Amsterdam Weekly: Vol 4 Issue 23, 6-12 June 2007 by Amsterdam Weekly

Volume 4, Issue 23

7 - 13 JUNE 2007 Kidney donors since 2004

‘Al-Queda as digital business model...’ page 8

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The Wooster’s tight take on Hamlet Interview page 6

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the summer cultural calendar centrefold

Is Web 2.0 a catchphrase? Yes page 8 Are subsidies killing art? page 4 / We’ve all done school page 4 How I got naked and hung my butt in the wind page 5 FASHION: Huge heaps of handbags p. 11 / FILM: Tarantino re-invents grindhouse sleaze with ease p. 23

Short List . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Music/Clubs . . . . . . . . . .12 Gay & Lesbian . . . . . . . .16 Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 Dining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 Film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22 Classifieds/Comics . . . .26

7-13 June 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

CITY SECOND BY PETER CLEUTJENS In this issue and... ‘To be, or not to be: that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, / And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; / No more; and by a sleep to say we end / The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks / That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; / To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; / For in that sleep of death what dreams may come / When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, / Must give us pause: there’s the respect / That makes calamity of so long life; / For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, / The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, / The pangs of despis’d love, the law’s delay, / The insolence of office and the spurns / That patient merit of the unworthy takes, / When he himself might his quietus make / With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, / To grunt and sweat under a weary life, / But that the dread of something after death...’

On the cover Photo by Jaap Scheeren and Stefanie Grätz www.jaapscheeren.nl www.stefaniegratz.com

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Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

AROUND TOWN The art of subsidy Should creativity be subsidised? And if so, how? Back in the dark decade of the 1980s, proclaiming that you were an artist was enough to get you a nice little uitkering from the Beeldende Kunst Regeling (BKR), the social security benefit for artists. There was one condition attached, though: recipients had to hand in works of art on a regular basis—the reason why, in the late 1990s, the government had some 48,000 drawings, paintings and sculptures stored in its depots. Obviously, many of the BKR recipients were professional, hardworking artists, but the generosity of the Dutch state nevertheless invited abuse, and the BKR was abolished 20 years ago. Nevertheless, the current situation regarding art subsidies still bears many similarities with the old days. At any rate, that’s what Lex ter Braak says in the recently published Second Opinion, a collection of essays by artworld insiders on the state of art subsidy. Ter Braak is the director of one of Dutch art’s biggest subsidisers, the Fonds BKVB. ‘The end of the BKR meant a shift from a policy where artists were judged by local authorities, to a national policy applying the same criteria for every applicant,’ says Ter Braak, sitting in his light-filled office on Brouwersgracht. ‘At least, that was the idea. Over the years, all kinds of regional regulations slipped back in again. Mind you, I’m not against subsidising art at all, but if every artist is subsidised by default, the inner drive and the necessity to make art gets lost.’ Subsidies for artists are generally granted by assessment committees. These usually consist of people from the art world who judge the quality of the applicant’s work in order to determine if he or she qualifies for funding. ‘Generally speaking, I find the judgement of the committees extremely good,’ says Ter Braak. ‘I would say that in ninety percent of cases they get it right. For granting individual subsidies, like my own fund does, committees are of great importance. But the process of decision-making takes place behind closed doors. As a consequence, the general public cannot take part in the debate around contemporary art, in the way it can when it comes to literature, film or opera. The public only forms an opinion on an artwork once it’s on display in some—usually—small gallery, whereas literary prizes and film festivals guarantee a lively public debate. The relationship between the art world and the world outside has to be strengthened.’ In order to do this, Ter Braak suggests supplementing the system of assessment committees with laymen who show an interest in art. ‘Another option would be to have intendanten [independent commissioners] assessing subsidy applications.

BAS MORSCH

By Floris Dogterom

Or fuck subsidies? Or a happy medium?

They would be accountable for their decisions, whereas the anonymous members of committees are not. That will stimulate the debate around art.’ Wim Jongedijk, artist, film-maker and artistic leader of arts centre Meneer de Wit in De Baarsjes, has mixed feelings about subsidy. ‘On the one hand it’s heavenly to get money to do what you want. But on the other, it’s fatal for your market position. In my view, it is imperative for an artist to create his own market, while maintaining the highest possible artistic principles.’ Jongedijk says that the current subsidy system is ‘kind of corrupt, because once you know your way around the system and you have successfully applied for a subsidy, your chances of qualifying again are considerably higher. I am very much aware of the negative effects of being subsidised, in that I tend to withdraw from society. That’s why I support Ter Braak’s idea of facilitating the context in which art can flourish, rather than subsidising individual artists. It will force artists to connect with society and, hopefully, produce relevant works of art.’ ‘Tricky,’ says Hans Bos, co-owner of the KochxBos Gallery in Eerste Anjeliersdwarsstraat in the Jordaan. He is also doubtful about the effects of subsidising art: ‘Generally speaking, I feel that subsidies provoke laziness. I see a lot of art students who regard subsidy as their future income. The art academies don’t prepare them for the real world. In my opinion, academies should teach the students in their second year what BTW is. And that it’s OK to pay tax.’ Bos has the feeling that a lot of artists think that galleries are only in it for the money. ‘But I know for a fact that many gallery owners are working very hard to realise their dream and keep their gallery going. As to the subsidy system: money should only go to big projects that don’t fit in the gallery set-up. But apart from that, I’d leave it up to the artist and the gallery.’ Second Opinion is published by NAI Uitgevers.

