With over 12,000 visitors and an average occupancy rate of 70%, the organisers of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival say they have reason for pride. In a press release, they report that 'they managed to grow the number of visitors without losing the intimacy and experimental character of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival. ' How exactly we should see that....
American Davis Freeman's multimedia show 'Investment' is initially reminiscent of Al Gore's PowerPoint show 'An Unconvenient Truth'. Three performers and a projection computer show the audience a whole range of investment options in a very routine and detailed manner. Initially sensible and sustainable, but soon whole other motives come into play. Piquant detail: everyone from the...
'He fears that the real thing may have come along a hundred times, but he missed it.'
'Exactly. And how old are you?'
'Twenty.'
'Well...'
In suits, wearing animal masks, five actors pose on stage. They represent a bear, rabbit, deer, rooster and monkey. From this 'freeze', they start making animal noises and moving around. A rhythmic performance follows. Fascinated, but confused, the audience watches the alienating dance. What do these animals have to do with the war in Iraq anyway? Just when you start to wonder if you are in the right audience, the actors take off their masks and answer: 'Have you ever wondered what the war in Iraq has meant to the animals there? We never hear anything about them in newspapers or on TV.'
A new day, so new chances to find the Fringe's greatest gem. Today, I am taken from Theatre Bellevue into a nearby alley. Suddenly I see her lying there. A junk, like there are more walking around in Amsterdam. Preferably, I quickly walk around it. Afraid of smelling them or being accosted. Metro, a piece of...
Sanja Mitrovic has won the BNG New Theatermakers Prize 2010. She receives the prize of 45,000 euros for her performance 'Will You Ever Be Happy Again'? In which she took care of both directing and acting. She can spend the prize money on a new performance next season.
Just when it was announced that musical production house M-Lab is in financial distress, a helping hand comes from Dutch theatre critics. Indeed, the annual Prize of Criticism goes to the laboratory that produces musicals that almost always matter. We quote the jury report:A laboratory is not only for somewhat unworldly scientists who are fiddling on the square millimetre...
She has just returned from a long holiday in her native Norway and, although many Norwegians find Ibsen boring these days, she herself loves his work. Maren Bjorseth is a third-year directing student at the AHK. Her Dutch is flawless; it is hard to believe she has only lived here for two years. Maren is one of four directing students chosen to take a master class from German director Thomas Ostermeier, artistic director of Schaubühne Berlin. Last year, the Stadschouwburg showed his Hamlet (starring a nasty, rather fat Hamlet) and in December, Ostermeier will direct Ibsen's Spoken at Toneelgroep Amsterdam.
The master class is a collaborative project of TF with the AHK and actors from ACT. It is the first day of school for the students and, as Maren says, they were immediately thrown into the deep end: 'It was very short and intensive, we worked from ten to three and Thomas Ostermeier came to watch twice. So it really is a work in progress.'
"I am fifty-eight." Plumply, Saskia Lemming (Oda Spelbos) reveals her biggest secret to husband and jaded folk singer René Lemming (Peter Bolhuis). He married her 12 years ago, thinking she was a young blonde. In turn, he reveals that he actually wrote 'You are the cream of my crop', his number one hit, for another woman. The bomb bursts on reality show 'The Lemmings'. Or rather: on stage at De Balie, where Hadewich Minis, Peter Bolhuis, Oda Spelbos and Yorick Zwart compete in Night guests. A three-hour improvisational 'jam session'.
The room is lit in red. This creates a shadowy atmosphere as you might expect at a nightclub. The music starts playing and from the stairs a young lady in a snappy outfit comes down. She serves pieces of sausage and plays with the crowd. She introduces herself as Lolita. A man in the front row may unbutton her zip. She...
By Willem Jan Keizer
Rotterdam - The fifteenth edition of the Gergjev Festival officially kicked off Friday evening in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen in concert hall de Doelen with a concert by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Valeri Gergjev. Although the festival takes place at some 20 locations in the city - not only in de Doelen but also in the Laurenskerk, the conservatory, museum Boijmans van Beuningen and numerous other unexpected locations - the festival is virtually invisible in the city.
