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peace of Utrecht

The surreal break from Soesterberg is almost over. Now go and enjoy it.

Even if war breaks out today, fighter jets will no longer land there. 200,000 visitors a year is the minimum they need now, at Soesterberg. The former air base in the heart of the Netherlands, where until 2009 a squadron of F15 jet fighters stood ready to teach the then enemy, the communists, a lesson, is coming into the hands of the public. The developer is putting the finishing touches to the Military Aviation Museum there. Small parts of the five-kilometre-long runway are being ploughed over, and a few hangars are being put to use as repositories of art.

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House of Eutopia: haunted house of an ideal society

'Eutopia comes from the Greek and means as much as 'Good place'. With this installation, I want to make people think about what that is: a good place.' Architect and visual artist Filip Berte worked on his 'Good Place' for seven years and the result is now on display at Utrecht's Zijdebalen Theatre. His 'House of Eutopia' is set up in the large shed of an old sawmill on the edge of the city centre, an area also known to Kyteman fans as Kytop...

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'This was the site of the Cold War' Dennis Meyer on Festival The Base

"I am very curious about the audience's reactions. People always have an image at a festival. They come, expecting to experience all sorts of things. What you get here is the terrain, an exploration and a story that emerges as a result. The main energy that exists on and around this terrain is, "I get to go on it, and what's there? On that energy, I want to build on."

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Community art of 'Hidden War' forges bond between Dutch and Guatemalans

Treaty of Utrecht

It is cold, chilly and dark. But also quiet, green and spacious. Visitors were not tolerated here until recently. And now Fort Nieuwersluis, near Breukelen, is opening its doors. From 20 to 23 June, the performance 'Hidden War' can be seen there. In it, Guatemalan players show what it is like to live in a violent country. And Dutch actors add their experiences of what it is like to move from a free country to a country a...

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Escape from Guatemala's hidden war for a while

Treaty of Utrecht
'Hidden War', the theatrical exchange between actors from the Netherlands and Guatemala, is nearing performance. The Guatemalan actors of the company Caja Lúdica have been in the country for a few weeks now. Together with the Dutch actors, they are rehearsing at Fort Nieuwersluis (near Breukelen), where the performance can also be seen from 20 June. Alan Hack (18) is one of the Guatemalans playing in the show. He experiences his stay in the Netherlands as a paradise encounter with freedom[/heading].
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Social media and art connect people, but Egypt stays away for a while #vvu

Treaty of Utrecht

Experiments may well have a different outcome than you hope for beforehand. The Community Arts Lab is now discovering through the Face to Face project that the world of the internet still has to deal with real borders. A project in which ordinary people in Egypt would create a work of art with ordinary m...

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'Everyone is happy to be part of something so beautiful.' Stut Choir and Irish performers sing together for the first time. #vvu

Radiant faces and swinging bodies filled the Utrecht Stut Choir's rehearsal room in Overvecht on Sunday. For the first time, the members collaborated with Irish singer Lorna McLaughlin of The Henry Girls and conductors Neil Burns and Anna Nolan of the Inishowen Gospel Choir. On 21 June, the two choirs will join the three Henry Girls sisters on stage at Stadsschouwburg Utrecht.

In high concentration, the group practises the subdued song 'Home' by The Henry Girls, only to ...

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Vredenburg Friday in 'Red Box' for one more season

When Muziekcentrum Vredenburg closed its doors for an ambitious renovation in 2007, the symphonic concerts were moved from the centre of Utrecht to the emergency location Vredenburg Leidsche Rijn on the A2 motorway. The broadcasting series 'De Vrijdag van Vredenburg', created two years earlier, moved along to this temporary accommodation, which was soon renamed 'Red Box'. Against all odds, programmer Astrid in 't Veld managed to develop the fledgling concert series there into a public...

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Film project makes lives of ISK students visible: 'That's my grandmother, that's my heart'

Treaty of Utrecht Munira has written a letter in Somali. Before reading it out in her own language, she has to say something about it in Dutch.
Another student interviews her and asks who the letter is for.
Munira: 'It's a letter for my grandmother.'
Classmate: 'What does it say?'
Munira: 'I love you dear grandma. I miss you.'
Classmate: 'Why your grandmother?....

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Utrecht deploys army at opening of festive year

200 military personnel and JunkieXL are expected to cause a spectacle on the A2 motorway near Utrecht on 13 April. The roof of the new tunnel trench will be the stage for a battle of medieval proportions, in which peace will be conquered by our army over something with a wall and 'war' on it.

It has to be big, that much is clear. To add to the atmosphere, spectators will also be transported by army truck from the centre of Utrecht to the performance area.

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Peter van Onna: 'Treaty of Utrecht is also topical now'

Three hundred years ago, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, bringing an end to both the War of Spanish Succession, and the War of Queen Anne. Remarkably, this peace treaty was not negotiated on the battlefield, but at the negotiating table. It took a year and a half for the many parties to come to an agreement, and the treaty counts as the beginning of... 

