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Zéro: from slapstick to Zen ritual - First edition Zéro Mime & Performance Festival 15 & 16 December

Experience mime at the Zéro - Mime & Performance Festival: the first two-day festival in the Netherlands entirely devoted to physical and visual theatre. Expect new and established makers, location performance alongside large hall productions, comforting alongside abrasive, inside and outside de Meervaart 15 and 16 December 2022. Including turboslapstick performance Knock-Out and Erosion, winner of the BNG Bank Theatre Prize. The... 

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Like the best clowns, Elias de Bruyne knows how to connect humour with existential angst. At Festival Boulevard #tfboulevard

One of the very best things about Festival Boulevard is the variety of programming. Theatre, dance, music, youth performances, mime, comedy, it all mixes together. And the festival offers just as much space to young makers as to the old hands. So you get a good overview of what the up-and-coming generation of theatre makers has to offer.... 

Read More "Like the best clowns, Elias de Bruyne knows how to connect humour with existential angst. At Festival Boulevard #tfboulevard

Benjamin Verdonck renews, for a moment, your view of the world. At Theatre Festival Boulevard #tfboulevard

One of the things that make Boulevard so special in the Dutch festival landscape is its generous focus on Belgian performances. Where Dutch theatres programme less and less work from across the southern borders, Boulevard continues to offer a stage to a large number of Belgian makers. Learning to live together This produces very varied work again this year. At the heart of the festival is... 

Read More "Benjamin Verdonck renews, for a moment, your view of the world. At Theatre Festival Boulevard #tfboulevard

PLEIN THEATER presents The Week of Karina Holla from 25 to 28 November

Therefore, from 25 to 28 November, the PLEIN THEATER presents The Week of Karina Holla: An in-depth look at the performance War Women and an ode to the work of Dutch mime player, actress, choreographer and director Karina Holla and her significance for theatre.
An in-depth look at the performance War Women and an ode to the work of Dutch mime player, actress, choreographer and director Karina Holla and her significance for theatre.

Taking off and landing softly. That's what Schweigman& offers during Sender Boulevard, and we need it

Boukje Schweigman is an artist this country desperately needs. My deep admiration for her arose with 'Klep', the performance with which she graduated from the Amsterdam mime school long ago. With eight others in a trolley, looking around through very small flaps in a world where sweet creatures are equally curious about you, after which a minimal touch has the impact of... 

Read More "Taking off and landing softly. That's what Schweigman& offers during Sender Boulevard, and we need it
Scene from The Place To Be. Photo: Jochem Jurgens

Rolling stones, screaming kitchen maids, smoke bombs and noble punk: why the upstarts in Theatre Frogs Winter Collection offer so many surprises.

Two men. Not even very muscular, not even very tough. But what dockworkers. And what simplicity to tell something really beautiful. One rolls himself up like a stone and the other rolls that stone up a mountain. That mountain consists of stage sections that are each at least half a metre in height from each other.... 

Read More "Rolling stones, screaming kitchen maids, smoke bombs and noble punk: why the upstarts in Theatre Frogs Winter Collection offer so many surprises.

Ten days of theatre with bollocks in Kikker Kiest (At once up to date)

'When Paul moves his little finger something happens. They have a scene where Jochem draws a picture of Paul. Paul is posing naked. And that lasts. That takes a long time. You and I, as amateurs, would fill that with all sorts of poses and movements, but Paul doesn't do anything. You think. And all sorts of things happen. HIj is doing something, then, but.... 

Read More "Ten days of theatre with bollocks in Kikker Kiest (At once up to date)
Beatles tour bus (replica) Photo: Chris Samson CC.BY 2.0

You had one chance to sustainably improve arts subsidies

The decision will be official in mid-September, but behind the scenes it has already been made. The Netherlands will have a very small basic cultural infrastructure for the performing arts, and a very large fund that anyone who wants to make theatre, dance, mime or music must apply to. I asked around a bit recently, and so that's what it's going to be. That way, politicians can't... 

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Joris Smit in Tasso, photo Kurt van der Elst

Joris Smit on Tasso and Joan of Arc: no theatre that puts the audience to bed

The National Theatre plays Jeanne d'Arc by Friedrich Schiller and simultaneously retakes Johann Goethe's Tasso. Joris Smit plays in both plays, even the title role in Tasso. We talk to him about German romantics, Sallie Harmsen, the new-fangled National Theatre and the importance of going down on your face. Tasso and Jeanne, Goethe and Schiller. Is German romance... 

Read More "Joris Smit on Tasso and Joan of Arc: no theatre that puts the audience to bed
Garry Feingold and Ger Jager, Dance Makers, 2012. Photo: Jean-Pierre Jans.

Extremely rare landslide possible in contemporary dance in the Netherlands.

In contemporary dance, artistic leaders are often in place for decades, at least in the Netherlands. This week, Leo Spreksel announced his departure from Korzo, as of September 2017. After 29 years, the director and programmer of dance at the theatre and production house in The Hague is calling it a day, because "in the Netherlands, commercialisation pushes away the voice of artists: procedures and formats are... 

Read More "Extremely rare landslide possible in contemporary dance in the Netherlands.

