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What exactly does Mark Rutte say about the arts? It fits in 1 minute and it's not quite right.

We are politically neutral and even in the subsidy debate we try to maintain that. After all, every coin has a flip side and it is not the media's job to always and forever take sides. But now this. Mark Rutte was interviewed by Clairy Polak in Buitenhof on Sunday, 16 January 2011, and they talked for a minute about... 

Tamer who! Haifa what! Some mega concerts are totally ignored by the media, like that of Tamer Hosny and Haifa Wehbe

Of course, we sometimes miss one. And of course Caro Emerald is cool and Graffity 6 is new. But there is more culture in the Netherlands than many users of mainstream media realise. Deep into the 1980s, sports halls were already full for Rai musicians, and that was years before Cheb Khaled penetrated the charts with Aïsha. The Cape Verdean community in Rotterdam... 

Moma shows video artwork previously barred from Smithsonian by American Christians

As recently as November, the Smithonian patronage-funded National Portait Gallery removed the work, following protests by US Catholics and Republicans. They found the video, titled 'A fire in my belly' by New York artist David Wojnarowicz, who died in 1992, offensive. Yesterday, the Metroplitan Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York announced the work they had given the... 

Craft 'blob' by Atelier van Lieshout awaits buyer among 'country houses'

Country houses will surround it, but in the middle there will be something completely different: a real "sculptural dwelling" by Atelier van Lieshout. With a price tag of a million euros, the house is not a cheap work of art either, but then you have something that the whole world comes to see. Less original than his recently erected one in Rotterdam... 

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... 

Anne Sofie von Otter in De Doelen: 'classical' Bach comes off worst, triumph for 'populist' Handel

Among lovers of the music of contemporaries Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and George Frederic Handel (1685-1759), the bickering is well comparable to that between supporters of Beatles and Rolling Stones. Bach is classical, Handel populist, Bach wrote lofty music, Handel flat-out , Bach was (barring his St Matthew Passion) succinct in his musical statements, Handel rambled on endlessly. And so... 

The Homecoming: Matteo Simoni and Greg Timmermans on their club (FC Bergman) and their play. #njc10

The young Antwerp company FC Bergman performs Harold Pinter's classic play 'The Homecoming' in a completely unique, energetic and raw way. The Homecoming can be seen during Autumn Collection 2010 at Theatre Kikker on Saturday 30 October.... You can log in now to continue reading! Welcome to the Cultuurpers archive! As a member, you have access to all, more than 4,000 posts... 

Sometimes a story is beautiful enough when told: Autoroute du Soleil by Leen Verheyen demonstrates that

Once upon a time, a very long time ago in a different country from today, there was a play about a boy from Bosnia who made crowds cry. Ad de Bont had not only written a sensitive story with Mirad, a boy from Bosnia, but he also found the perfect way to deliver that story. It from letters to and from a... 

GDMW: Seven learning moments about literature, Rotterdam, Utrecht and partying

GDMW festival comes from the tube of the only literary magazine still doing a bit in the Netherlands: Passionate Magazine. A bit contrary, youthful but not juvenile and with an open eye to the many cultures in the city where it was founded: Rotterdam. The festival is a happy combo of literary content, happy poets, embarrassing displays and beer,... 

Art world via Facebook in action against culture cut even before Rutte-Verhagen cabinet installed

It was a pleasantly out-of-control flashmob: according to the police, there were around 3,000 people on The Hague's Malieveld at around noon. Young people, mostly: students from The Hague Art Academy and the Consevatorium. But that is not enough to make the Malieveld feel crowded. From all corners of the country, young art students were... 

French theatre nerds do droll version of the Big Bang at reopening Rotterdam Schouwburg

Ok, a few people might have been a tad disappointed. Who had hoped that Rotterdam's theatre would reopen with real bang, after the extremely successful upgrade of the interior by scrap artist Jan Versweyveld (suspended ceiling, marble and carpet on the stairs). But that, of course, cannot happen. After all, the Rotterdam Schouwburg only does bangers when International Choice boss Annemie Vanackere is there... 

Getting a whiff of Lotte van den Berg's special approach, fresh back from Africa

What she does is vulnerable to the point of confrontation. Theatre-maker Lotte van den Berg has such a personal view of the world that, outside the safe context of theatre, it can come across as absurd. Or alienating. On Sunday 26 September, she returned with the members of her Dordrecht-based location theatre company OMSK back from a four-month stay in the Congo capital Kinshasa. A full house in Rotterdam's Gouvernestraat then got to be there when they unpacked their bags a few hours after landing.

'I like beer' in C'est du Chinois sounds quite nice #dekeuze.

The teachers recite it, a whistle sounds. The audience mimics it, like wax in the hands of the five Chinese on stage. Anyone who walks into the performance C'est du Chinois walks into a Mandarin language lesson. An effective language lesson besides, you understand the two small families-they have only been in the country for four months but plan to... 

