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Hilda Paredes immortalises African-American freedom fighter in her opera 'Harriet'

On 3 October, the opera Harriet by Hilda Paredes will premiere, dedicated to legendary African-American freedom fighter Harriet Tubman (c. 1822-1913). In the mid-19th century, she escaped from a slave existence, after which she risked her life to free many peers via the so-called Underground Railroad. After years of wrangling, the US Department of the Treasury decided in September 2018 to take Tubman's effigy and... 

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'My will is the only thing I can control.' How Benedict Wells' difficult childhood led him to become a bestselling author

Robert Beck, the protagonist of Benedict Wells' debut novel Becks last summer, hopes, as a near-forty-year-old, to make his dream come true after all: a career in music. Wells (34) knows what it is to go all out to pursue your dream. He turned a difficult childhood into literature, and he became damn successful at it. Over the past... 

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Writer A.L. Snijders: 'While my wife was dying, I unsuspectingly wrote a piece'

His short stories look deceptively simple, and every word is weighed as if on a gold scale. He therefore basically writes his very short stories from A to Z, without changing anything else. Portrait of writer A.L. Snijders. 'While my wife was dying, I unsuspectingly wrote a piece.' Elaborate You wouldn't expect it from... 

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New York Dance Theatre of Harlem

In New York with two choreographers from the Netherlands. 'So refreshing and unlike anything we have done the last few years.'

Between the buildings, streaks of sunlight invade the endless streets. Yellow taxis accentuate the colourful, vibrant street scene that looks like candy canes. On either side, countless floors and windows rise skyward. On one of those floors on 42nd Street, the Dance Theatre of Harlem is rehearsing the final scenes of Balamouk, a new creation by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa. Who also... 

Read More "In New York with two choreographers from the Netherlands. 'So refreshing and unlike anything we have done the last few years.'

Writer Rachel Kushner: 'All my former friends went down the wrong path' Critical novel about the US prison world

In her novel Club Mars, writer Rachel Kushner shows what the life of an inmate looks like inside the four walls. 'I like to include people in my life who have been made invisible in our society,' she says. No mercy Thousands of women are incarcerated in Chowchilla, the jail that was the model for Rachel Kushner's writing of Club Mars. Kushner's... 

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Touching each other is taboo. Anne Nguyen brings breakdance and capoeira, vulnerable men and video games in Kata @hollandfestival

In Kata, the latest work by French breaker and choreographer Anne Nguyen, hip-hop men transcend the clichés of hip-hop. Toughness, untouchability and the usual frontal relationship with the audience are exchanged for indirect gestures, delayed effects, diagonals and laterals, double entendres and irony. Nguyen, herself an adept practitioner of capoeira, ming chun and breakdance, challenges her dancers to show their... 

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Why Italian women struggle with motherhood. Writer Silvia Avallone cuts taboos in new novel

She is young, beautiful and well-spoken. Writer Silvia Avallone, known for her bestseller Staal, does not shy away from sensitive themes in her compelling new novel Levenslichtde either, such as the economic crisis, infertility and unevenly divided parenthood. 'Claiming freedom for yourself is something terrifying for an Italian woman.' Rough edges Poverty, economic malaise, gender inequality...... 

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Film concert featuring West Side Story, Bernstein's indictment of discrimination

Leonard Bernstein would have turned 100 this year. The AVROTROS Friday Concert puts his most popular piece, West Side Story, on the programme on Saturday (!) 26 May. The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra will play the electrifying music full of ecstatic melodies and vital dances live at the integral screening of the original 1961 film. The whole thing is conducted by the young American conductor 

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Podcast: This year, Poetry International explores the role of nationalism in poetry.

Jan Baeke has been associated with Poetry International as a programmer for many years. In this podcast, I talk to him about the programme and the theme of this 49th edition: The Nation of Poetry. It's about nationalism, of course, but also about identity. And about what role poetry plays in that. And then, of course, it's not primarily about folk songs. We... 

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Why Wierd Duk often does exactly what he fights himself.

Uproar. A widely recognised and by his own admission always attacked opinion maker with a slight preference for strong men in Russia and America has discovered that art is leftist and elitist. Indeed, Wierd Duk, Russia expert since he spent a few years running around Moscow for various media outlets, writes in the Telegraph that art is often left-wing kitsch[ref]N[ref][/ref]Wierd Duk has since revealed... 

