Category: The Hague

2008 Cinedans Amsterdam

I have been invited to have a look at the Cinedans premiere in Amsterdam tonight. Cinedans is an International Dance Filmfestival, dedicated solely to films that have a connection with Dance and held simultaneously in three Dutch cities: Amsterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht.

Find more videos like this on Cinedans

Dance for All

The opening film is quite interesting. It is a film about the South African Dance for All project started 17 years ago to bring dance to Cape Town Townships. An amazing tale of white dancers from the Capetown Ballet Company who started this project long before Apartheid was abolished.

Philip Boyd, a former principal dancer with CAPAB (now Cape Town City Ballet), founded Dance for All in 1991 as Ballet for All. This was to build on the legacy of Cape Town ballet chief David Poole, who started teaching ballet in the townships of Cape Town in the mid-80s. Ballet for All began its life in a classroom in Gugulethu with 34 children participating. These numbers quickly multiplied and with the recruitment of more dance teachers, Boyd expanded the programme to include a diverse range of dance forms and in 1995, Ballet for All became Dance for All.

Today DFA runs an Outreach Programme of daily dance classes in ballet, African, contemporary, musical theatre and Spanish dance for over 700 children and youth in the historically disadvantaged communities of Gugulethu, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, Samora, Athlone and the rural areas of Barrydale and Montagu. Beyond teaching dance, these classes promote the personal development of the children by encouraging their creativity, self-discipline and confidence. DFA’s students receive first-class training from a talented and diverse teaching team.

The film showed lessons by Philip and Phyllis Spira and their students and how the students gradually grew to professionally trained dancers culminating in the formation of DFA’s own profesional youth dance company, creating full-time employment for six of the previous year`s Senior Training Programme graduates in November 2005, that has toured several countries already.

Unfortunately Phyllis Spira died a few months ago. We were happy to learn at the after party that one of their senior students who had left DFA to take dance lessons in Switserland and had been offered a second year of now sponsored training in Switserland had decided to return to DFA to take over Phyliss’ position as a teacher.

About Phyllis Spira:

Phyllis was accepted into London’s Royal School of Ballet when she was just 16. Within months she was a soloist with the Royal Ballet Touring Company. She returned to South Africa in 1964, having turned down an invitation to dance with the legendary Rudolph Nureyev and, a year later, joined Capab (later the Cape Town City Ballet), where she remained for 28 years.

After retiring from performance, Phyllis devoted her time and energy to Dance for All, which was founded by her husband Philip Boyd. Her understanding of young people, her sense of values and her wisdom made her contribution immeasurable. A pragmatist and a realist, she was often both a voice of reason and a pillar of strength. A remarkably humble and caring woman, Phyllis was a wonderful role model and inspiration to so many of the children whose lives she touched. Dance for All will strive in its daily work to live up to her extraordinary legacy.

Phyllis received South Africa’s highest civilian award for excellence, the Order of Meritorius Service Gold (1991). She twice received the Nederburg Award for Ballet, while she also won the Lilian Solomon Award and the Bellarte Woman of the Year Award for the Cape (1979) and was named a member of the Order of Disa (2003) for her contribution to ballet and its development.

Why I was invited? Not as Happy Hotelier. It was closer to home: as proud and happy father of DanceGirl who helps with organizing Cinedans.

High Five (3): Back to Hotels, African Cities and Art

Gorilla High Five

My High Five no 2 are for:

  1. 11 Bizarre Hotels That Will Knock Your Socks Off, most of them featured at my Unusual Hotels page or on the site Unusual Hotels of the World One minus in the post: I know that “Amsterdam” always draws visitore to your post, but this time the Dock Crane hotel room is actually situated in Harlingen (about 2 hours driving from Amsterdam and without proper Public Transport and approximately half way between Amsterdam and Hamburg in Germany:-).
  2. 10 Insanely Beautiful Hotels Worth Traveling For
  3. 5 African Capitals You Should See in Your Lifetime.
  4. 7 Bizarre Tours You’d Actually Sign Up For…Maybe.
  5. The efforts of Esmé Vos going into the new Hotel Review Site Mapplr.