School is society An anthropological eye on the urban jungle. By Laura Groeneveld This year, for the first time in history, the world population is more urban than rural. To mark this demographic shift, the documentary festival of culture and representation, Beeld voor Beeld, has chosen ‘City Cultures’ as this year’s theme. The festival is rooted in (visual) anthropology, a discipline that traditionally researched non-Western rural cultures. ‘That’s no longer the case,’ says festival director Eddy Appels. ‘There’s a lot of interesting research being done in Western countries by anthropologists. Rural communities tend to stand still in their development, while urban communities are continuously changing because of national and international immigration. This cultural exchange in cities causes new cultures to be born. That’s obviously a very interesting situation for anthropologists to comment on.’ The 18th Beeld voor Beeld is also hosting other themed programmes, such as ‘After the war’ or ‘Messing with nature’, usually in double bills. ‘I don’t just want to show films,’ explains Appels. ‘I also want to frame them within a societal context. That’s why I like to programme films together, instead of showing them isolated, to stimulate a dialectical process.’ One theme, however, is getting an entire day to itself: ‘The school as microcosm of society’. In Schoolplein, Judith Vreriks and Marc Schmidt show how teenagers behave and interact in the schoolyard. Adolescents of various backgrounds and ethnicities talk, tease and

fight with one another. In voice-overs, they talk about their dreams, their friendships and differences. Vreriks and Schmidt filmed the youngsters from the balcony of their apartment, which faces the playground of a school, for an entire year. They also spent time inside the school and got to know some of the kids really well. One girl in particular, Esmiralde, caught their attention. ‘We immediately noticed her. She’s a very expressive girl,’ says Schmidt. ‘She can be really sweet, but also very aggressive.’ And indeed, Esmiralde does spend a considerable time swearing at classmates. The couple basically ‘fell in love’ with her, which is why they decided to follow up with a film just about Esmiralde and her home life. ‘We felt that the story of Schoolplein was incomplete, because we never showed the children when they were at home,’ says Vreriks. ‘Some of the kids would tell us they were happy to come to school, because they had such a hard time at home.’ Vreriks and Schmidt filmed the Dutch-Surinamese girl, who lives with her grandmother in Zuid-Oost, over the course of six months. ‘At the beginning, everything went smoothly, because Esmiralde loves attention,’ says Schmidt. ‘But after two or three months the novelty wore off and she got fed up with being followed around by a cameraman. We really had to convince her to finish the documentary.’ The result has been rewarding for everyone though. Esmiralde, Sixteen years in 9 scenes is a touching portrait of a feisty, foul-mouthed girl who struggles with puberty and a complex family life. ‘Esmiralde told us that we filmed her just

Schoolplein lessons learned.

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

Beeld voor Beeld, 6-10 June, Tropentheater, www.beeldvoorbeeld.nl.

15 minutes of frame Getting down to the bare essentials. By Dara Colwell Hours before Amsterdam awoke on Sunday, I bared my breasts in a multi-storey car park. With my ass exposed to the prevailing winds off Marnixstraat, I witnessed hundreds of waxed genitals, pinkish balls, expanded bellies, not-so-subtle tan lines and inquisitive, mostly young, faces. Then there was Spencer Tunick’s. The New Yorkbased photographer, renowned for snapping nude happenings across the globe, was focusing his lens on Q-Park’s cache of 1,400 volunteers—all buck naked—and he didn’t look satisfied. ‘Girl on level two: take off your shirt and move forward,’ shouted Tunick, standing across the canal on Nassaukade—where several taxis had stopped after inadvertently spotting hundreds of buttocks just hanging there—through his megaphone. ‘Now everyone please put your hands at your sides.’ This scene was Tunick’s latest installation, the sort of fleshitecture the artist has captured in cities around the world such as Buenos Aires, Buffalo, New York, Helsinki, London and, most recently, Mexico City, where 18,000 people posed naked, smashing Tunick’s previous record of 7,000 in Barcelona. Tunick’s first mass nude shoot took place in 1994, when the artist snapped a pile of bodies outside the UN’s General Assembly. Five arrests later, the artist successfully lobbied the US Supreme Court to uphold his right to free speech and to shoot outdoors: a popular, heavily-covered-bythe-media artist was born. But in recent years, Tunick’s work has become so wellknown, it raises fewer and fewer eyebrows. What it does manage to raise— at least in my particular case—are nipples, exposed to the city’s brisk dawn air. The Amsterdam event began at 3.30 am when participants, looking like displaced nightclub-goers crammed into a badly lit car showroom, gathered at Q-Park to await instructions. Beneath low ceilings, most people sat smoking, chatting, leaning against the odd car, drinking coffee or—no surprise at this time of night—sleeping on its greasy asphalt floor. Others milled around the merchandise table where postcards of Tunick’s last series, 150 nudes posed in Schermerhorn’s tulip fields, were on display. The Amsterdam event was created by the Dream Amsterdam Foundation, a new recurring event that emphasises art outside museum walls, which invited Tunick to create its first project. At 5 am, Tunick addressed the crowd, outlining multiple, if confusing, instructions through his megaphone, and, as an unimpressive speaker, he had to fight to