Quirky Veem sets example for dance sector

Het Veem is a small but important theatre and unofficial production house overlooking the Houthavens in Amsterdam. The house has long been home to internationally operating contemporary performing arts. A place where the artist and his or her experimental work are still central. Since Anne Breure became director in 2014, it bears the addition House of Performance. With... 

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Reasons to do go to theatre Kikker (1: The Men's Night Out)

Despite the crisis in the performing arts, there is still a lot of young talent roaming the Netherlands and beyond. So much that keeping track is impossible. After all, who can visit all the festivals, from Festival Boulevard to Noorderzon, from the Café Theatre Festival to Festival Cement and from the Amsterdam Fringe Festival to the Zeeland Nazomerfestival? And then also exactly those four or five performances from the... 

Read More "Reasons to do go to theatre Kikker (1: The Men's Night Out)

Theatre Rotterdam is going to do it all over again

On Monday 14 March, Theatre Rotterdam will present its plans for the upcoming arts plan period. On Thursday 10 March, Bianca van der Schoot already told about it during a public meeting with a class of Utrecht theatre scholars. What became clear from her story is that she has little desire to start bringing world repertoire with the old Ro theatre share in Theatre Rotterdam. She has a lot of... 

Read More "Theatre Rotterdam is going to do it all over again

Liesbeth Gritter creates 'through-composed' pop musical based on Top 2000

"It's all right." In how many songs of the Top 2000 does that phrase appear? Too many to mention. So now the task is to sing all those different "It's all right"'s in the melody in which every audience will recognise them. The four actors in 'Total Eclipse of The Heart' by Theatre Group Kassys fill a thick hour in this way.... 

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Important performances now available in full on Theatre Encyclopaedia

Watch Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by the Dutch Comedy in 1964, or Live, the 1979 video ballet by the Dutch National Ballet. You can now do so at the Theatre Encyclopaedia. Thanks to the crowdfunding campaign Being/Not Being. Theaterencyclopaedia had wanted for some time to put videos of a number of crown jewels from Dutch theatre performances on the internet. A nice start has now been made on that. Through a Voordekunst action, even more money has been raised... 

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Dutch Theatre Festival selection: a splendid list that makes no sense at all

A beauty list. The Dutch Theatre Festival's official jury selection cannot be described any other way. Neatly divided into large- and small-screen productions, with a mime and a location production as well. At the same time, the selection makes no sense at all. Because yes, the Theatre Festival admits that it looks mainly at theatre. And after all, aren't there all kinds of awards for opera, youth theatre,... 

Read More "Dutch Theatre Festival selection: a splendid list that makes no sense at all

Less is more: it can be done!

Yes, it can be done! Less is more! I heaved the last sigh on Wednesday 13 May in response to the production Benvenuto Cellini by Hector Berlioz, which Monty Python director Terry Gilliam made for the National Opera. Immediately the same evening, I was caught off guard at the premiere of The Peach of Immortality by Rieks Swarte at the Toneelschuur in Haarlem. It concerns a... 

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Young Talent Performance (Fugaz Floor)

Talent development new buzzword in dance world: 3 encouraging initiatives

The fact that it is difficult to get a job after graduation is also well known in the dance world. Therefore, partly at the government's insistence, companies are focusing on talent development. They also hope for a better connection with schools. Young dancers are now more likely to be on the front line of ballet: the theatre, and that is good news for audiences. Because the energy is fresh and the level has advanced considerably.

Whether a better connection between school and company is really going to solve all the problems is no...

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Boukje Schweigman's wordless philosophy

Even before she graduated from mime school, Boukje Schweigman swore off language. She worked out a wordless philosophy in her performances. She seeks the mystery of life. However vast and elusive her starting points may be, her performances give the audience the most direct, immediate, skin-tight sensation imaginable in a theatre.

From 12 November, Boukje Schweigman and her group Schweigman& will tour Dutch theatres with their own festival: H...

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Zimmermann & De Perrot give circus genre creative tap at @hollandfestival

Holland Festival Holland Festival

Circus, tricks, clownery, spectacle: it has been a party for centuries. But roughly the same party every time.

Zimmermann & De Perrot, originally clown and DJ respectively, found each other in the brilliant insight that circus could be turned into beautifully absurd modern theatre.

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Zwischenfälle is a breathtaking barrage of 54 hilarious, short scenes about clumsy humans. You rarely see it this virtuoso #hf12

Two men are sitting together at a table eating spaghetti. One is wolfing down the plate of pasta in no time, while at the same time telling an amusing anecdote - just barely intelligible - with fierce gestures and self-righteous grunts. The other, an elderly guy, is totally ignored. Despite frantic attempts, the poor man just cannot manage to... 

Read More "Zwischenfälle is a breathtaking barrage of 54 hilarious, short scenes about clumsy humans. You rarely see it this virtuoso #hf12

Eugénie Rebetez shows the alienating contrast of a woman who wants to be more and is also at peace with who she is

Eugénie Rebetez in 'Gina'. Photo: Augustin Rebetez.

Her full thighs clatter together. She shakes her bare arms, grinning at the trembling skin on her upper arms. She stomps furiously across the Theatre Kikker's playing floor, while her hefty body - dressed in a small, nondiscreet black dress - emphatically bounces happily on all sides. You just have to dare. In h...

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