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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.
Stories to be proud of. Young new Dutch people and the Community Arts Project 'Ik ben Hier' #vvu
Documentary filmmakers Femke Stroomer and Sanne Sprenger will make two films in the coming year with two classes of the International Switching Class (ISK) entitled Me am here.
Less is more? No, less is FAR too much, by Michael Nyman's Potemkin. #hf12
Two days later... Sometimes you don't quite know what to write: even reviewers have writer's block from time to time. Fortunately, Jenny Diski of London Review of Books published a blog just Friday about the functionality of not being able to write (yet). Apparently, more time was needed. Anyway, at some point you have to tie the knot. ...
As gentle and intelligent as the very young dancers are handled, reactions to Boris Charmatz's 'Enfant' #HF12 are often wild.
Youth these days mostly evokes the thought of danger. Society suffers from a distorted ideal image that leaves real children little room to play. Eventually, therefore, they rebel in Enfant. But until then, the very young performers still mainly have the role of adjunct or capstone, complement or extension of the nine adult dancers. The new...
The Dodo goes out of its way to tell you all about the Holland Festival 2012 #hf12
Top theatre from all corners of the world, big names we had never dared hope for, and a newsreel that we will broadcast at unexpected times. Festival day newspaper The Dodo, now a household name in festival land, is going all out at this year's Holland Festival. Of course. It is the dream of every blogger, professional or amateur, to be at the performances of the...
Unforgettable stage version of Man Without Qualities gets undeserved dessert from Yves Petry #hf12
Maybe it is also just the wrong choice to see part three immediately after the first two parts. Maybe after a day of you or some settling down you will be able to appreciate Petry's text, on its own merits. Imagine a three-star dinner. A sensuous succession of small and medium-sized dishes, prepared with the...
Tjitske Reidinga launched as star of new summer programming Amsterdam Delamartheater
The general public knows her as the rock-hard lawyer Claire from Gooise Vrouwen. Tone lovers have known her longer as that actress with the striking voice. A diplomat's daughter, born in Africa, later raised in Bussum. Tjitske Reidinga now dares to come forward:
Theodor Holman seeks new frontiers
At the request of Amsterdam debate centre De Balie, Parool and Groene Amsterdammer columnist Theodor Holman wrote a play about a conversation between Anders Breivik and Geert Wilders. In an interview with Joost Niemöller of the opinion blog 'De Dagelijkse Standaard', the presenter and writer explained that he admires Breivik's analysis of the situation in Europe, which he also believes...
Berlin Film Festival opens with a messy Versailles
The 62nd Berlinale opened tonight with Benoït Jacquot's Les adieux à la reine, a French costume piece that does not play by the rules. The dresses worn by Queen Marie Antoinette's servants get dirty and one of the main characters stumbles in her haste and passes out twice. As the film begins we write 14 July 1789, and the...
Big plus for the writer who can also narrate #wu12
Helon Habila His voice is low, and when he talks, he does so calmly and thoughtfully. He regards his humour - very British - as a side effect that is more accidental, than intended. This makes Helon Habila a perfect guest for the opening night of Writers Unlimited, the Hague literature festival better known as 'Winternachten'. The Nigerian can...
Thunder or a minor storm in the Gouda Glasses? You may say
We received a letter on legs from Wim de Groot a while ago. Now we often get letters in paws, but here something seemed to be going on. Trouble of course because sorting it out takes time and money and that wasn't there for a while. (Look out for the donor campaign we are about to launch) But still. What's wrong with it? Wim de...
'Cultural Diversity' disappeared into the dustbin faster than drafters could write 'Code'
Thursday 15 December saw a conference in The Hague. A festive intended gathering with workshops celebrated the creation of the 'Code of Cultural Diversity'. In the final debate, the same code was openly buried. View the story "'Cultural Diversity' disappeared into the dustbin faster than drafters 'Code' could write" on Storify] The code can be found here:
Investing in culture is economically valuable, but not with us ...
