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'New venom is added every day.' In book, presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb lets non-white Dutch people experience what comes over them daily

Even though she has lived in the Netherlands since she was three, journalist and radio TV presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb (47) is still not considered a full-fledged compatriot. In her book 365 dagen Nederlander, she gives a disconcerting picture in short sketches of how non-white Dutch people or Dutch people with a migration background are treated. Biology teacher to class 'This is what you call olive-coloured skin. You can... 

Read More "'New venom is added every day.' In book, presenter Naeeda Aurangzeb lets non-white Dutch people experience what comes over them daily

Godfried Bomans: respectively loved, vilified, misunderstood and forgotten

Godfried Bomans died half a century ago. Almost immediately afterwards, the Netherlands' best-loved writer sank into oblivion. It is time for a reappraisal of Bomans' literary work and even his political views. I delved into the archives, also looking for the few traces of Bomans in Amersfoort. First some round figures. Seventy years ago, he delivered a lecture... 

Read More "Godfried Bomans: respectively loved, vilified, misunderstood and forgotten

Netflix's The Witcher is having an identity crisis. But if you make it to episode five, you'll want to know how it ends.

With much fanfare, Netflix's The Witcher was announced. Except for some comments about Superman in a white wig, there was and is a lot of interest in the film adaptation of Andrzej Sapkowski's fantasy book series. Successor to Game of Thrones. With the way that one ended? No thanks! I'm not familiar with the books or the games myself, but Netflix's description... 

Read More "Netflix's The Witcher is having an identity crisis. But if you make it to episode five, you'll want to know how it ends.

Bring on that fair! 7 established facts that make an ever-younger festival Boulevard unique.

Theatre Festival Boulevard is a highlight of the festival summer every year. Because there are no barriers and because it carries the casual atmosphere of the city in every fibre. But it goes even further. Here are my seven learning moments: 1: Boulevard is more accessible than the city itself Some people find it verging on the hysterical, but... 

Read More "Bring on that fair! 7 established facts that make an ever-younger festival Boulevard unique.

Angélica Liddell's screams are particularly interesting in The Scarlet Letter

The much nudity and sex in Angelica Liddel's adaptation of Hawthorne's famous novel are a bit old-fashioned. The Spanish language is the real attraction. In his review of Angélica Liddell's play 'The Scarlet Letter' on this website, Wijbrand Schaap calls the scene with a naked black man "a painful low point". According to Schaap, the man is treated by Lidell as... 

Read More "Angélica Liddell's screams are particularly interesting in The Scarlet Letter

Naked men and black bronzing under philosophical veneer. Is Angelica Liddell overshooting the mark with The Scarlet Letter? (Why the Holland Festival can expect a riot)

That you cannot shamelessly treat a black man as a rutting primal beast and a faceless object for your unlimited lust fantasy as a white woman? Seems logical to me, but for Angélica Liddell, world-renowned performance artist, it is typical of the new puritanism that threatens free art. She now brings The Scarlet Letter to the Netherlands, a theatrical performance that is rather... 

Read More "Naked men and black bronzing under philosophical veneer. Is Angelica Liddell overshooting the mark with The Scarlet Letter? (Why the Holland Festival can expect a riot)

Sex sells, originality does not. Once again, two museums go out of their way to celebrate nudity.

When we don't have fresh, current posts on the site for a while, our 'most-read posts' list on the right always changes dramatically. Within two days, all stories are trending that include the words 'nude', 'nude' or 'sex'. After all, sex sells. If you like clicks from rutting men, at least. Unfortunately, this particular target group does not read much cultural news. But attention is... 

Read More "Sex sells, originality does not. Once again, two museums go out of their way to celebrate nudity.

On Bergen and Delden, Greg Nottrot and the lost million: Culture Press' Best Listened To podcast.

Linda Huijsmans and Wijbrand Schaap catch you up in a good half hour on the backgrounds of the larger Culture Press News of the past few weeks. It's a bit more about the nude/nude situation in the arts, but of course it's also about money, that million that was drilled through the nose of performing artists by a row in the board of the Social... 

Read More "On Bergen and Delden, Greg Nottrot and the lost million: Culture Press' Best Listened To podcast.

Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll? Italian youngsters have something else on their minds - see Paolo Giordano's new novel.

Bestselling author Paolo Giordano (35) does not shy away from current themes in his new novel Devouring Heaven. Poverty, environmental problems, capitalism, (un)fertility - people in their twenties and thirties have a lot to wrap their heads around. 'I find the fixed life pattern we grow up with strangling.' Devouring the sky Young people who have to find their way in the world and learn to cope with pain, loss... 

Read More "Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll? Italian youngsters have something else on their minds - see Paolo Giordano's new novel.

Nude and naked. Two worlds as far apart as Bergen and Delden. (podcast)

Two private museums in the Netherlands have made human flesh the subject of an exhibition this autumn. In Bergen (NH) it is about Bare, and in Delden (Ov) it is about Nude. But where one exhibition (at Museum Kranenburg in Bergen) seems to be mainly an ode to the free-spirited 1970s and what happened afterwards, Museum No Hero in Delden puts... 

Read More "Nude and naked. Two worlds as far apart as Bergen and Delden. (podcast)

People no longer want to be seen as toys. We can't get around it. Museums can't get around it.

Searching for what I stand for and what path I should take, time and again I come across facts that confuse and amaze me. I live in a country where only a single woman is in De Volkskrant top ten most influential people - in tenth place, that is. Only three out of 100 young Dutch millionaires... 