NADINE HOTTENROTT

the way she is. She’s very happy with the film,’ says Vreriks. Een klasse apart by Mascha and Manfred Poppenk, meanwhile, provides a rare insight into life at Kingmaschool in Noord, a facility for youngsters with learning difficulties who also have behavioural problems. If kids don’t make it here, they won’t make it anywhere. As the school director says: ‘It’s the drain of Amsterdam. No one else wants to have these problem cases.’ For the Poppenks, making their documentary was a journey. ‘We suddenly stepped into a world we were completely unfamiliar with,’ Mascha says. ‘We didn’t know anything about special education when we first started.’ But their documentary in three acts has hit the mark: ‘After it was shown on TV, we got so many reactions and invitations for discussions from other schools, it was amazing. I never knew how big of a problem this actually was.’ The film registers, in true cinéma vérité style, how difficult it is for problem kids to cope at school. Life really isn’t all that fun or full of promise when you’ve got a low IQ and ADHD. Impressively, everyone at the school tries to make the best of a bad situation. Teachers try to somehow equip these youngsters for a job, while pupils learn to subtract numbers or brush their teeth. Small steps sometimes make for big changes. ‘For me the most dramatic scene is one in which Remi [one of the pupils] is put under the shower because he stinks,’ says Mascha. ‘Remi took off his socks in our presence and his feet smelled really bad. He was so embarrassed that he covered his feet with his hands for the camera. Until then I never knew how aware he was of his own situation.’

keep everyone’s attention. ‘Don’t get desnudo until I give the word,’ he concluded, reminding the crowd not to smile but instead sport relaxed faces. Perhaps smiles were often misinterpreted, but as I would later learn, it’s difficult not to smile when you’re naked in such an unusual place. Once on the ramps, lined with double rows of plastic chairs, the atmosphere became more upbeat. There was a kind of giddy excitement in the air. When the signal was given, many people stripped immediately, while others hesitated—there was no nude beach or sauna in sight, making nakedness seem terribly out of context. Jokes and laughter flew rapidly. ‘Can you tell me who this Spencer Tunick guy is,’ said a man next to me, his breath fresh with beer. ‘I saw people lining up, and just decided to join in. What a way to end a night of drinking!’ His friend quickly exclaimed, pointing to his chest: ‘I love the wind blowing through my hair,’ while another woman whispered to her neighbour, ‘Did you see that guy’s Prince Albert?’ Tunick snapped us standing on chairs. Twenty minutes later we were asked to drape ourselves over the concrete ramps and drop our heads over the edge, which was highly uncomfortable. But the benefit was seeing hundreds of nude bodies stretching for their 15-minutes/seconds/frames of fame like a liquid mass, invigorated by the experience.

The backside of fleshitecture.

Sofia Mourato, a photographer seated next to me, put it best: ‘I think it’s interesting the way he uses the human body. If you see one person naked, that’s different from seeing twelve people—then it becomes an abstraction. They’re not bodies anymore but a pattern, a part of the landscape,’ she said. ‘You never see people gather like this normally, this is very special.’ While many critics have argued Tunick’s work is neither controversial nor art, but rather just a good idea repeated ad infinitum, it does create a unique phenomenon. For those unused to the local laissez-faire attitude that underneath their clothing everyone’s naked, going buff in a place where clothing is normally obligatory is a liberating rush. It breaks social boundaries. We learn to accept the body as beautiful, and feel at home with ourselves. But for this American, now used to Dutch saunas, I found the experience roughly the same—but with an added photo opportunity, of course. But what I did take away from it was that experience of having true affinity with total strangers, something we could all use a little more of, clothed or not. www.dreamamsterdam.nl

Amsterdam Weekly

SHAKESPEARE VIA SOHO

A mashed-up Hamlet comes to Holland Festival: an interview with Scott Shepherd and Kate Valk of multimedia theatre pioneers The Wooster Group BY TROY SELVARATNAM PHOTO BY JAAP SCHEEREN AND STEFANIE GRĂ&#x201E;TZ