A Belgian professor was good enough to compare the own revenues by venues from the US, the UK and Belgium; in all three countries, the companies raise about 42% of their budgets themselves. The innovation professor also reiterated that research shows that investing in culture contributes to economic prosperity ... a wisdom that ...
Cuts also take philanthropists too far, and music lessons become unaffordable, Kerkrade retains its theatre
'Philanthropists cannot absorb cuts' (...) "Funds are less and less willing to just write a cheque. Owners want to be involved, contribute their expertise and measure impacts. They ask about the applicant's objective, how they intend to achieve it and whether it is measurable. (...) "On average, a fund disburses 4 per cent of its assets annually. So.
Progress news: Give Act no more for culture, Utrecht more expensive and Purmerend stops all subsidies
Lower House approves Tax Plan 2012 (...) Furthermore, the adjusted Giving Act was also passed. The 7 million euro tax support shifts from cultural institutions to sports and music associations. Source: Belasting.nl 18 Nov 11 Utrecht - Culture may cost something - by Wouter de Heus (...) this week, when I finally saw the renewed operating plan for the Music Palace in...
Letter Zijlstra is just a request for information. But it does include a tickable invitation to suicide
Has state secretary Halbe Zijlstra the Lower House lied or misled in June when he stated that rushing through the culture cuts was necessary to absorb friction costs? Or does it just turn out to be improper governance?
Unofficial, self-appointed 'City of Amsterdam playwright' still needs 7500 euros
The ANP brought it and all newspapers typed it up: 'Amsterdam gets a City playwright'. Big news, of course. After all: the theatre is rather under pressure as an expensive leftist hobby, so it would be nice if the Amsterdam city council had decided, together with the theatre world, to establish a city playwright, alongside the city poet and the poet of the fatherland, An honorary title, would...
The Dodo revives for Holland Festival edition 2011 #HF11
This week the Holland Festival erupts and we are there. We are producing a Dodo Festival Day newspaper with a sizeable team of professional journalists, as we did before for Springdance and The International Choice of the Rotterdam Schouwburg, for example. We follow the festival closely to bring news as it happens. We go to see performances where others...
In the Empire, a man always writes the same book and others wear the same shirt
We were deep in Amsterdam's canal belt for a while. After all, prominent resident of this city Rudi Fuchs was presented with a new booklet, written by himself together in the pages of De Groene Amsterdammer. This weekly magazine, by all accounts the oldest in the country, hosts the art connoisseur and former museum director in its pages. On it, he stomach writing about artworks that...
IFFR 2011 - Tiger from Sri Lanka kicks off, courtesy of taxpayers
The first film from the Tiger competition for new talent that Rotterdam festival audiences got to see on Friday was Flying Fish from Sri Lanka. Director Sanjee Pushpakumara, present at the screening, was clearly overwhelmed. He himself was seeing his film on the big screen for the first time, and in front of a sold-out audience. His acceptance speech was not only touching but...
"Characteristic of the book trade remains the endless chatter, but this evening I wouldn't have wanted to miss." All tweets from #evdu, with video.
Interesting things are happening these days. The digital revolution is beginning to have traces of a real revolution. No one has yet set themselves on fire, as in Tunisia, but more and more people are taking to the virtual streets to overthrow the old powers: after the record companies, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people downloading, and the newspapers, which let themselves be overwhelmed by people searching freely for information, it now seems to be the turn of book publishers.
Arts budget debated in second chamber: hardly any discussion on 200 million cut to performing arts
We were at a debate day in The Hague that was as inconspicuous as it was historic on 13 December 2010: it was about the budget of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the (first?) Rutte government, and that was the budget in which, at the request of the supporting party PVV, the amount to be cut in the arts budget was set at 200 million, with heritage and museums having to...
More audience, fewer seats: Amsterdam Fringe a lot cozier this year, and better than last year #tf2010 #amsfringe
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....
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