Shakespeare Theater Diever - Macbeth Trailer

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Shakespeare Theater Diever hebben dit jaar gekozen voor een van grootste theatrale meesterwerken ooit; William Shakespeare's Macbeth. Wederom heeft regisseur Jack Nieborg op geniaal en nauwkeurige wijze de script in Nederlands vetaalt zonder een enkele concessie te doen. En dan hebben we de hoofdrollen van Lord and Lady Macbeth gespeelt met ijzingwekkende overtuiging door Dick van Veen en Josien Kragt. Zij laten zien wat de consequenties van ernstig doorgeschoten ambities kunnen zijn. De Diever spelers zullen weer jouw aandacht stevig vastgrijpen en niet loslaten totdat al het nodige bloed is gemorst. Overtuig jezelf en kijk naar de trailer.

Videotrailer: Produced Amsterdam by Deepstream.nl New MediaAmsterdam
Amsterdam

Dutchvlog - Autumn Palette

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This is but a fragment of my autumn in town and country

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Dutchvlog - Shakespeare in Diever

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The Vlogumentary

Yes - All the world is a stage, but some places are more a stage than others, ay, there's the rub; and Diever is without question one of these places.
This small hamlet of scarcely 2200 inhabitants produces a Shakespeare play in Dutch once a year and has been doing so since 1946 when Midsummer Night's Dream was staged for the first time. Now, sixty one years later, enthusiasts from all over Holland and beyond converge on the open air theatre in the forest just outside the village. This year the staging of the romantic comedy, As You Like It, pulled a full house at every performance.

Jack Nieborg is the third resident director of the theatre. He is responsible for the monumental task of translating the plays into Dutch. With the Arden Editions as his blueprint, and whilst remaining close to the original plot, many of the Shakespearean metaphors and allusions are transformed into a more contemporary form. He is however surprisingly successful in retaining much of the entertaining Shakespearean linguistic dexterity so unique to the genre. It remains unmistakably Shakespearean.
In March of every year the first creative meetings take place. During the course of the next four months the creative teams develop and refine all aspects of the production. At the end of July the dressed rehearsals are staged. The cast consists of the local farmer, the baker and the candlestick maker and provide an extraordinarily professional and entertaining performance throughout the months of August and September.

It remains a mystery to me to see how such a small hamlet can produce such spectacular performances. It must be the firm foundation of community spirit, commitment and above all the love and enthusiasm for the magic of Shakespearean theatre. There are only three theatres in the world permitted to fly the Stratford flag - and Diever is one of them. In one word - brilliant!




Links
Shakespeare Theatre Diever - Home page
Cast -As you like it
Wiki - As you like it
Tourist information Diever

Herman Broodplein Amsterdam

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When one has lived in a city as long as I have in Amsterdam the familiar love-hate relationship starts to creep up on you unnoticed with the passage of time. The city is presently executing the mother of all redevelopment's around the central station area. Although one understands that a city is a constantly changing organism and that sometimes major surgery has to take place it does not make the prolonged chaos and disruption any easier to bear.

But at long last small parts of the redevelopment are coming to conclusion, showing that the years of mess and noise are perhaps worth the wait. Part of the new Amsterdam Central Library - OBA - was opened to the public last week. The new library certainly is worth it. No expense or effort has been spared to create a cultural palace of note.
A new reading area has been created in the art and music section and has been dedicated to the late Herman Brood - a fitting tribute to one of Amsterdam's most turbulent and sensational eccentrics. On the 11th of July the Herman Broodplein was officially opened by his daughter Holly and his widow Xandra.

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Drenthe II - Harvest Day in Lhee

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Naturally, different rural communities all over the world have their own flavour of celebrating the harvest. The annual harvest day at Lhee is also however a village fair celebrating historic rural culture specific to the region of South-West Drenthe. The local people here are obviously very proud of their traditions and take a great amount of trouble to put on the best display they can. As you can see this area has a strong regional identity.
Old trades, handicrafts and agricultural methods are displayed as they were practised until not so long ago and passed on; be it not in practice but in memory. It's nice to forget the profound changes that agricultural practices have undergone in the last thirty years just for one day.

Late that afternoon there was a heavy shower and at dusk it produced the right conditions for the bonus material at the end,- with the horses prancing through the mist. I could not resist posting it because magical moments like this also have everything to do with genus loci of Drenthe.

In the coming autumn season Dutchvlog is again going be exploring more urban themes in Amsterdam.

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Dutchvlog goes to Drenthe

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Each posting is an adventure from beginning to end, from inception to hitting the upload to internet button. I never have a preconceived idea of what the end result will be like. I also frequently ask myself what DutchVlog is about? Its about what I see around me , what I encounter, what I feel and of course it has to be Dutch. The V-logs I've done recently also include the passions of others;- the Blues, Hip-Hop, the Dutch songs of Life - whatever, they always seem to be charged with something or other.