7-13 June 2007

The gutsy, iconoclastic and quintessentially New York theatre ensemble The Wooster Group—last in the Netherlands in 2003 with To You, The Birdie!—have made their way here once again, this time with not one, but two productions that each represent landmarks in the group’s oeuvre. Not once in their more than 30-year history have The Wooster Group ever performed an opera or—perhaps more surprisingly—a Shakespeare play. Last week, Rotterdamse Schouwburg hosted the premiere of the company’s La Didone, a work which merges the 17th-century opera of the same name by Francesco Cavalli with cult Italian director Mario Bava’s 1965 film Planet of the Vampires. And now, this week, as part of the Holland Festival, the group are performing their revisionist Hamlet at Theater Bellevue. The Wooster Group recently completed a successful run of the tragedy at St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn and, in October 2007, they will be making the bold leap across the East River for a run of the same play at the downtown Shakespeare sanctuary, the Public Theater. With Hamlet—probably The Wooster Group’s largest-scale and longest production—the company outgrew the intimate confines of their regular performance space, The Performing Garage on Wooster Street in Soho, which still houses the company’s offices, and is the laboratory where director Elizabeth LeCompte originates and develops her complex theatrical pieces. An extraordinary group of actors Although many illustrious names have been associated with The Wooster Group—Steve Buscemi, Spalding Gray and LeCompte’s former partner Willem Dafoe among them—LeCompte is very much the guiding force. To help realise her visions, LeCompte collaborates with an extraordinary group of actors (or rather ‘associates’, as they are called in Wooster parlance) and two of the group’s most redoubtable performers have key roles in Hamlet: Scott Shepherd in the title role and Kate Valk playing the dual roles of Getrude and Ophelia. The latter has acted with The Wooster Group since 1979, when she was still a student at New York University, while Shepherd joined in 1997. These days, they are the two performers most identified with the theatre company, and it was Shepherd who was instrumental in the gestation of Hamlet, which premiered in Barcelona in June last year. We caught up with Shepherd and Valk at The Performing Garage as they were preparing to head to the Netherlands. Apart from being Shakespeare’s longest play, Hamlet is certainly one of his bestknown, and is also one of the most-quoted writings in English literature. To be sure, The Wooster Group are not the first creative force to subject the play to an unorthodox interpretation. Indeed, given the myriad of permutations of the play on stage (Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, for example, or Heiner Müller’s The Hamletmachine) and screen (Aki Kaurismäki’s Hamlet Goes Business or Michael Almereyda’s Hamlet), it might be thought that the group would be better served by tackling another play as their first foray into Shakespeare. Nevertheless, Shepherd had an implacable desire to do the Danish play. The pair elaborates: Scott Shepherd: I wanted to do Hamlet. I just wanted to. Kate Valk: Initially, we just [had] actors doing a workshop on it.

Amsterdam Weekly SS: Everything changed when it became a Wooster project. KV: Then we went to Liz and said, ‘Don’t you want to direct this? Scott’s going to do it somewhere else. Let’s just start. Just listen to it.’ And that’s when it really took off. SS: We normally do new plays with a small audience, people tried and true, but we didn’t have a chance to do that. KV: The Performing Garage just wasn’t big enough. Hamlet, you know, it’s Hamlet, it needed to be bigger, it wasn’t a chamber piece. SS: We were still figuring out what it was. Usually we work in little chunks. So we had five days in Barcelona, and by the fourth or fifth day we got an idea how the first part relates to the second part and cut away some of the fat. A work in process This work-in-progress method is a defining characteristic of The Wooster Group. The company’s productions are amorphous in their nascent stages and, in order for them to get stage-ready, LeCompte and her associates invite a select group of friends and colleagues to The Performing Garage to

Bill Colleran’s 1964 film of John Gielgud’s Broadway production with Richard Burton as the Prince of Denmark. Dubbed a ‘Theatrofilm’, it was shot over the course of two days using Electronovision, a short-lived form of CCTV; seventeen cameras captured a dress rehearsal in front of a live audience. Undercover director In The Wooster Group’s Hamlet, the film is projected onto the backdrop of the stage, and scenes are elided as actors call on a technician to fast forward scenes. Some of the edits are easily explained, for example those sparing Valk the task of playing Gertrude and Ophelia at the same time, when her characters share scenes. At other times, the elisions seem random and the product of cast members’ whims. They are guided in large part by the action on the screen, and the spectacle of actors on stage mimicking the exaggerated histrionics of the actors in the film provides this Hamlet with genuine moments of slapstick—something The Wooster Group have never been averse to. Shepherd devoted considerable energies to adapting the text in the film for the group’s actors. Like most of Shakespeare’s

Although many illustrious names have been associated with The Wooster Group—Steve Buscemi, Spalding Gray and LeCompte’s former partner Willem Dafoe among them— LeCompte is very much the guiding force. observe their workshops, where the actors experiment with words and movements with seemingly helter-skelter direction from LeCompte. It is not dissimilar from a free-jazz session where the process is the pursuit, and goals and signposts drop from view. Nevertheless, things take shape over the course of several sessions, and The Wooster Group’s august design/technical team begin flexing their muscles and integrating the company’s hallmarks into the plays. For those who have already seen a Wooster Group’s production, Hamlet will seem reassuringly familiar from the moment the play begins. There, on the stage, are all the elements bearing LeCompte’s indelible mark: video monitors showing film clips that impinge on the live action on stage; actors speaking through wireless microphones, wearing tattered, deconstructed examples of haute couture; furniture is pushed to and fro by the actors, who nimbly adapt their stage directions to the new configurations. As with prior productions, Hamlet is guided by a ‘template’, as described by the group, which elaborates on the play’s main text. For example, House/Lights, which the group performed at the Holland Festival in 1998, was ostensibly based on Getrude Stein’s 1938 version of the Faust story, Doctor. Faustus Lights the Lights. However, key to the action on stage was a video projection of Joseph P Mawra’s 1964 schlock ‘lesboitation’ film Olga’s House of Shame. For House/Lights, the template was in almost diametrical opposition to the play’s text, but in Hamlet, the group’s chosen template is not so far-fetched. For this play, the group have chosen

