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renewal

The BIS is dead, long live the Puppets

Let's just start with the good news: De Staat is a regular fixture in the Netherlands from now on. And so we are talking about the band De Staat. Who make fantastic music videos these days. They have been promoted from a four-year grant with the Performing Arts Fund to a four-year grant according to the Cultural Basic Infrastructure (BIS). With 55 other newcomers. All weighed... 

The advice is here. What will happen in Dutch subsidised culture over the next four years?

This is the recording of the presentation: And here is the full text of the press release. Explanation follows, but we will read first. More room for innovation and culture outside the Randstad provinces 04-06-2020 | 14:00 | The Hague The Council for Culture advises giving more institutions with innovative cultural offerings and institutions from outside the Randstad provinces the chance to be on... 

One-half meter art is an economic disaster. But it is also a godsend. Turn it into a lottery.

As a professional art visitor, I rarely find myself in empty halls. Premieres are always full, so are press viewings and vernissages. Full is of course really cool. Although those full rooms I am in then usually cost more money than they bring in, because the tickets are free and the drinks on the house. Outside the premiere, but especially outside the premiere city, the... 

No Time To Die? The New Cinema Conference is all about marketing - and hardly about Netflix.

What will shake up the cinema world the most in the coming years? The new James Bond film? Or a personal film tip tailored to your previous cinema visits that just pops up on your smartphone? Or perhaps a technical innovation that creates a whole new cinematic experience? Just a few things that loom around the topic of this week's New Cinema conference. A day and a half... 

Zeitgeist and chance cannot be captured by an algorithm. Why a robot should not replace the music programmer.

Last Wednesday, 2 October, at the annual congress of the Vereniging Nederlandse Poppodia en Festivals in Tivoli/Vredenburg, I saw an interesting presentation by Jonas Kiesekoms, research coordinator at PXL-Music in Hasselt, Belgium, and musician. The question is now classic: can a robot replace the music programmer? With his research group, Kiesekoms is working on several applications that use data science to improve ticket sales for concerts,... 

'Art tax cuts and a cultural fund will be created as an incentive for homeowners to invest in works of art.' (How we think the throne speech should have read)

Members of the States General, This year about 72 years ago we had the first Holland Festival. After years of enslavement and tyranny, hope for a better future literally came from above, in the form of Maria Callas. Eyewitnesses who saw the lights in the Stadsschouwburg turn red that day would never forget that image. 72 years later, it seems... 

Art cannot be exclusive enough. At Festival Noorderzon, everyone can experience it for themselves 

Police sirens sound less frequently in Groningen than in a city like Amsterdam. When they sounded last Wednesday night, it was because residents of the premises behind the local art academy, Minerva, raised the alarm. Standing on the roof was not an owl, but an almost naked man shouting that he was going to rob the Coop. Mads Wittermans, the actor in question, had forgotten the... 

Call by Wim Claessen, former director of Theatre Festival Boulevard: 'Are there any directors left who dare to turn the tide?'

This is a letter sent in by Wim Claessen, who founded Boulevard in 1984, and passed the baton to Geert Overdam in 2002, who was succeeded by Viktorien van Hulst in 2014. "It is a disgrace that we are still standing here," spoke Viktorien van Hulst at the opening of Theatre Festival Boulevard at the Theater aan de Parade. "How... 

'There's a limit to crowdfunding, you can only do it twice' - Growing pains of the dance film, part 2

The dance film occupies a unique place among the film offerings. Not driven purely by psychologising or text, it offers every opportunity for experimentation in form and content. But that also means it is difficult to place. And therefore difficult to make. The second part on the growing pains of the dance film features 2 dancers and performance artist.... 

Culture funds want slow renewal. But it is far too late for that.

On 11 April 2019, the Council for Culture put a shovel in the dykes of the polder that is the Dutch cultural system. After all, the basic infrastructure, established in 2009 to finally bake renewal and flow into the system, is dead. The structure carefully conceived over years has been turned into a ruin by 10 years of cultural policy in which the... 

All power to the city! Culture Council's opinion dissected into 9 opportunities and 10 threats

When the Council for Culture released its long-awaited musical advice a month ago, its president Marijke van Hees was remarkably nervous. This was particularly evident in her choice to act as moderator at her own presentation. When there, at Amsterdam's Allard Pierson Museum, came (very mild) criticism of the advice, she shot to the defence. That became... 

*With sound!* Why the Holland Festival show doesn't have to stop for now

'Please stop the show!", shouted an 83-year-old former reviewer from the back row. Theatre Frascati fell silent for a moment. There had never really been such an interruption at the Holland Festival's traditionally festive press conference. And that while Faustin Linyekula had just got into his stride, telling about the projects he is carrying out with his Studio Kanako in Kisangani. They provided... 

Why you shouldn't miss 'Im wunderschönen Monat Mai' at Paradiso

On Wednesday 16 January, Reinbert de Leeuw will present his cycle Im wunderschönen Monat Mai at Paradiso. A unique opportunity to see him at work once more in his globally believed masterpiece. In 2003, he surprised friend and foe alike with this composition inspired by songs by Schumann and Schubert. Was that not swearing in church? Arnold Schoenberg had the Romanticism... 

The songs that slap you in the face rock hard in an unguarded moment

In 2016, I was unexpectedly struck by a Beatles classic. So what are the ingredients of perfect pop music? It is August 2016. I am standing with my friend at a ticket office in Liverpool, the British port city that is just as much an open-air museum. It is rather rubbed in on us that this city gave birth to The Beatles. In the harbour, tourists spend the night in a yellow submarine, equally... 

The Netherlands is festivalised. And why that is a very good thing. Collaborating festivals come out with a pamphlet (and ask for money)

Grandpa tells. In 1989, a committee of experts chose a different theatre course in my city, Utrecht. The just-risen festival Theater aan de Werf would get more money, the marching theatre would disappear from 't Hoogt and the rest would have to take care of the newcomer with fewer days of programming. Then we took to the streets against the so-called 'festivalisation',... 

100 years of De Ploeg at the Groninger Museum: a visual treat

With its colourful exhibition Avant-garde in Groningen. De Ploeg 1918-1928, the Groninger Museum (unofficially) kicks off the year of De Ploeg. On 5 June 2018, it will be 100 years since a number of young Groningen artists set themselves apart from the established (art) order with their collective De Ploeg broke new ground. "Because there wasn't much to do in Groningen... 

Ligeti festival - tribute to adventurous and idiosyncratic composer

Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) suffered under several dictatorships; the Nazis killed his father and brother during World War II, and after the War the communists forced him to write sweet 'folk music'. After the 1956 Hungarian uprising, he fled to Vienna and then to Cologne. In the West, he unpopularised into an idiosyncratic composer, who already... 

Playwrights and cultural exploration (3): 'Contemporary musical, a new tradition among writers?'

On 25 January 2018, the Musical Awards were presented with, as we are used to, many translated reruns and calibrated repertoire. Also notable was the appreciation for new Dutch work. Many a writer will have been cheering on the sofa when 'Was Getekend, Annie M.G. Schmidt' won the awards. Does that bode well for the future? Can today's (small)... 

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... 

Why it's good that the Holland Festival is putting the focus on Africa, rather than opting for a single artistic director.

Faustin Linyekula. Photo by: Joe Mabel [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia CommonsWilliam Kentridge and Faustin Linyekula. Remember those names, if you didn't already know them, because they are going to help define the face of Holland in the coming year. They have been appointed by the Holland Festival as associate artists. With this, the festival continues the phenom... You can log in now to continue... 

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