For some picks I was inspired by the Travel Subgroup of Reddit.

About Happy Hoteliers High Five

A high five is a celebratory gesture made by two people, each raising one hand to slap the raised hand of the other — usually meant to communicate mutual satisfaction to spectators or to extend congratulations from one person to another. The arms are usually extended into the air to form the “high” part, and the five fingers of each hand meet, making the “five”, thus the name.(High Five on wikipedia)

I will not publish it on a scheduled date. I will publish it each time when I have found five persons or sites or posts that I deem worthy a High Five. It even may imply me echoing old news here.

If you want to draw my attention to a post you may e-mail me at gje[at]hetnet.nl or give me a message at Twitter

About The New High Five Logo
I miss a large part of my right hand thumb. Technically I am not even able to offer a High Five: Its more of a High 4 and a half:-)

The Gorilla hand looks closest to my right hand with the small thumb. The photo is from a sculpture by Lisa Roet, born in Australia and currently living and working in Melbourne. She had a couple of her sculptures exhibited at the annual The Hague Sculpture. One sculpture inspired me for my post The Finger of Suspicion.

Presently The Hague Sculpture is being built up again and so the circle is full again.

I am looking forward to bring you a timely photo tour of the 2008 edition which is interesting again from what I have seen.

2008 Haagsche Koninginnenach – 2008 The Hague Queensnite: The Dutch Do Dance

The Dutch Don't Dance
The Dutch Don’t Dance, Photo © by Wouter Hogendorp and Canon

Recently I found this apt picture with apt title and color.

  1. The picture is apt because the wooden shoes or clogs stand as a sort of fake national symbol for The Netherlands, whereas hardly any Dutchman (or Cloggy as I am actually teasingly call my fellow countrymen) actually wears wooden shoes.
  2. The Title is as aptly untrue as the clog as national symbol as the Dutch do Dance, even on wooden shoes (later more on the subject of wooden shoe dancing).
  3. Actually the color is the only really apt element of this picture for today as orange is the Dutch national proud, not the national color because that is red white and blue, because it is the color of the House of Orange. Our Queen is a descendant from William of Orange who led the Dutch in their 80 years war against the Spanish. Tomorrow , 30th April is the official celebration of her 70th birthday this year and we will celebrate and dance!
Koninginnenach 2008 screensaver poster
The official 2008 Haagsche Koninginnenach Poster

But before the Dutch celebrate Koninginnedag or Queens day several cities celebrate the night before the day. In The Hague we celebrate Koninginnenach. It is a free pop festifal throughout the city. There are several Pop- and Jazz podia. In several theaters and bars there is life music and all is one big party.

On the 2008 Haagsche Koninginnenach you can actually hear the music of several groups performing tonight.

I will not get permission from my dear wife to enter the festivities with my cameras because I am just recovering from a flu alas. It is her good excuse to keep me from partying:-)

I had some luck that I found some photos on Flickr © by Fiona Bradley that give a view of the preparations for Koninginnenach. Thank you Fiona for being so quick.

Koninginnenach 2008 01
one of the pop podia
Koninginnenach 2008 02
Part of the The Hague Queens Day Fair

If you want to have a nice overview of Konininnenach pictures do a Koninginnenach search on any photo site.

Update:

And you should read the post about Dutch Orange Day in New Holland from antipode (from Down Under) James Clarke from the Australian I Travelnet Blog. Then you will understand why I am proud to be a Dutchman. And I am curious whether Nomadic Matt will report about his Amsterdam Queensday experience.

Update May 1, 2008: Nomadic Matt did indeed post about Koninginnedag, But the post has disappeared since….