plays, Hamlet was written in blank verse in iambic pentameter, but the actors in the Burton film often strayed from the verse’s rhythms in their declamations. Shepherd, with the help of the company’s technicians, set about to edit the film—cutting, fast forwarding, and slowing the action down—so that the verse was restored in its entirety to iambic for a steadier tempo. It also creates a disconnection between the actors on stage and those onscreen, as the video recording goes out of synch from time to time with the action on stage. Valk and Shepherd comment on the process of choosing the templates: KV: Liz definitely is the final arbiter in terms of the templates we choose. SS: The ideas can come from anywhere, but they can’t get past without her approval. KV: She’s way out in front in terms of vision. She’s the visionary in the room, and we all need her to be that, to take this leap of faith to go the distance we go. Liz’s choice of the Burton film gave us a great template. She saw that production [and] the film had a resonance for her. Then Scott edited it back into iambic and gave us our own take on it. Scott needed it to be in iambic and that provided all the herkyjerky edits that we love to work with. SS: We started with what Burton and Gielgud did, which was already a cut. They had already made some selections, and that’s the way it worked out when we tried to do everything. A lot of it had to do with the rhythm of the scenes. There are things that Liz didn’t like that she wanted to fast forward through. Moreover, LeCompte continually modifies performances within a run of one of

The Wooster Group’s plays, and it truly is the case with this company that no two performances are alike. At every one of them, LeCompte sits anonymously in the audience, appearing to be just another theatre-goer. She gauges reactions from the audience, keeping a keen eye on the action on stage, and mentally ticks off what is working and what needs adjustment. In a 2006 interview in the French magazine Mouvement, LeCompte is quoted as saying: ‘I think about what the audience will think. Every single moment. I want to be there every evening and observe what people do when they watch the play. If I feel them disengage or feel uncomfortable, it forces me to think about what I really want.’ Valk and Shepherd touched upon LeCompte’s techniques and the limitations of modifying a performance literally overnight: KV: When she’s in the audience she enjoys the anonymity of being part of the body that is the audience. SS: Substantial change can happen at any time. No limit. The limit is how much can we actually do in rehearsal before the next performance. Home in Holland LeCompte’s bold theatrical innovations have always found receptive audiences in the Netherlands, which The Wooster Group have been visiting regularly since 1978. Valk and Shepherd talked about their experiences in this country: KV: We had a very loyal producer in Ritsaert ten Cate for many years. He ran the Mickery Theater in Amsterdam, a fantastic [place] that doesn’t exist anymore. Then there was a kind of lull [between 1982 and 1991] when we didn’t go to Amsterdam for a while. Then we got hooked into the Holland Festival thing with Brace Up in 1991. I love the Holland Festival. What’s not to love? It’s a great time of year and there are always great productions there and the audiences, I don’t know... we seem to do well. I go to the Holland Festival even when I’m not in the Holland Festival! SS: What I like about Dutch people is that they’ll say: ‘Ja, it was very good, ja, it was really good, you know. I mean I was annoyed in the second half.’ They’ll tell you right off what they didn’t like—but they’re still excited about the show, so you get this very detailed reaction from them. Herein lies one of the most salient characteristics of The Wooster Group, and the thing which sets them apart from avant garde purists—they are responsive to their audience and don’t generally impose their artistry in a peremptory manner. Audiences did indeed warm to Hamlet in its Brooklyn run, and it’s an open question how Dutch theatre-goers will react. For a Wooster Group neophyte, the spectacle may be jarring, and for a Shakespeare purist, it may be a sacrilege. What cannot be denied is the singular artistic vision of LeCompte and the high degree of professionalism of the actors who, in their physically arduous roles are called on to negotiate complicated technical equipment and constantly changing sets, while bringing out Shakespeare’s text. Whatever the reaction, you can be sure LeCompte and her associates will be fine-tuning things for the next performance down the road. Hamlet Until 9 June, 20.00, Theater Bellevue. www.hollandfestival.nl

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

OMG! WTF = Web 2.0?!

It is prophesised that somewhere, sometime, a better world awaits us. A magical world devoid of trolls and flame wars, where bandwidth and pr0n flow like milk and honey. The catch is that this world is virtual, but the good news is that we’re already, unknowingly, stumbling around its hinterlands. To gain insight into the world called ‘Web 2.0’, we stopped by the Reguliersbreestraat, where the second The Next Web conference assembled a bevy of binary brainiacs to debate on the future of the interweb. This highfalutin’ gathering was clearly not wanting in cash: it had installed itself in the lavishly decorated Tuschinski, lending some old-fashioned panache to all the newfangled technobabble. In the packed main hall, a slick PowerPoint presentation was just warming up; on the stage, a man—who I later was able to identify as Tariq Krim from Netvibes—was talking about some strange entity called a ‘widget’. He told us there were millions of users swarmed by billions of widgets, who are virally distributed and adapt and change depending on the situation they’re placed in. It took a couple of minutes more before I understood that widgets are not some malicious amoeba, but just imbedded web programming thingamabobs. Phew! A video chat with Kevin Rose, a founder of the social bookmarking website Digg.com, was cut short due to a technical glitch, the first of several of these mishaps. The audience resigned itself to this calmly, as everyone must have their share of technoblunders. Is Web 2.0 too confusing? The next speaker was Sxip Identity founder Dick Hardt, who could just as easily be a stand-up comedian, with all the acerbic puns his presentation on online identity. Hardt worked through a repertoire of Dick jokes—scoring a big laugh blasting Dick Cheney, and even managed to elicit a guffaw by comparing the Wikipedia pages on the term ‘identity’ in different languages (in English, the term mostly links to films and books; in German, there’s ten pages of Freudian, Jungian and

