten noemen? – gaan op in één grote, uiterst subtiele, participatoire choreografie van…
Imaginative artwork SYLPHIDES looks at what moves people, starting with the breath
Elk festival smeekt om vrijwilligers en in de begindagen van Springdance waren er zelfs helemaal geen betaalde krachten. Dat zegt ook iets. Nu Springdance na dertig jaar gaat fuseren met Festival aan de Werf is het thema van deze laatste editie ‘scupltured bodies & body sculptures’. Bij SYLPHIDES is dit treffend van toepassing. “Hoe mensen bewegen interesseert mij niet, ik wil…
Inertia and extreme duration make Ibrahim Quraishi's "Wild Life Take Away Station" a mysterious still life
Upon entering, Wild Life Take Away Station has been going on for four hours. Two performers - Diego Agulló and Ria Higler, a young man and an old woman - stroll through the Central Museum's project studio like drowsy zombies. They are pale and muscle-naked, apart from their weird slippers and wigs. The two lie sprawled across the sofa,...
'It felt a bit like the first time sex: way too direct, rushed, overactive and largely based on insecurity': Ivo Dimchev in battle with Franz West's wearable art
"What the fuck should I do with this?" was choreographer and performance artist Ivo Dimchev's (1976) first thought when confronted with the artworks of Austrian artist Franz West. After Dimchev's solo performance Some Faves (2010) in Vienna, West, a multi-awarded creator of bizarre sculptures and objects, sought contact with the choreographer. He asked him to make an improvised video based on his...
De Dodo gaat opnieuw Dappere Dansers in de gaten houden
Dit jaar wordt Springdance voor het laatst gehouden. Na bijna 30 jaar werd het tijd voor iets nieuws, al was het alleen maar omdat de wind in Den Haag opeens van rechts komt en dat is bad for business. Als je tenminste vernieuwende kunst wilt laten zien. Daarom fuseert Springdance in de loop van dit jaar met het andere Utrechtse…
5-hour marathon Roman Tragedies favourite with spectators Toneelgroep Amsterdam
We were somewhat mildly ironic about it, but hats off, meanwhile, to Toneelgroep Amsterdam's PR department and the audience, who responded remarkably well to the 'choose the reprise' campaign the company launched a few weeks back. We have the hard numbers we feared we would never see. And they are credible. We quote the press release: From 2 to...
We say goodbye to a festival that was once again unique. For the last time? #decision
There was a time, when art did not have to draw full theatres to be accepted by the population. After all, out of the total budget of a municipality, something like art costs no more than a penny, so you don't get worse, while at best you can only get better. So is...
Neutral Hero: Like a steam locomotive tugging slowly over you #dekeuze
'I will never go to anything undergrounds again,' sighs a lady as she leaves the auditorium. She looks pained, after more than an hour and a half of Neutral Hero by director Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players. The paper description of the show may therefore lead a potential visitor astray. A 'country opera' sounds far too...
La Fin Du Western is screaming, stomping and spitting tirade against the absurd power struggle in Ivory Coast #dekeuze
"I love westerns," says one of the African players. "Because you always know how they end. Clearly. With only one winner." On the stage floor are four smoothly twirling, stomping dancing, trained performers from the Ivory Coast. They are a stark contrast to their co-stars: two lumbering, yoghurt-pale and uncoordinated German actors. The Africans speak French, the Germans mostly English. The...
Can a piece of plastic be sad? Well in the theatre by Lotte van den Berg #dekeuze
Can a plastic rag be sad? It does in the hands of a puppeteer in a performance by Lotte van den Berg. With a few pieces of tape and a lot of well-aimed buttons, the plastic rag has been transformed into something with four limbs and a head. And the plastic rag mourns in its performer's hands dozens of similarly knotted...
15,000 burger buns set a fitting stage for typically Spanish Golgotha Picnic #International Choice
Spain and God. The two have had something in common for a long time. And to outsiders, not always in a positive sense. Spaniards invented the Inquisition and converted the entire native population of South America to the eternal hunting grounds. When artists delve into the relationship between supreme being and Spaniard, it also quite often produces confrontational works. Take...
Irony and purity want to stand side by side in 'Free Mason' by Tjon Rockon #International Choice
It takes guts: walking down Rotterdam's Kruiskade with a big wooden cross and shouting "Mason was a fish!" shouting. The drug-addicted residents of St Paul's Church, the dishwashers at Chinese restaurants and waiting passengers at the tram stop look on in bewilderment. Sandro Lima shouts lyrics about Mason the saviour like a possessed religious maniac. Moments before, we are at...
Festival 'The International Choice' opens as it should: abrasive, confrontational and tad disturbing #thechoice
Strange how quickly history detaches itself from your memory. We had gradually come to think here that the camping uprising in Cairo's Tahrir Square was a kind of summer of love. That everyone there was cramming roses into cannon shells singing together and that the whole world was just there to give each other love and hugs. Time for a lesson in rebellion....
Prachtige combinatie van verstilling en vertraging doet verlangen naar meer van Daria Bukvic’ ‘ Verwoest’ op #DeBasis
Een open plek in het bos. Dat zou idyllisch kunnen zijn, maar uit het bos komen verdachte geluiden. Mannen zingen en halen trekkers over. De echo’s van explosies weerklinken. Het is allemaal maar nep. Het is maar theater – dat toch angst aanjaagt. Daria Bukvic, een pas afgestudeerde regisseur van de Toneelschool Maastricht, maakte een voorstelling over haar moeder. Die…
Playing with the Wooster Group: 'a totally new way of being on stage, of dealing with signals and the material of the show'
'Your audience will love it.' That was the last thing Liz Lecompte of the Wooster Group heard from the heirs of playwright Tennessee Williams shortly before the premiere of Vieux Carré. Since then, the trustees of the estate of this American monument have been keeping quiet about the performance Lecompte created. It was the end of a long period in which...
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