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'It deals with a serious subject, but I also laughed a lot.' This is why Anne-Gine Goemans wrote a cheerful book about nuclear weapons

A cheerful novel about nuclear weapons, that was to be Holy Trientje. Writer Anne-Gine Goemans based the book on the true story of American nun Megan Rice, who - at an advanced age - managed to enter the United States' most heavily secured nuclear bomb complex with nothing more than a pair of concrete scissors. 'I thought it was so beautiful, brave and naive.' Hiroshima 'failure' Every... 

Read More "'It deals with a serious subject, but I also laughed a lot.' This is why Anne-Gine Goemans wrote a cheerful book about nuclear weapons

Social Fund Performing Arts turns out to be moneypit: assets halved in five years. Why is this bad news?

'If we continue at the current rate, the fund will be exhausted in the foreseeable future.' This can be read in the 2018 annual report of the Performing Arts Social Fund. Plenty of reason to sound the alarm, indeed. Is this yet another victim of the cabinet's cuts? Not really, it turns out. When you look at the documents in detail, you see mainly that... 

Read More "Social Fund Performing Arts turns out to be moneypit: assets halved in five years. Why is this bad news?

'Playing a game is fun, especially if it's a sneaky game.' What is Yan Duyvendak doing at Noorderzon with his audience?

Armed only with instructions, consisting of a short scenario and witness accounts from previous participants, you and up to 11 others carry out a number of sneaky tasks. On the street. Exactly what these subtle disruptions of the everyday are will remain a secret until the performance begins. It promises to be one of the most special projects at Festival Noorderzon, which runs from 15 to... 

Read More "'Playing a game is fun, especially if it's a sneaky game.' What is Yan Duyvendak doing at Noorderzon with his audience?

Colson Whitehead writes gripping book on cruelty in US juvenile justice: 'The system is still intact'

With his slavery novel The Underground Railroad, American writer Colson Whitehead broke through worldwide. His impressive new book The Nickel Boys is once again about a gruesome page in recent American history. Torture, rape, even murder: at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, it was the order of the day. For as many as 111 years, the... 

Read More "Colson Whitehead writes gripping book on cruelty in US juvenile justice: 'The system is still intact'

Jeremy Dutcher on Amsterdam Roots: 'I think we can expect something very beautiful in the generations to come, as long as we keep singing our songs.'

It is, so in his normal clothes, a cheerful, spontaneous guy who walks up to me in the hotel lobby where we have arranged to meet. Jeremy Dutcher the Canadian singer who is one of the main guests at this year's Amsterdam Roots festival, hardly shows any traces of the jet lag he must have undoubtedly sustained from his flight, which took off a few hours earlier... 

Read More "Jeremy Dutcher on Amsterdam Roots: 'I think we can expect something very beautiful in the generations to come, as long as we keep singing our songs.'

'Give your opponent a kiss on the cheek.' Eight life questions to writer Mark Haddon

The huge success of his novel The Miraculous Incident with the Dog in the Night - nearly ten million copies sold - brought British writer and visual artist Mark Haddon financial freedom, but not peace of mind. He recently published his new novel, The Dolphin. 'I always think: when this is finished, then I will have peace of mind. But that carrot on the stick for... 

Read More "'Give your opponent a kiss on the cheek.' Eight life questions to writer Mark Haddon

Colonisation is not a relationship. But we still need to establish that relationship, this Holland Festival showed.

Post-colonial criticism and reflection ran like a thread through this year's Holland Festival programme. Not only William Kentrigde and Faustin Linyekula, the associate artists with whom the festival's programmers collaborated, their work addresses the devastating effects of centuries of Western European trade and commerce. In reframing political and social history and reclaiming... 

Read More "Colonisation is not a relationship. But we still need to establish that relationship, this Holland Festival showed.

Pity the Poles! Intense suicidal sadness in stage adaptation of Kafka's 'Trial'.

You must be a Pole. That, as the Dutch premiere of 'Process' at the Holland Festival showed, is no laughing matter. This performance, an adaptation of Franz Kafka's famous novel of the same name, conveys that feeling very poignantly. Five hours long, interrupted only by two half-hour intermissions, during which a mackerel sandwich can be eaten. Or a bowl of mixed nuts. Observant... 