Read More "People no longer want to be seen as toys. We can't get around it. Museums can't get around it.

The colonial image of the black woman with bared upper body is rewritten in Legacy by Nadia Beugré at @HollandFestival

A sizable group of women, their skin all shades of brown, white and black, their breasts and chests hopping briskly to the beat of stepping and running movements on the spot, swirls around its own axis upon entering the auditorium at the Brakke Grond. Legacy is an intimate performance that moves loosely up and down between concert, performance,... 

Read More "The colonial image of the black woman with bared upper body is rewritten in Legacy by Nadia Beugré at @HollandFestival

Gesualdo project at @hollandfestival by De Warme Winkel: 'We want to anoint and flog the ears' #HF18

Say 'Carlo Gesualdo' and you say 'heavenly music', and 'cruel disposition'. This Renaissance composer's name is inextricably linked to the gruesome double murder he committed on his wife and lover when he found them in flagrante delicto. Who else but The Warm Shop could make an appealing performance of this thought Tido Visser, artistic director of the Netherlands Chamber Choir. So. 

Read More "Gesualdo project at @hollandfestival by De Warme Winkel: 'We want to anoint and flog the ears' #HF18

Everyone is welcome at Pitfest. 'Bands playing at our place should be especially hard, or dirty and grimy.'

The Drenthe village of Erica was rocked on the last weekend of April by the cosy noise festival Pitfest. And that attracted a motley mix of people. I walked around there for a day. A golf cart zooms across the roundabout of the 4-star resort in the outskirts of the Drenthe town of Erica. To the right of the tarmac are tightly mowed golf courses, to the left is a plot of land... 

Read More "Everyone is welcome at Pitfest. 'Bands playing at our place should be especially hard, or dirty and grimy.'
Publicity image Gesualdo. Photo: Sofie Knijff

At the Holland Festival, Mackenzie is opening the doors to a new avant-garde among the audience.

The neat couple next to me, in the front row at the Holland Festival press conference, hadn't counted on it for a moment. Four members of the Nederlands Kamerkoor starting to undress one by one down to their pecker-sized nakie. A giggle, a small cough, but hey, this is the Holland Festival, they said to each other. So too... 

Read More "At the Holland Festival, Mackenzie is opening the doors to a new avant-garde among the audience.

Jens van Daele: 'The power of women is greater than that of men'

'I admire the strength of women. I experience it as greater than that of men. Women's strength lies in the dedication with which they can deal with things. The courage to push boundaries.' Jens van Daele, in his latest theatre show 'Nighthexen 1: Jeanne', pays tribute to the strength of women and highlights their heroism from... 

Read More "Jens van Daele: 'The power of women is greater than that of men'

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)

So you'll never leave Den Bosch again (why holidays in your own country can be fun)

Would like your interpretation of the cover girl's look on the Theatre Festival Boulevard programme book. It may be projection, but I see a slightly overwhelmed desperation in those eyes, whose eyebrows have been replaced by two playfully placed arches of St John's, above: Den Bosch on my mind. Where to start, mostly. In the book, especially abundance. Glassily designed... 

Read More "So you'll never leave Den Bosch again (why holidays in your own country can be fun)

Beyond the breasts? Recap Game of Thrones 7 episode 1 'Dragonstone' (Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!)

If you're reading this, I assume you know what Game of Thrones is. Who Daenerys Targaryen is, and Jaime Lannister and Sansa Stark. Ramsay Bolton? We are never going to talk about that again. Nor am I going to explain that it is one of the most successful TV series of all time, based on the book series 'A Song of... 

Read More "Beyond the breasts? Recap Game of Thrones 7 episode 1 'Dragonstone' (Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers! Spoilers!)
Rito de Primavera, José Vidal & Cía., Festival de Marseille. Photo: Fabian Cambero.

Rito de Primavera: spectacular, but also a mountain of kitsch, unworthy of the Holland Festival

Rito de Primavera, seen at the Holland Festival early this week, is a group choreography for fifty young dancers. Choreographer José Vidal has loosely based himself on Sacre du printemps, Stravinsky and Nijinsky's 1913 piece for the Ballet Russes. Fragments of Stravinsky's music have been transformed into 4-quarter beetz by DJ Jim Hast, while Vidal has added the ritual aspect of the sacrifice, essential to the many versions made throughout the 20th century (in addition to the oe...

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Boris Charmatz

Danse de Nuit in the Bijlmer: 'Of course we want to influence public space' #HF17

Boris Charmatz has been a guest at many editions of the Holland Festival with impressive, provocative, socially engaged, finely composed and conceptually strong dance performances: Aatt enen tionon and Con forts fleuve (both in 2001); 50 years of dance (2010), Enfant (2011) and Manger (2015). His latest choreography, danse de nuit, premiered in Geneva last September. During the Holland Festival... 

Read More "Danse de Nuit in the Bijlmer: 'Of course we want to influence public space' #HF17

How Heather Ware's language mistake led to an entire dance work courtesy of Bach

What does it mean for a dancer with an intense career when she decides to choreograph as well? In March, Battle Abbey premiered, Heather Ware's first full-length choreography in collaboration with Swedish cellist Jakob Korányi. Heather Ware, a dancer with LeineRoebana since 2003, embarked on the path to creating her own choreography without a plan.... 

Read More "How Heather Ware's language mistake led to an entire dance work courtesy of Bach

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