Just over a month earlier than usual, the Holland Festival is presenting its new programme this season. There is every reason for this. With the arrival of Ruth Mackenzie as artistic director, a fresh wind is blowing through the festival. Annet Lekkerkerker talks about the changes in the video below. The presentation of the brochure - finally readable thanks to a new design - shows...
Nii Ayikwei Parks wants to write a book describing bad places in Africa as ideal, so that people who use his books as travel guides will be mugged and robbed and thus will learn what fiction is. With this humorous statement, the British-born and British-based writer, who spent his childhood with his Ghanaian parents in Ghana, brings some air into the evening...
The Holland Festival got a completely unknown new director in the person of Britain's Ruth Mackenzie. At least, to us. The flamboyant, artistically exceptional opera director Pierre Audi makes way for a woman who has presented herself mainly as a manager of festivals and cultural institutions, but whose ideas are anyone's guess. When she was presented, none of the...
Wijbrand Schaap: 'Just one more point. Then we're almost through.' Joop Daalmeijer: 'Continue quietly, we have until half past five.' Wijbrand Schaap: 'We have a problem with real estate. A lot of inner cities are empty. Shop premises are empty, downtown office buildings are unrentable. What do the municipalities say? Put artists in them. Cost nothing, because for free rent they do...
In various studios around the country, for almost a year, many boys took dance classes at the Billy Elliot sCOOL to qualify for one of the most coveted roles on the dance stage: Billy Elliot. Eventually, these participants were brought together for lessons at Stage Entertainment's beautiful new building at Zuidas in Amsterdam. Under the watchful eye of admirer Joop van den Ende, six young dancers were eventually selected by professionals from England, among others. Vanafrom 4 November in Scheveningen in the compelling ballet musical Billy Elliot with music by Elton John.
The 300-strong audience stood up as one after Leonard Bernstein's infectious performance of Candide at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam last night. The performance of this 'pocket version' of Bernstein's cheerful musical/opera about the incorrigible optimist Candide, produced by the Nationale Reisopera, took place indoors, in the hotel's ballroom, due to the weather conditions. After all, the Grachtenfestival has to be...
We are talking about the summer of 2015. Then Benedict Cumberbatch will play the title role in Hamlet, to be seen at the Barbican Centre in London. For the show, which plays for 12 weeks, 214% more tickets have already been sold in the first few hours after ticket sales opened yesterday than for Jay Z and Beyoncé's tour, which is on the same...
There are those who spend nights queuing for a ticket. After all, the Berliner Ensemble is mythologically big. As big as the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, or La Comédie Française in France. Monuments to cultural history, dedicated to one writer, like Brecht or Shakespeare, or to an entire history, as the French are used to. We Dutch have
What does a dissertation on a forgotten Victorian novelist have in common with a rushrelease from multinational Sony?
A national arts education plan, guaranteed permanent extra money for arts education and a cultural passport for all children, which also records their cultural experience: a few recommendations from the Henley study, commissioned by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport. While Dutch MPs are still struggling with the reorganisation of arts education, Britain is giving...
It saves Liverpool's GGD millions on dispensing antidepressants. And it only costs them a tonne and a half. They spend that much hiring Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra musicians for workshops in addiction clinics. So, no idealistic preaching, as in the countless columns and reactions to Halbes culture cut, but hard pecunia and proven effects. In England,...
Helon Habila His voice is low, and when he talks, he does so calmly and thoughtfully. He regards his humour - very British - as a side effect that is more accidental, than intended. This makes Helon Habila a perfect guest for the opening night of Writers Unlimited, the Hague literature festival better known as 'Winternachten'. The Nigerian can...
Tropenmuseum a bit exotic due to international contacts (...) "The Tropenmuseum still seems to be an issue for political The Hague, but I don't hear anything about the library service and the theatre." There seems to be no question of transfer to subsidy by the Ministry of OCW. Heemskerk also wonders whether state secretary Knapen has sufficient insight into the importance of the library. "The library service...
"I can fire anyone here. Except the actors." Sam Walters, artistic director of London production house the Orange Tree Theatre does not mince words. "Everyone in the office could leave. The directors too. But without actors no performance." The actor is unequivocally central to this theatre. As a director, you only prove yourself here when you get top performances out of your...
Photo: Pierre Nydegger To conclude. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we were able to meet with...
In conclusion. The 2011 Holland Festival could well be historic. Not only was it the festival that attracted the most audiences for years, it was also the festival that took place while a minority government of populists, nationalists and materialists proclaimed the end of art subsidies. We therefore look back on a festival in which we had a great time with our new...
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