Read More "Pity the Poles! Intense suicidal sadness in stage adaptation of Kafka's 'Trial'.
Crash Park, la vie d'une île - Philippe Quesne. Photo: Martin Argyroglo.

Until the laughter dies down. Crashpark stages the downfall of the world as a beautiful landscape full of partygoers

Crash Park - La vie d'une île (2018) by French director Philippe Quesne performs 19th-century values in their 21st-century elaboration. The elitist explorer has become a modal tourist, moving in well-organised groups to every corner of the world in search of ultimate experiences, provided they don't get in the way of a return ticket western... 

Read More "Until the laughter dies down. Crashpark stages the downfall of the world as a beautiful landscape full of partygoers
Antony and Cleopatra, Tiago Rodrigues. Photo: Magda Bizarro.

'I have no problem at all if spectators want to see Anthony and Cleopatra. But for me, it's about something else.' Tiago Rodrigues writes theatre for dancers.

Anthony and Cleopatra is exactly the kind of repertory piece that people look forward to during the Holland Festival, or any other prestigious stage. Director and writer Tiago Rodrigues manages not so much to deflate that grandiose expectation as to reduce it to the intimacy of a duet and a play with extremely basic theatrical gestures. His two actors are dancers, an experienced choreographer duo 

Read More "'I have no problem at all if spectators want to see Anthony and Cleopatra. But for me, it's about something else.' Tiago Rodrigues writes theatre for dancers.

'My cat saved me from death'. Seven life questions to author Jeanette Winterson

When it turned out she was in love with a girl, she fled her unhappy childhood with her strict religious adoptive parents. The book she wrote about it, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, made her world-famous overnight. But as an adult, she still got the bill. It was her cat that saved her from a self-chosen death. Seven life questions to... 

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What a broken-down bus has to do with liberation and feminism. Dancer Djino Alolo on Piki Piki at the Holland Festival

Djino Alolo Sabin (1990) sits there, relaxed, in the morning at the hotel in Brussels. The night before, he has danced his solo Piki Piki for the first time, which will also be shown at Theater Frascati during the Holland Festival. The performance touches on many intense themes, but is anything but melodramatic. Rather, it expresses a relentless optimism.... 

Read More "What a broken-down bus has to do with liberation and feminism. Dancer Djino Alolo on Piki Piki at the Holland Festival

'We have become spectators rather than actors'; Philipp Blom tells performing artists on SPOT-Live what is at stake.

'We are on the brink of a new cultural revolution. We need to move away from our paradigm and art can play a role in this. Art can show us images of a different future, a different thought. Artists can help bring that realisation in.' Speaking is writer and journalist Philipp Blom. In 2017, his... 

Read More "'We have become spectators rather than actors'; Philipp Blom tells performing artists on SPOT-Live what is at stake.

Jesús de Vega makes Choreopop: 'There must always be something that causes friction.' (What a childhood in Gran Canaria does to a dancer)

'I have broken every bone on the left side of my body at least once. My knee ten years ago, my elbow five years later, a toe, a finger, and under my left eye I have a scar from a stone someone threw at me when I was a kid.' Jesús de Vega, dancer, choreographer, videographer and teremin player, has had the requisite... 

Read More "Jesús de Vega makes Choreopop: 'There must always be something that causes friction.' (What a childhood in Gran Canaria does to a dancer)

Reading in times of Netflix: why books are a must for our minds, according to bestselling author Joël Dicker (33)

'During performances or book signings, people often come up to me and tell me: "I wasn't a reader, but your book made me experience the pleasure of reading and now I really enjoy reading." I don't say that because I think my books are now so good, but because it shows that once someone experiences... 

Read More "Reading in times of Netflix: why books are a must for our minds, according to bestselling author Joël Dicker (33)

PODCAST! Beware the one-armed piano teacher. Bellevue presents comic show about Paul Wittgenstein.

Playing the piano without hands is quite difficult. With one hand it is already almost impossible, although Paul Wittgenstein came a long way. The pianist - and elder brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein - lost his right arm in the First World War trenches. He set about training his left arm with some dogged determination and was able to... 

Read More "PODCAST! Beware the one-armed piano teacher. Bellevue presents comic show about Paul Wittgenstein.

Composer Sander Germanus: 'Don't use drugs, listen to my music!'