This V-log is about an extraordinary region in the north of Holland divided between the counties of Overijssel and Drenthe where time has been arrested to conserve a historical Dutch landscape and all that thrives upon it. It used to be adjacent to the sea until a new polder was added to the west at he start of the last century. To me this is as close as is gets to the scenes depicted in the paintings of Salomon van Ruysdael.

Of course the Four Seasons of Vivaldi would have been perfect as musical backdrop until I called the licensing authorities to ask how much 4min. 30sec. would cost on a video-weblog …€1600,00 at least! A very harsh reality.

Fortunately I found Justus Smits (from the Pianovlog) prepared to help out. So I loaded the rough cut into my camera, played it back on his TV and recorded his improvisations on my mini-disk……its not as easy as it seems but in retrospect it's 1000 times more fun and more meaningful than simply ripping the music from a CD. I have seen the light and I can recomend this method to anyone who wants to use (legal) music on thier vlogs. Many thanks Justus.

If you ever want to see a piece of the real Old Holland you should visit this area. It never fails to surprise and impress with its simplicity, it's beauty, it's peace and it's quiet. Here you can listen to the silence.

Btw - thanks to all those who have recently left (genuine) encouraging comments at different locations.

Links

Chateau Hotel De Havixhorst
Natuurmonumenten - De Wieden

Das Nou Drenthe

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St. NickVlog - Christmas Dutch Style

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Saint Nickolas - the Dutch Christmas

In Holland the festive season starts somewhat earlier than elswhere. For centuries, as legend would have it, Saint Nickolas comes to Holland on a boat all the way from Spain to celebrate his birthday on the 5th of December. Well in advance of this happy event, young children put out a shoe containing a carrot which is intended for St. Nick's white horse Schimmel (dutch for mildew). He is known coloquially as Sinter Klaas - which is not the only close similarity to Santa Claus.
If the children have behaved themselves throughout the year they can expect a present from St.Nick. Of course it is too much work for St.Nick alone to deliver all the presents on time to all the children's shoes, so he has a host of helpers who all are niknamed Zwarte Piet (Black Pete). They are mischievous young men with frightening deep black skin (?). Apart from St.Nicks presents they also carry canes to punish the children who have misbehaved in the preceding year. Young Dutch children are often petrified by these frivolous black strangers from Spain who add to the mystery and the excitement. The Black Petes deliver the presents by way of the intended recipients chimney!
This embeded tradition is the start signal for a month of extreme overindulgence - not only because in keeping with the rest of the overcommercialised world, the Dutch also celebrate Christmas.
On the 2nd or 3rd of January they are shocked back into reality, feeling guilty about their waist lines and their shrunken bank balances. So in short over here - it's just the same....but different!

SailVlog - Sail o5 Amsterdam

Sailo5 Amsterdam - Tall Ship Festival

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Sometimes a city is momentarily transformed, leaving it’s daily metropolitan struggle and strife to focus on and celebrate its roots. Such was the case in last August in Amsterdam. I live in the transformed and revitalised harbour area on the eastern side of the central city, on a group of islands called Zeeburg and surrounded by water. This location is often the stage for the four yearly Tall Ship Festival - this year it was Sail o5. All the famous operational Tall Ships from all the great seafaring nations of the world – from Chilli to Iceland - gathered here, just around the corner from my house, to show themselves proudly to Europe. Within the space of four days more than three million visitors came to see the unbelievably spectacular event. For these four days Amsterdam was momentarily released from the stranglehold of the blanket of shock, disbelief and shame of an event the year before that changed the city for good - and from which Amsterdam has not yet recovered. In these for days Amsterdam was imbued with some of the magic that drew me to this city in the first place many years ago, and there was a true and tangible sense of civil pride. You could see and feel what an incredible place The Port of Amsterdam must have been a hundred year ago and more, when those elegant, slender masts still adorned the waterfront, beckoning young men to adventure in far off places. History was truly alive and kicking. Just around the corner from my house in the other direction, now just over a year ago, another event took place in a very dull and ordinary shopping street around nine in the morning when everybody was on their way to work. Theo van Gogh, the director, filmmaker and criticaster was ritually slaughtered by a radical Moslem in the middle of the street. After shooting him several times the assassin calmly attempted to ritually decapitate Van Gogh with a ceremonial knife but ceased his efforts due to lack of progress and calmly walked away commenting “he had it coming to him” in perfect Dutch to an astounded onlooker. The trail has gripped the nation for the past year as the unimaginable details became public bit by bit. These were indeed truly difficult parts of reality to deal with. But for those four days Amsterdam again acquired the frivolous innocence for which it was famous.