Star Wars in 1977 - A force is born
As the new Star Wars is about to hit cinemas, we look back to 1977. How did the phenomenon take off and what did people think of it?
review
BOT by Firma MES: delightful theatre for laughers and thinkers
'KUT TONEEL' has been spray-painted over BOT's poster. Another features penises and a clown's nose. Does Firma MES' new show arouse so much aggression? In any case, the young theatre company from The Hague promises us a play about "unkind people". But that doesn't quite pan out. On the flat floor of Theater aan...
Young choreographers triumph in NDT2's 'Shearing the Wolves'
In the wings of Nederlands Dans Theater, the new generation of dance makers is ready. Medhi Walerski and Johan Inger are both former dancers of the company and have previously created pieces there. In NDT2's Shearing the Wolves programme, they each surprise with a world premiere full of intense, pure dance. In comparison, an older work by house choreographers Sol Léon and...
New: a Blab with playwright Nassim Soleimanpour.
Next week sees the start of festival Dancing on the Edge. Unlike its name suggests, this festival, with performances in The Hague, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam, is not only about dance, but also about film, theatre and politics. The 'Edge' it is about, the festival looks for in its theme: an urgent artistic dialogue with the Middle East. More needed now than...
Rembrandt in the mirror
Selfies from the Golden Age. The Mauritshuis gives this subtitle with a wink to its new exhibition Dutch self-portraits. With it, the museum seeks a new connection between 17th-century art and today's world. And that attempt has succeeded, thanks in part to the ingenious exhibition design by Jelena Stefanovic of Studio OTW. Since the 2012-2014 renovation and expansion, the...
Belgian colour on Dutch cheeks - 7 reasons why you should visit 'Colour Unleashed' soon
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong time. Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in the period when modern art was born? Then I correct myself: no, there were many problems and uncertainties back then too. But the new exhibition Colour Unleashed at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag makes me hesitate again. Because the exhibited...
Mozart, Kortjakje and the princess
Last weekend 250 years ago, nine-year-old Mozart arrived in The Hague with his parents and sister Nannerl. He arrived on 11 September 1765 to perform at the stadholder court. Due to illness, the Mozarts ended up staying for nine months and the young composer wrote several works here. Harpsichordist and conductor Jörn Boysen organised the festival Mozart in The...
My Fringe 2015 in 3 performances
Those who do not want to open the theatre season in 'Black Tie' and with a gala would do well to go to the Fringe Festival. Already in its tenth year, the festival is bouncing in all directions, this year with 80 performances. Unselected, untamed and unjudged, as they call it themselves. In other words, sometimes you see something wonderful and sometimes you...
Dutch Film Special (2): pushing boundaries with Directors' Forum
The Netherlands Film Festival has tinkered considerably with some programme elements. New is the scintillating competition Forum of Directors with films that explore boundaries.
'Young people have become prudish.' Ronald Giphart on his novel 'Harem'
It is a lovely summer book: Harem, the new novel by Ronald Giphart. And for the first time in years, a good dose of sex appears in a book by the Utrecht-based writer. 'Just the other day at a reading I was announced by a librarian: "Ladies and gentlemen, here is the man who knows all about sex!" Interview so with...
Marjolijn van Kooten's 'Schijtluis' is honest and disconcerting
Cabaret artist Marjolijn van Kooten (43) has an anxiety disorder. With her book 'Schijtluis', she wants to break a taboo: if you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you should not be ashamed of it. Van Kooten writes extensively about her fears in 'Schijtluis'. It makes for a quirky and disconcerting book. Schijtluis is a diary. Openly and honestly, Van Kooten describes...
Rembrandt expert in an hour thanks to the Mauritshuis
For eight years, the Mauritshuis researched and restored his painting 'Saul and David'. As a result, it can now be definitively attributed to Rembrandt. But the small exhibition 'Rembrandt? The Case of Saul and David' mainly shows how the museum collaborated with all kinds of different scientists and laboratories to unravel the numerous mysteries surrounding the canvas. As a visitor, you will be taken through the...