'Don't use drugs, listen to my music!' This is what Sander Germanus (Amsterdam, 1972) writes confidently on his website. Words you don't immediately expect from a composer of modern-classical music. After all, in this context, many think of incomprehensible 'plink-plonk' rather than mind-blowing sounds. A refreshing sound from someone who designed his own method of composition, so-called 'horizontal harmony'. Ehm... What should we... 

Read More "Composer Sander Germanus: 'Don't use drugs, listen to my music!'

'I now understand how complex "guilt" actually is': Takis Würger wrote novel about Jewish betrayer (and put his email address in it).

'That I have perpetrators in my family gives me the responsibility to keep remembering. Many of my contemporaries say we should never forget and that it should never happen again, but do nothing else. Being a writer gives me the opportunity to do something. To write about it, make readers feel... 

Read More "'I now understand how complex "guilt" actually is': Takis Würger wrote novel about Jewish betrayer (and put his email address in it).

Crash Park: Armageddon is child's play. At the Holland Festival, Philippe Quesne cheerfully lets us survive any disaster.

'I am not at all optimistic about the planet. Nor am I optimistic about the optimism with which the people in my show keep finding a solution to live on despite the calamity that befalls them.' Philippe Quesne has turned that despair into a beautiful play. Full of non-cynical survivors who turn everything into an adventure. How he does that... 

Read More "Crash Park: Armageddon is child's play. At the Holland Festival, Philippe Quesne cheerfully lets us survive any disaster.

Morgan Knibbe does not shy away from heavy subjects: 'film is an empathy machine.'

In 2014, Morgan Knibbe (1989) made the short film Shipwreck, about the aftermath of a horrific shipwreck on the coast of Lampedusa in which 350 refugees drowned. Shortly afterwards, he made his first feature-length documentary, also about refugee issues: 'Those Who Feel the Burning'. This very impressive, original and visually strong film was one of the best Dutch films of the last... 

Read More "Morgan Knibbe does not shy away from heavy subjects: 'film is an empathy machine.'

7 reasons to (re)read Elsschot's novels

With his new book The Discovery of Elsschot, Elsschot biographer Vic van de Reijt wants to get the whole of the Netherlands reading Elsschot's books. Seven reasons why these classics are timeless fun. 1. You can finish any of Elsschot's books in one day 'In 1970 I bought his Collected Works for nine guilders, I remember it well. At the time... 

Read More "7 reasons to (re)read Elsschot's novels

'A woman still cannot write erotic books with impunity'

'Surely the fight for women's rights should have been fought by now, but it doesn't feel that way lately. Men still have a deep-seated feeling that they should be above women. Where does that come from anyway? Where does someone like rapper Boef get the idea that he should just give women, who were kind enough to give him a lift,... 

Read More "'A woman still cannot write erotic books with impunity'

PODCAST! Why the paper book will never disappear

The paper book will never disappear. Of that, both Robbert Hak (Storytel) and Maarten Richel (New Book Collective) are convinced. And both are working on new ways to market books. 'The publishing world will become much more hybrid. The book, in all its different forms, should be present in as many places as possible.' Robert Hak 'The... 

Read More "PODCAST! Why the paper book will never disappear

'I had thought beforehand that this night would end with sex, and felt I deserved it.' Tom Stranger and Thordis Elva co-wrote a book about rape

His heart skipped a beat in 2005 when he saw an email arrive from his former Icelandic girlfriend. The mail revealed a truth that Tom Stranger had tried to push away for years: he had raped his girlfriend Thordis Elva. Their equally shocking and courageous story Elva and Stranger shared in a TEDx lecture and a joint book, 7200 seconds -... 

Read More "'I had thought beforehand that this night would end with sex, and felt I deserved it.' Tom Stranger and Thordis Elva co-wrote a book about rape

A lurid, ultimate act of love. Joris van Casteren writes a beautiful book about a man and his dead mother

Why does someone keep his mother's dead body in the house? In Moeders lichaam, Joris van Casteren sketches a fascinating and loving portrait of a man, his mother and a Limburg village. 'Did you hear that story about the man with his dead mother?' his former journalism teacher asked a few years ago. No, Joris van Casteren hadn't. Because he... 

Read More "A lurid, ultimate act of love. Joris van Casteren writes a beautiful book about a man and his dead mother

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