'House without a maid' at Huis Sonneveld inspiring microcosm of light and space #dekeuze

An intimate living room conference among living works of art. That is the best way to describe 'House without a maid, a "conversation, performance and installation project" by Jorge León and Simone Aughterlony at Huis Sonneveld. In the former garage of the 1932 modernist villa, a select group of women gathered for two days to discuss the phenomenon of the maid. In other rooms of the imposing... 

Polyphonic 'Deserve' stunningly profound composition about service #dekeuze

'So, Dr Lacan, are women more susceptible to madness? ... Is the man susceptible to hysteria?' In 'Deserve', part of Jorge León and Simone Aughterlony's triptych about the maid, the makers dig deep, very deep. They follow the intriguing line of the great debunkers in our history of thought: from Hegel's master-slave analysis through Marx and Freud to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Core of... 

Raw 'Hard to be a God' by Mundruczó lingers on the surface #dekeuze

Things happen in places like this that cannot bear the light of day. We are deep in Rotterdam's container port, among the neon-lit transhipment yards and dark warehouses. In one of those raw warehouses are two truck trailers. One is set up as an illegal sewing workshop, the other is filled with earth and rubber tyres. They form the backdrop for Hungarian theatre-maker Kornél Mundruczó's performance 'Hard to be a god'.

The performance v...

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Sixteen personal stories paint a moving picture of Rotterdam's multicolour. #he Choice

She has 14 first names because her father liked to name his whole family and she was an only child. She is an in-demand actress, but Gonny Gaakeer has also been a girl with a grandmother. A beautiful grandmother, who in the last years of her 95-year-old life fell over more and more often and bore the ugly wounds of it. Gonny tells her story, and... 

'Stardust' by Pete Rogie is great stream of little stories about encounters, confrontations, disappointments and lonely moments #dekeuze

Anyone walking into the venue where choreographer/visual artist Piet Rogie's performance 'Stardust' is due to take place is immediately astonished. In the vacant exhibition hall of the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, ropes are stretched, it is teeming with seemingly carelessly scattered props and four cement mixers stand along the side like implacable sentinels. The whole space radiates that things are getting exciting. And the viewer is not disappointed with that.

Too much humour and not enough shuddering at De Warme Winkel's 'Poets and bandits' at Theatre Festival The International Choice #dekeuze

Snow has fallen, a thick layer of fresh snow. Fake snow admittedly, but real enough to imagine yourself in the middle of Russia. There, in the city of Sverdlovsk, or Yekaterinburg, once lived the man about whom the performance 'Poets and bandits' is about. Boris Ryzhy (1974-2001) turned the raw reality of his hometown into poetry. He left more than a thousand poems to the world. His breakthrough came at the Poetry International festival in Rotterdam, in the year 2000. A year later, he was dead. ...

You can now log in to continue reading!

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Become a member, or log in below:

'One hour listening and half an hour talking to Clinton for 100,000 euros. Or new breasts.' Concrete questions on The International Choice. #hechoice

The Dodo International Choice journal, episode 3: Hans van Dam saw 'Investment' and talked to creator Davis Freeman, about what you can do with a tonne. It evokes associations with the famous TED talks and is reminiscent of the powerpoint documentary 'An Inconvenient Truth', with which Al Gore tried to wake up the world about climate change. What Davis Freeman does is smaller, but... 

Impressive confrontations in humorous 'K, A Society' by Kris Verdonck #decision

The Dodo International Choice journal, episode 2: Wijbrand Schaap came, saw and was overcome by Kris Verdonck's seven installations about plighted people. It should have ended with terrible bangs, a canned fireworks display a few metres from the spectators. But that's not allowed in the Netherlands since Enschede. And certainly not with Belgian fireworks. Theatre-maker, installation artist and video jockey Kris Verdonck ended up... 

We will be there every day at The International Choice. With text. With video. With news and reviews

Tomorrow begins The International Choice of The Rotterdam Theatre. A festival that for years has presented remarkable theatre from all over the world at the Maasstad's theatre in September. Except this year, that is, because the 'chest of quist' is being rebuilt and that will take some time. Not something with Amsterdam metro builders, but whether the official reopening on 2 October 2010 will be... 

Russian soul dissected: religion and vodka create moral dilemmas

photo Sl-Ziga

By Willem Jan Keizer

Rotterdam - Thanks to conductor Valeri Gergyev, we get more insight into the huge reservoir of Russian composers. Rodion Shchedrin for example. Last year a piano concerto of his was performed, Sunday night in de Doelen it was his opera for the concert stage 'The Enchanted Wanderer', after the book 'The Enchanted Wanderer' by Nikolai Leskov. The opera is dedicated to conductor Lorin Maazel, who also conducted the premiere in New York in 2002.

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