The 1970s have for some time been the target of what we shall conveniently call the up-and-coming generation. And so we are talking about the 1970s as the glory years of hippyism, the jubilant times of the left-wing church and everything else that, with the knowledge of today, is dirty and dirty. They were the years when...
Wednesday was the opening night of the three-day conference What's Art Got To Do With It? on art, politics, and Israel/Palestine. How do you open a conference on a loaded topic that everyone, especially from the sidelines, has an opinion on? With music. Because how can you be against it? The evening began amiably with a short performance by the Amsterdam Andalusian...
Is that possible? Picture-less film? Sure, just see-or better-listen to Chapman for President by the Eef van Breen Group on 2 May during LISFE: a cinematic sound project based on a personal story. An encounter with political refugee Chapman gave trumpeter, singer & composer Eef van Breen new eyes, ears and the idea for this film without images....
1. Intimacy That the atmosphere in a packed hall becomes intimate enough for a girl in the audience to ask legendary American rapper-poet Black Ice the question: If poetry equals love, as he had just proclaimed, did it ever break your heart? Black Ice, the man who strings his associations together faster than Halbe Zijlstra strings his stupidities,...
Relief for Amersfoort's cultural organisations. In the proposal for the multi-annual budget 2015-2018 (presented last night by the college to the city council), they remain largely unaffected when it comes to cuts. Only theatres De Flint and De Lieve Vrouw have to make cuts. It is possible they will merge in 2017. Recently, there has been a lot of unrest in the cultural world. The...
On Sunday afternoon 26 April, I was a member of the press jury at the final of the Prinses Christina Competition in Lucent Danstheater in The Hague. Definitely not a punishment, as all six finalists performed at top level, no matter how young and inexperienced they were. Time and again, the organisation proves that all the gloom about the future of classical music is nonsense: this year too, there were...
The only thing really old-fashioned about La Dame aux Camélias is the cheering applause, as if you were in Milan's Scala. And it's not even premiere night. Director Ted Brandsen did a hit with this classic with the Dutch National Ballet. We have proof of it. With Periscope.
Museum Beelden aan Zee placed a concrete sculpture by 26-year-old artist Catinka Kersten on the patio at the end of March: 'And everyone held their breath during that fraction of centuries'. It consists of five concrete human figures stacked on top of each other, which appear to be made of fabric. Kersten completed her studies at the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague in 2013 with a series of hunting animals in plaster and cotton. The museum, with associated scientific institute and plaster library, is considered one of the figureheads of sculpture in the Netherlands. How did this museum come to choose such a young artist and what does inclusion in its collection mean for her?
The interesting thing about Financieel Dagblad columnist Annemarie van Gaal's stories is that you don't have to agree with her text at all but can still enjoy it. In her column in the newspaper of 13 April 2014, however, there is something else going on. Here, the conscience of financial and business Netherlands shows a very serious lack of...
Adam and Eve. Noah. Babel. Joseph. An entire book of the Bible Johan Doesburg casts in his farewell performance with the Nationale Toneel. 'Genesis' lasts 6 hours including intermissions, has 65 speaking characters and plays with the space of Scheveningen's Zuiderstrandtheater. But above all, the outgoing director wants it to tell two stories. In conversation with Johan Doesburg and actor Dries Vanhegen, whose character Jacob plays a special role in the play.
Two men in a cage. Super trained and muscular to the marrow. Small gloves, bit in, tok on for protection. Scantily clad except for bermuda shorts. Some reinforcing tape wrapped around a joint here and there. At Stockholm's Tele2 Arena, a 30,000-plus crowd screams like mad. This modern gladiatorial spectacle is the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
Why a fun house festival still haunts my mind weeks after the fact. Let me tell you: OuiJaYes I was looking forward to it. Fancy space. Freedom. So it made perfect sense that I went to Jazz in de Kamer Leiden at the end of March. I could choose from various itineraries with groups and musicians like Artvark, Jeroen van Vliet, Ruben Hein, Ntjam Rosie. I chose...
What is already going on on a small scale in Groningen, Enschede, Zaltbommel, Amersfoort, Gorinchem and Vlaardingen, is threatening to happen nationwide as well: cultural institutions falling over while politicians look on helplessly. According to the Council for Culture, the situation is alarming: 'Institutions are draining their own funds, cultural funds are maintaining schemes by drawing on reserves. We therefore make the urgent...