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Millennial Poets at Poetry International (@poetry_en) - Social Justice with Self-mockery and Laughing at Rape... Is it possible?

Poets Danez Smith and Patricia Lockwood once broke the internet with their virtuoso wordplay. Smith with a frothy tirade about ineradicable racism and police brutality in America (Dear White America) and Lockwood with a heartbreaking/funny poem about her rape (Rape Joke). Both have outgrown their hypes. They have secretly been doing a fantastic job for years, using Twitter, YouTube, paper and stage... 

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Evolution and revolution in Westworld season 2. Preview (without spoilers but with #metoo)

The premiere of the second season of Westworld takes place next week. I got to watch in advance. In case it doesn't ring a bell; Westworld is currently HBO's most popular series after Game of Thrones. Short synopsis: The show is set in the fictional Westworld: a technological Western theme park where the population consists entirely of synthetic androids, which are also... 

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Remko van der Drift devised the Failure Festival: 'We think success is mainly 'not failing'. That's not true at all. Failure, like success, is part of life.

The Faal Festival at Utrecht's festival palace TivoliVredenburg, taking place on 3 March, is unique in many ways. Never before have so many famous people been willing to come and talk about their failures. Apparently, there is a big audience for it, in these times when quick success is actually mandatory. In the run-up to the festival, I spoke to Remko van der... 

Read More "Remko van der Drift devised the Failure Festival: 'We think success is mainly 'not failing'. That's not true at all. Failure, like success, is part of life.

Addicted to 'real' books? You're selling yourself short. Put your e-reader next to your omelette and Let Three Million Books Bloom

Feet in the warm sand, Caipirinha with parasol, murmuring sea in the background and you are lying on a deckchair with 600 books. All I'm saying is: you are seriously selling yourself short without an e-reader. And the benefits are much bigger than just having to lug around less on holiday, which I'm going to explain below. Downloading in Luang Prabang I now read... 

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Narrative concert on Shostakovich: here you can hear how much humanity, character and creative spirit communism tried to kill.

The greater the resistance to be overcome, the greater the achievement. This wry wisdom is expressed in the Russian narrative concert 'Living under a tyrant'. Cellist Lidy Blijdorp adds another beautiful, personal and original episode to her Cello 020 series with this programme around the life story of composer Shostakovich. She performs in this concert together with... 

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'Black' is unique collection of 'Afropean' literature: 'African-Dutch authors are directly compared to black American writers.'

The book may be called 'Black', but the stories collected in it make it clear that there are as many shades of black, as white and everything in between. We, and by that I mean myself and my largely white network, just need to look more closely. And listen. Take Olave Nduwanje's story, titled Imana Ikurinde (God save you), in the middle of the book. The... 

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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... 

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Our readers' list. What we should all never forget from 2017.

Well, we're not big on hypes and traditions here, but still. The dark days around Christmas are very dark this year, so why not something with lists. This year, no list of toppers from the editors, but random entries from random readers, in random, if slightly alphabetical order. Motto of the readers' question was: which things... 

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5 Bargains the cockerels left behind at major auction houses

It was ball again just before summer at Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips and Bonhams. Contemporary art auctions are the showpieces of see-and-be-seen. And the place to throw loads of money. For the happy few, in other words. Or better: a pissing contest for men (mostly - really - men) who get the measure of hedge funds and mega-corporations. Score-driving, in other words;... 

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Humour, marinated in tears on a bed of melancholy. Perfect day on Boulevard

The prize for the longest and most artful kiss of 2017 has been given away and goes to Conny Janssen Danst. In a small tent on the square below Bossche Sint-Jan, this danced kiss forms the technical and dramatic highlight of Clarity. Two dancers, spinning pirouettes while keeping their lips connected, a video artist and the floating music performed live by iET were on Saturday ... 

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This is guaranteed to make you happy. How artist collective toyism has continued to surprise for 25 years

They have been around for 25 years but are buzzing as if they were founded yesterday. With the creation of a work of art at Eelde airport - to be followed live from today - as well as exhibitions at 25 locations in and around Groningen, the artists of the international artists' collective toyism are celebrating their anniversary. The artists of toyism in Iceland ©Marc Brester/AQM Quirky, original and committed are... 

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