An attempt to unravel Web 2.0 at The Next Web Conference... One scoop: ‘It’s one of the few web-based initiatives that hasn’t been born out of the porn industry.’ BY LUUK VAN HUËT ILLUSTRATION BY RICARDO PORTILHO

other psychoanalytical theories; and in Dutch, there’s almost nothing...). His central analysis of Web 2.0 stated that online identity management on the internet is in its infancy, with every site compiling its own database of online profiles, urging users to fill in an endless amount of different profiles instead of having a single comprehensive online identity. Unfortunately, his closing arguments were drowned out by a cantankerous ranting man who loudly complained to some woman named Gabrielle about a missed email. Don’t you just love how technology brings people together? The coffee break provided a chance to ask those in the know about Web 2.0. De-buzzing the buzzword A friendly Frenchman was more than happy to explain: ‘You see, big businesses come to my company for advice on how to get in on the Web 2.0. We explain to them that their voices are drowned out by the user community. We lead them to the understanding that they must put the user in the first place, to open up to criticism and to really listen to their advice.’ That seemed to be getting somewhere. So companies are already changing their policies because of this new development? ‘Well, that doesn’t just happen overnight, of course,’ he harrumphed. ‘Perhaps in the future we’ll see that change, but don’t expect it just yet.’ I thanked him, but couldn’t help but feel like I was being sold old wine in new bags. I spied organiser Patrick

de Laive and asked him to cut through all the guff surrounding this conference’s central theme. ‘The term “Web 2.0” is a buzz phrase that has almost become worn out,’ he explained. ‘Web 1.0 can be categorised as glorified ad pamphlets, with no possibility of user input, while Web 2.0 is centred [on] the users, who upload content and this interaction breeds new and interesting information.’ Won’t it just translate into an increase of porn? De Laive laughs: ‘There are undoubtedly some porn applications for Web 2.0, but it’s one of the few web-based initiatives that hasn’t been born out of the porn industry.’ Wi-Fi Slayer If you’re wondering what role Amsterdam might play in this digital evolution, you may be disappointed to learn that it isn’t going be a starring one, if De Laive is to be believed: ‘Amsterdam’s part is relatively small, which I blame on the overwhelmingly local mindset of our entrepreneurs, instead of a global one. We have a lot of good innovators, but we’re no match for London or Paris.’ I went back into the theatre to join the other delegates, in order to have a good overview of the last presentations. Local boy Mark Hoekstra presented a self-made ‘Wi-Fi slayer’ apparatus entitled Slurpr, which seeks out up to six Wi-Fi connections, protected or not, and bundles them into one powerful connection. While this one-of-a-kind device would probably land

him in jail if mass produced, the legal obstacles were examined for loopholes. After more token technical difficulties, the showcase for Respectance.com was able to get up and running, allowing founder Richard Derks to explain his motives in starting an interactive site that facilitates sharing memories of deceased loved ones. Even though Derks was as inoffensive as a new-born seal, the pitch on making money by advertising and services was a bit creepy—a problem addressed by the resident Grumpy Old Men. Al-Qaeda as digital business model The last pitch was made by the hyperkinetic CEO Rod Beckström, who seemed to have missed his calling as a televangelist. He barrelled through all the day’s main topics, while pushing his own agenda and accompanying book. He did also give the most comprehensive definition of what’s needed to succeed in the Web 2.0 world. After witnessing the devastation of 9/11, Beckström founded a peace-promoting organisation, Global Peace Networks, staffed by CEOs and modelled after, of all things, al-Qaeda’s decentralised structure of independent ‘cells’. In his research into al-Qaeda, he realised that there’s a distinct difference between centralised and de-centralised organisations. As a consequence of that eureka moment, Beckström has been developing a decentralised business model for the web. At this point, one couldn’t help but wonder if this was a case of clutching at buzzwords to create a bigger buzz—alQaeda is hardly the world’s first decentralised organisation (and you’d hesitate to call it prime business model). But Beckström did make a recovery of sorts as he chucked in a few more historical instances of decentralised forces (the Navaho; the conquistador Cortez) beating the tar out of centralised opponents (the US Army; the Aztec empire). As hazy as this Web 2.0 is, it actually made sense to me, even if the idealistic utopian democratic version would probably be diluted down the lane. Web 2.0? I guess it’s like the old tale of blind men describing an elephant by touch.