Last edited by GJE on December 13, 2011 at 11:10 pm

NYC: How to Save a Marcel Breuer Building

Whitney Museum of Armerican Art NYC

Titled Whitney Museum to Receive $131 Million Gift, Carol Vogel of The New York Times reports that Leonard A. Lauder, chairman of the Estée Lauder Companies and, according to Forbes magazine, with a net worth of $3.2 billion in 2007, said on Tuesday in a telephone interview that his art foundation would give the museum $131 million, the biggest donation in the Whitney’s 77-year history. Mr Lauder is also chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

One requirement of the gift is that it is not to sell its Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue for an extended period. Mr. Lauder as an architecture lover believes the Whitney and the Breuer building should not be separated.

The Whitney announced last year that it planned to open a satellite museum downtown in the meatpacking district of Manhattan, which stirred speculation that it might sell its Breuer building.

The gift includes $6 million to cover expenses until the donation is complete, which is expected to be by June 30, 2009. The money is a major infusion for the Whitney, which has been historically under-endowed. Its new endowment total of $195 million will still pale in comparison with those of institutions like the Museum of Modern Art, with an $850 million endowment. (Ronald S. Lauder, Leonard Lauder’s brother, is a trustee and former board chairman at MoMA.)

In November the Whitney announced that it had reached a conditional agreement with the city’s Economic Development Corporation to buy a city-owned site at Washington and West Streets, the same place where the Dia Art Foundation had planned to build a museum. (In October 2006 Dia said it had scrapped that idea and would seek a different site in the city.) The Whitney satellite is to be designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano.

Mr. Piano was also the architect for a proposed nine-story addition to the Breuer building that was abandoned in 2006.

The Piano scheme was the third time in more than a decade that the museum had commissioned a celebrity architect to design a major expansion, only to pull out.

Mr. Lauder’s gift is not the first major donation he has made to the Whitney. Since becoming its chairman in 1994, he has led the campaign for the new fifth-floor galleries in the Breuer building, which are devoted entirely to the permanent collection.

Six years ago he led a three-year initiative to acquire about $200 million worth of art by masters like Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Ellsworth Kelly, Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock.

Mr. Lauder’s American Contemporary Art Foundation was responsible for the largest single group of art in that gift, including major works by Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Warhol and Pollock.

My Thoughts

This is a brilliant move to save a Breuer Building in a time frame where Breuer buildings seem a bit less loved than they used to be.

This is the solution when the US Ambassador to The Netherlands will leave his Marcel Breuer designed American Embassy in The Hague City Center after pressure from the The Hague Municipality because of the cumbersome safety measures put into place after 9/11:

Create a Whitney satellite in The Hague….

The Finger of Suspicion

The Finger of Suspicion 1
The Finger of Suspicion by Lisa Roet

Fellow Travel Blogger Darren Cronian informs us in his Compulsory Fingerprinting to be introduced in UK Airports that soon to be opened Heathrow terminal 5 will have installed fingerprint taking machines and that more airports will follow suit.

Many of my posts are inspired by mere association. As soon as I saw Darren’s post I had to think of the photos I took this summer at 2007 The Hague Sculpture

The Finger of Suspicion 2
The Finger of Suspicion by Lisa Roet

Actually the sculpture of Lisa Roet, an artist of Down Under is not coined The Finger of Suspicion, but an earlier solo exposition of her.

Why the association?
It demonstrates a bit how I feel when I read such nonsense: Like a Caged Ape and that is a subject that intrigues Lisa Roet a lot.

Further investigations

If you Google on The Finger of Suspicion you get some interesting results:

  • Once It was a song by Dicky Valentine. Very poetic and romantic
  • J.F Kennedy used the phrase in a famous speech:
  • Shelley Jofre reports on a series of disturbing cases that have revealed serious flaws with some fingerprint evidence in Britain, see BBC
  • Within hours of the attacks in New York and Washington, the US and other western intelligence organizations put Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born terrorist in …the Guardian

Will it ever stop?