Invisible forces, described as angels, speaking through a Jewish woman to her friends at the time of the Holocaust in Hungary. A mysterious and true story, translated by American actress Shelley Mitchell into the one-woman performance Talking with Angels. A huge success in America. Yesterday on stage for the first time in the Netherlands.
'It is a wonderful thing, for instance, that every day, my body exhibits the same eager desire for a keigoeie kappoetzjino. That every 24 hours the desire to 'want to taste' is born in me and wants to hit me again. And I don't have to do anything for that, that desire drags me into the shower and saliva starts foaming...
Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg is velvet red. Theatre Bellevue, the beating heart of the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, whorish pink. The Amsterdam Fringe, that means performances in more than 25 places. In theatres, but also on location. From 2 to 12 September 2010 Henk de Jong for The Dodo and performing arts trade journal TM in search of the pearl of the Fringe. Here he keeps a diary, and a longer article by him will appear in the next issue of TM.
Hannah and Martin by Mugmetdegoudentand is not only a heartwarming performance, played by one phenomenal actress and one inimitable theatre personality, it is also a brainteaser. Trouw reviewer and theatre scholar Robbert van Heuven felt challenged to write a short essay in response to this performance.
Sound recording available to listen to here!
You will hear successively Axel Rüger, director of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, responding to the assertion made by VVD member Mark Harbers that the art world is not entrepreneurial enough. This is followed by responses from former CDA culture spokesperson Nicolien van Vroonhoven (consistently called Nicolien van Vroemhoven by presenter Twan Huys) and former NNT actor Boris van der Ham, now culture spokesperson for D66.
The Marathon Effect is well known: put spectators together in a theatre for half a day or more, preferably on uncomfortable seats, and hand them over to a couple of actors with a play. Success seems assured, and the ancient Greeks already knew that. So that there would be no discord surrounding the monster project I Demoni, the Dostoevsky adaptation of Peter...
After a 12-hour theatre marathon, what can be said? That it was good? Good. It can. That it was rare? Also true. That it takes a director in his 70s to stage a Russian novel with such calmness, and that it takes such phenomenal actors to keep the audience hooked for 11 hours to the not-very...
Text Maarten Baanders (photo Herman Sorgeloos) After sensory work had already been reduced to a minimum in Keeping Still - Part I and The Song, dance philosopher Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker confronts the most extreme reduction possible in life in the final part of the trilogy, 3Abschied: death. Her choice of music strikes again Der...
Sometimes we are not at a concert or performance ourselves, but there is a spectator who dedicates a beautiful or critical reflection on a performance in more than a few sentences. You may submit those pieces, and if they are deemed good enough, we will repost them on The Dodo. With our heartfelt thanks, of course. Mail your pieces to: dedodo@cultureelpersbureau.nl...
By Maarten Baanders (photo by Herman Sorgeloos) Where were we? In the previous performance, Keeping Still, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker gave us an empty space as the final image. Now we walk into the hall of the Muziektheater for part 2 of the triptych, The Song and once again an explicitly bare stage stretches before us. The hall light is still on...
Curlew River Photo: Bertrand Stofleth For every independent journalist in the Netherlands, there are about 15 information officers. It is therefore obvious that these spokespeople largely determine the image in the media. Could that be why in the newspapers and television programmes surrounding the Holland Festival, the announcements are far more numerous than the critical reviews? A look at the...
Those who missed it, like our Beatrix, will increasingly realise that something important happened, Tuesday 1 June, at the opening of the Holland Festival. Egyptian beauty Amal Maher performed an hour and a half of classical Arabic music at Carré, making her first small step into the Western mainstream. We ourselves were from The...
By Wijbrand Schaap, Photo Joan Marcus So we don't have that. In the Netherlands. So many good actors of name and fame to fill an entire Shakespeare comedy with top actors, right down to the smallest edelfiguration. Ok, we come a long way with our Pierre Bokma's, our Gijs Scholten van Aschats, a Lineke Rijxman, Mariek Heebink and Ariane Schluter, and flat Elsie de...
By Maarten Baanders (photo by Herman Sorgeloos) Calmly we stand at the door of the venue. A bit like the Holland Festival is a drag. No one suspects that in a few minutes, existence will be reduced to almost nothing. It starts with darkness. Silence. For minutes. Softly, footsteps sound. The ears are tuned to it in detail. There is singing. Mahler's...
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