7-13 June 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

DIANGO CISSE

SHORT LIST

Bintou Were, Thursday, Muziekgebouw

THURSDAY 7JUNE Theatre: HRMNNH! (Kung Fu Hossel) Made in da Shade and Cosmic Theater have gone back to old-school kung fu movies for this production. Three orphans—Number One, Number Two and Number Three— live in a small town on the side of a mountain. An evil kung-fu master, Hari Tee, his dejected woman and personal army occupy the other side. What follows is an energetic play that incorporates the fundamentals of the genre: lost heroes, a psychotic bad guy, weak old people who fight really well, Asian philosophy, and intense combat scenes. The actors climb all over the mountain (actually a wall onto which visuals and movie clips are projected) and clash using sticks, swords and fans; cables help them fly while fighting. Sneaky references to The Art of War, Lady Snowblood and the WuTang Clan make the play fun to watch. Starring Howard Komproe, Paulette Smit and Tjonrockon, it’s directed by Marjorie Boston and Maarten van Hinte. (Shyama Daryanani) Frascati (Thur-Sat 21.00). €14. Until Saturday.

Reading: Miranda July After performance artist Miranda July finished making her film Me and You and Everyone We Know, she turned down buckets of Hollywood money to finish a collection of short stories she’d been working on. The result, No One Belongs Here More Than You, confirms her talent for giving a voice to lonely, awkward girls and other people trying to connect. Her tales deal with epilepsy, peep shows, and fantasies about sex with Prince William; in one of them, a young woman who wakes up to discover that all the jocks and exes who made her high school years hell have come back to apologise. July has said that she sees her stories as performances, which makes the thought of seeing her read them all the more appealing. (Julie Phillips) Hotel Arena, 20.00, €15.

Opera: Bintou Were The search for a better life, with the risks and ambiguities it brings. It’s as old a human drama as can be—and, in Bintou Were, it’s given unprecedented treatment. Spurred on by an idea of the late Prince Claus, and supported by the fund bearing his name, this fulllength opera was created entirely by artists from the Sahel, the stretch of Africa that forms the Sahara’s southern border. Through auditions, workshops and collective decision-making, some 53 singers, actors and dancers—as well as 13 musicians—were chosen to contribute to the story of a pregnant young woman trying to cross into a Spanish enclave in Africa. Her choices are complicated by the many men who claim paternity of her unborn child (as a means of obtaining European citizenship for themselves) and by her awareness of how the African diaspora is robbing the continent’s future. Under Senegalese director Wasis Diop, the opera features music, words and choreography by

major creators from Chad, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Togo, and all songs are performed in the singers’ native languages: Wolof, Bambara and Malinke. Hats off to the Holland Festival for getting behind this stunner. English and Dutch surtitles accompany all texts. (Steve Schneider) Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €50. Also Friday and Saturday.

Electro rock: 65daysofstatic Step away from ’80s electro pop. Smash up those ’90s rave anthems that are embarrassing the bottom of your CD rack. You can even ditch the bulk of electroclash from the ’00s. The future is 65daysofstatic, and the future is now. Whether you’re obsessed by the furious urban beats of jungle, or whether you’re more guitar-oriented, feeding off the atmospherics of postrock outfits like Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky, 65dayofstatic bridge both worlds effortlessly. Where other bands have tried and come away sounding hollow and forced, these young lads from Sheffield have genuinely cracked it, releasing energetic slabs of noise since 2004 that are as organically wondrous as they are savagely digital. Their debut album The Fall of Math went down a storm on the indie scene, they’ve been continually building on its success since, and are now onto their third album, The Destruction of Small Ideas. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that they can pull it off live, too. From gentle ambience to vicious riffs, and from buzzing machinery to rapid-fire triggered drum loops, their performances are explosive—and simply not to be missed. (Steven McCarron) Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.15, €9 + membership.

SATURDAY 9 JUNE Rock: Modest Mouse Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock doesn’t like the press. It might seem like he’s just following some old, established celebrity credo of being irked by media attention, but much of the negative attention heaped on him has certainly been unfair. Still, this hasn’t stopped Brock from deliberately pulling some noteworthy stunts, like cutting himself on stage or using his sharp tongue to memorably sass a US border guard. Whether incidents like these contribute to the mad genius folklore surrounding him, or are simply indicative of his crazy brilliance begs a chicken-or-egg type question. Despite his zaniness, a kinder, gentler Brock surfaces at times on Modest Mouse’s newest album, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. Joined by ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr (now an official band-member), the new release is more effervescent than past recordings, but hasn’t lost the group’s trademark blunt delivery. Like clever vaudevillians, Brock and the boys don’t disappoint in transcribing their crafty verses to a rousing stage show. (Stephanie Shewchuck) Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, €13 + membership.

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

Pop: ABC 4th Anniversary Beat Bash The Amsterdam Beat Club is turning four and is throwing a massive party. Everyone should attend, and here’s why: the ABC have a sense of nostalgia. To them, it’s the music, dance and culture of the 1950s and ’60s that reigns supreme, and their goal is to preserve and enhance beat culture by throwing parties filled with all extra things from that period. Everything from go-go dancers to burlesque shows, funky Hammond parties and fashion shows are staged, all in an effort to return to when times were simpler, and more groovy. Highly coiffed gals will be in abundance, alongside slick leather-jacketed or sharp-suited guys, Brylcreemed to perfection. The Phantom Four (surf) and West Hell Three Plus Two (mod jazz) headline the party, along with dancers, DJs and dreamers. (Shain Shapiro) Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 23.30, €10.