The dark side of Ibiza. Esther J. Ending on her new novel 'An island of its own'
'See, that's how it goes.' Esther Ending flips open a magazine containing an interview following her new novel An Island of Her Own, set on Ibiza, the island where she grew up. The article is not about her novel, but, unbeknownst to her, is part of a story about partying, drinking and drug use. [Tweet...
Vormidable: two Flemish visions of renewal sculpture
The annual major sculpture expo in The Hague in 2015 is called 'Vormidable'. In its own museum, on Lange Voorhout and at several satellite locations, Museum Beelden aan Zee shows how Flemish art experienced a true revival from the 1990s onwards. Panamarenko, De Bruyckere, Fabre, but also lesser-known names renewed sculpture - in two opposite ways. Guest curator Stef van...
Music missionary looks back: "That King's Day concert is indefinite!"
Yep, I'm running behind, because just now I finally saw (in parts) the King's Day concert! But hey, good music has no expiry date and for now this concert will be online for a while. What a party! Some of my favourite musicians participated. Faithful readers of Culture Press know that violinist and composer Oene van Geel is definitely one of them. He brought along Zapp4...
#Reinbertbio one year on: biographer looks back
There was once a celebrity (pianist, composer and conductor Reinbert de Leeuw), a biographer (Thea Derks) and a riot. De Leeuw was against the publication of his biography Reinbert de Leeuw: man or melody and made no secret of it. In the TV programme Zomergasten (Summer guests), he even dismissed the dissertation-like standard work as an almost endearing puff piece. Meanwhile...
Ibsen in a bubble - Boermans' poignantly austere Solness
A girl stands waving and around her a rain of soap bubbles descends, so many that it almost seems as if the girl is taking off. She stands swaying and her ecstasy and tears of joy slowly turn to deep despair and disbelief. What she sees cannot, cannot be true, because it destroys everything she is - to what she...
Where have they gone: the protest choreographers?
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...
Anton Corbijn in The Hague: Iconic portraits, dated musicians
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...
From Urban to softerotica: The remarkable career of Sam Taylor-Wood/Johnson
The critical commotion that has emerged around the film adaptation of E.L. James's book Fifty Shades of Grey seems to focus mainly on the good-natured tameness of the final product. Something that contrasts with the supposedly edgy nature of the book, where a virginal young woman allows herself to be sexually initiated by a rich SM yuppie. Film critic Antony Lane listed...
Thijs Borsten breaks through with unique musical concept 'The Challenge'
Thijs Borsten blurs boundaries. Under the slogan 'The Challenge', he puts completely different artists on stage together. After years of struggling, the concept is now being embraced by media and audiences. Thijs has a chance of winning his 6 minutes of fame in DWDD in the near future. Bringing artists from different cultures together and labelling such a thing as a 'challenge';...
3 outdoor opportunities for art lovers thanks to The Frick Collection at The Mauritshuis
Ingres, Cimabue, Memling, Tiepolo, Goya, Van Eyck, Constable. Pure top names in art history and many of them hardly ever hang in Dutch museums. But now they do. The Mauritshuis in The Hague is showing no fewer than 36 works from the famous Frick Collection in New York from 5 February. And that museum has never before lent so many art treasures. Therefore, the Mauritshuis has...
Opening CaDance: Milton's 'Paradise Lost' according to Samir Calixto
More than 10,000 lines of verse comprise Englishman John Milton's poem Paradise Lost (1667). It cannot be easy to capture that in an hour-long dance performance and yet that is what choreographer Samir Calixto set out to do. Earlier, the young Brazilian cut his teeth on Schubert's Winterreise and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. On Friday, he opened with Paradise Lost the...
Björk's Vulnicura: journey through the emotions of a wounded animal
Actually, it is far too early for a review of Vulnicura. Björk's new album cannot be fathomed in a few days or listening sessions. But because you can immediately hear that something special is happening here, I will try to interpret this new development in Björk's artistry. Björk is an artist whose every album I listen to with above-average...
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