The money at HET Symphony Orchestra has run out. Despite all the extra millions from the province and after years of writing off tons of general reserves, the end is in sight. And so the orchestra is scrapping concerts, will be seen less in theatres in Deventer and Zwolle, stops CD recordings and shuns any risky performances. To keep the...
Sanja Mitrović is a theatre maker with a theme and a secret. She builds on the theme with each performance. And the secret is right on the heels of her work. Her theme is the collective: how it grows, what it is based on, how deep the mutual love can be, how the euphoria can turn into rage, how it comes from within...
He is the last surviving avant-gardist, and it will not have escaped new-music lovers that he turned 90 on Thursday, 26 March. I mean, of course, Pierre Boulez, the composer and conductor who once declared Schoenberg dead and suggested that perhaps opera houses should be blown up because of their moldy programming. The same man then tirelessly broke a lance for the music of Arnold Schoenberg ...
In June, Boris Charmatz comes to the Holland Festival with manger. He introduced the theme of adults touching children at the former papal palace in 2011. A statement on a tricky current issue. Why don't choreographers speak out more often on poignant topical issues? Pass by new works from recent months and it strikes you that there are hardly any choreographers among them who...
Eindhoven is the mecca of experimental electronica for a while every two years with the STRP Biennial. In the Brabant city of lights, you can enjoy no less than nine days of leading dance acts. In addition, experimental performances explore the intersection between film, art and technology. Culture Press makes a preselection. Hypnotic dance swell The British Factory Floor has one foot in the past, but looks musically to the future. Their...
In the halls of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Mark Rothko has made way for photographer Anton Corbijn. A bigger difference hardly seems conceivable, but an exhibition with lots of pop photographs fits seamlessly into the museum's mission to bring 20th-century avant-garde art, stresses director Benno Tempel. Corbijn, who celebrates his 60th birthday this year, will be honoured with a double exhibition; besides...
Willem Jeths (1959) is one of the most successful Dutch composers. Through his enormous craftsmanship and drive, he manages to create his own sound world, which is surprising yet accessible. His work is regularly performed at home and abroad and has appeared on many CDs. In 2014, he received the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts and later that year he was appointed
"Of course I don't have to get rich from it..." It's pretty much the most frequently heard comment when you hang out with artists and creatives a lot. "Why not actually?" I then ask. Startled, they look at me. Appalled that you dare to question this universally held truth. In reply, something extraordinarily vague like "Well, just.... money isn't the most important thing, is it?" comes in.
In early March, The Great War Machine, the new play by director Joachim Robbrecht, premiered at Theater Frascati. A week earlier, at the Rotterdam Schouwburg Swamp Club to be seen, by French director Philippe Quesne. Both performances address the current political climate. Whereas Swamp Club is explicitly silent about the world it calls into question, The Great War Machine is instead a rhetorical spectacle, constructed from quotes from TEDtalks. Both performances make mechanisms felt, rather than pointing out culprits. Voluntarily withdrawing or being shut out, the neoliberal order does not seem to allow much more choice. There is no question of resistance.
Classical music is elitist, most conductors and orchestra members don't have a clue what they are doing and audiences have absolutely no clue. Subsidised art should be both accessible to a large audience and socially engaged. I also believe that The Joshua Tree is perhaps the best album ever. Signed, Hero Brinkman...
Use arts funding for research&development, attracting venture capital and crowdfunding with public money. In this way, according to the Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the same public money can yield more. In an 'exploration' presented to the government today, this advisory board breaks a lance for more daring and commitment from the government to strengthen the Dutch cultural sector: 'Increasingly,...
They are each other's opposites: Michiel Borstlap exudes luxury and relaxation, Micha Hamel a tense frown. But the two not inconsiderable gentlemen have both recently joined the Academy of Arts. They played new work last weekend and I spoke to them afterwards. Actually, I was programming Michiel Borstlap's concert for a theatre in Driebergen. In an expensive Jaguar, we drove to a restaurant for coffee...
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français
You must be logged in to post a comment.