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Culture Press ratings: thick 300,000 minutes of attention

With paper, you never know ('0.3% of newspaper readers read the reviews on the art page'), and with TV it's always a bit of estimating and extrapolating too, but the internet is rock hard. We know how many times you read one of our pieces, and how long you lingered at our videos. Well: we were already proud last year, now we are well over 200,000

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'In STUT I process what I experience' Community Arts Lab is exciting as well as relaxing. #vvu

STUT is a household name. The neighbourhood theatre group has been putting on performances with and about ordinary people from ordinary Utrecht neighbourhoods since 1977. In 2010, the theatre group gave birth to the Stutkoor, which is now taking part in the exchange project of the community art lab for the Treaty of Utrecht celebrations in 2013.

It will be some time before the STUT choir will actually rehearse with Irish folk band The Henry Girls, but that it is going to be special seems certain in advance. "With the choir members doing the ...

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Swan song Tristan Keuris in Friday at Vredenburg

Since the Vredenburg broadcasting series The Friday began six years ago, it has managed to attract an ever-expanding audience. This despite the initially rather inhospitable emergency location on the A2, whose curse name 'Red Box' has since become a nickname for audiences and musicians alike. No wonder, as acoustics and accessibility have improved considerably, while the foyer can now be called downright cosy. What's more, programmer Astrid in 't Veld weaves every y...

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If you don't have Twitter in Egypt. Community Arts 'Mahatat' works from the bottom up. #vvu

The government has made little effort in recent decades to create a cultural scene  getting off the ground. There are no workspaces. No galleries. Only a very large library and a "cultural palace". Both of which opened only five years ago. There are also a few small independent initiatives. In public spaces.

Read More "If you don't have Twitter in Egypt. Community Arts 'Mahatat' works from the bottom up. #vvu

Art: alternative to mistrust and violence in Guatemala. #vvu

Theatre-maker Anouk de Bruijn (32) has been to Guatemala seven times since 1999. For the Treaty of Utrecht, she entered into an exchange project with the Guatemalan group Caja Lúdica. Together, they are committed to giving people a positive experience through art. Their project 'Hidden War' is about the lives of young people in Guatemala. 

Read More "Art: alternative to mistrust and violence in Guatemala. #vvu

'I am here': talking about the now during film class with the ISK #vvu

Documentary filmmaker Femke Stroomer and Sanne Sprenger will make two films in the coming year with two classes of the International Switching Class (ISK) under the title I am here. Part two of a report on this Treaty of Utrecht Community Arts Project.

The footballing boys in the schoolyard do not shout "come on with that ball!", but with heavy accent "can I have a loaf of bread from you? The whole team doubles over that exclamation. At the Internationale Schakelklassen in Utrecht, Dutch is n...

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Culture Council knew about 'Hole of DUS'

Theatre company the Utrecht Games, city company of the Netherlands' fourth largest city, is on the brink of bankruptcy. It was recently revealed that the company led by artistic and business director Jos Thie has a deficit of €2.1 million. Correspondence that has since surfaced shows that it was already clear in May this year that problems were getting out of hand. That was a month after the Utrecht subsidy advisory committee issued its laudatory opinion, and a few weeks before the Council for Culture issued its very thrifty advice.

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Baldwin Live

On Wednesday 1 August 2012, the Performing Arts Fund will announce the results of the lottery that granting arts subsidies has now become. Huge cuts are looming: companies and makers that by now seemed to be a permanent part of the Dutch arts landscape will disappear. So what exactly it will look like, we will officially only know from 12:00 on Wednesday 1 August. To leak things in advance makes no sense, things are too dramatic for that.
What we do want ...

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'I expect a wonderful interplay, that's the big challenge for me.' STUT gets to work with The Henry Girls #vvu

In about a year's time, the Stut Choir and Irish folk band The Henry Girls will be on one stage. Artistic director Donna Risa: ''I expect a wonderful interplay.''
STUT is a household name. The neighbourhood theatre group has been creating performances with and about ordinary Utrechters, taken from the neighbourhoods, since 1977. In 2010, the theatre group gave birth to the Stutkoor, which is now taking part in the community art lab's exchange project for the 2013 Treaty of Utrecht celebrations. Artistic director Donna Ri...

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'Community Art is Slow Art': Margreet Bouwman and Eugene van Erven on the Community Arts Festival 2013 #vvu

 Young people from Guatemala, nightingales from Northern Ireland and theatre-makers from the interior of Peru. Just some of the guests at the Community Arts Festival held in Utrecht in June 2013. Music, film and theatre with ordinary people behind and in front of the scenes, accompanied by professional artists. What else do they have in common? They all make art in an environment where murder, manslaughter and war are more natural than peace.
This 'How to survive a war' theme is a...

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Welcome to the human zoo is an exciting and sometimes oppressive game with real and unreal #DeBasis

Often, publicity texts conjure up an inappropriate image of the performance they refer to. "The air base as a no man's land: a military state wiped out and where nature has taken over the area," is one such. The text belongs to Welcome in the human zoo, an experiential theatre performance created by Suze Milius and Bram Jansen. Such a sentence evokes associations.... 

Read More "Welcome to the human zoo is an exciting and sometimes oppressive game with real and unreal #DeBasis

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