SUNDAY10 JUNE Contemporary: Doctor Atomic In their collaborations, composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars inaugurated a subgenre dubbed ‘CNN opera’: high-concept musicals torn from the headlines. Works like Nixon in China showed this to be a canny strategy, as it both raises the profiles of—and the funding possibilities for—these outsized efforts. Doctor arose when the director of the San Francisco Opera commissioned a work about ‘an American Faust’, and chose J Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atom bomb, as its subject. Set in the days leading up to the first A-bomb test in 1945, the piece explores the event, as well as the psyches of those near it. Sellars pieced together the libretto from declassified documents, interviews and transcripts of meetings, as well as from literary sources that shine different lights on this epochal story. In English with Dutch surtitles. (Steve Schneider) Het Muziektheater, 20.00, €20-€100. Until 1 July.

Experimental: David Dramm If Wikipedia is anything to go by, David Dramm belongs to a long list of Dutch and Flemish composers. He doesn’t have his own entry, though, so turning to another corner of Web 2.0 is perhaps a better way to find out more about this Illinois-born and San Diegoraised composer/singer/musician/lyricist who’s made Amsterdam his home. Maybe Dramm’s residence here has something to do with the fact that he studied composition with Louis Andriessen at Yale. Considering his wealth of MySpace friends—including John Cale, Joost van Bellen and Junkie XL—he seems to feel equally at home in the worlds of rock, classical music, improvisation, theatre and dance. His music had been called kaleidoscopic and that’s surely something which tonight’s programme reflects: in The Last Jukebox, a motley crew—with Andriessen on piano—perform Dramm’s extreme interpretations of composers as far apart as Iannis Xenakis, Bob Wills or The Sex Pistols, while his own ambitious instrumental work Orange Slice serves as a spectacular finale. (Peter Bartlema) Bimhuis, 20.00, €15.

WEDNESDAY13 JUNE Contemporary: Alarm Will Sound Classical music to mash your mind. While this 20-piece New York ensemble are usually labelled ‘contemporary music’, they toy with the modern electronics, reworking elements of genres like breakcore and drum & bass, acoustically. While their first two albums, which were filled with Steve Reich material, brought them plenty of praise, it was Acoustica, a compilation of Aphex Twin songs performed unplugged that broke brought them immediate notoriety on the experimental and electro circuits. And this was nothing like those R.E.M. or Pink Floyd performed by London Symphony Orchestra CDs that can be picked up at bargain prices. Nope, it’s totally full-on, and rhythmically terrifying. Which is exactly what you can expect from this headline performance tonight—-on Tuesday they’ll also be performing as part of the Metropole/John Adams programme at Muziekgebouw. Tonight they’ll be mixing both up in interpretations of works by Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Benedict Mason, Conlon Nancarrow, Wolfgang Rihm, Autechre, Aphex Twin and Mochipet. (Steven McCarron) Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €25.

R&B: Kelis After the success of a certain single from 2003, one can hardly think of Kelis without hearing the line, ‘My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.’ Though notorious for her in-your-face sexiness, Kelis has worked hard to be considered more than the musical equivalent of a frothy dairy treat. In fact, she’s quickly becoming a fullfledged media power to be reckoned with, heading down the path that many before her have tread. She’s not only filming an MTV reality show with husband Nas, but also working on a cookbook, designing fashion accessories, and collaborating with Ashanti to produce a line of high-heeled shoes. While it might seem like she has a lot on her plate, she appears ready to take it all on with headstrong zeal. Her lucky audience will get to witness this vibrant one woman force when she takes Amsterdam by storm on the first part of her European tour. (Stephanie Shewchuck) Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 21.00, €20 + membership. Send details and images for listing consideration at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl.

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

MONICA RAGAZZINI

‘Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.’

Largest Western collection of handbags in the world moves out of the suburbs and goes uptown.

BAG IT UP. BAG IT UP GOOD. Fashion Aan de Amsterdamse Grachten Tassenmuseum Hendrikje, 10 June-16 September By Karina Hof

Once upon a time, in the days when Tom Ford was a newbie at Gucci and Marc Jacobs honeymooned chez Louis Vuitton, when LeSportsac was just a fanny pack

Joke, handbag interpreter A featured artist in the Tassenmuseum’s first temporary exhibition is Joke Schole, native Amsterdammer and internationally acclaimed Rietveld graduate. When it comes to interpreting the handbag, her SNS REAAL-subsidised contribution surely rocks the boat. Entitled ‘De Bagage van Amsterdam’, Schole’s design is a ship-shaped canvas inspired by the Amsterdamse Stedemaagd, whose image gazes down from one of the Tassenmuseum’s original 17th-century ceilings. The artist recalls: ‘I saw this and thought: “This has to be a figurehead.” So [then] I thought: “I will make a boat,” and then thought about a VOC ship, and then I thought about why were there bags...’ Her conclusion was that purses enabled traders to trade, and trade is what put Amsterdam on the map, evolving into a place where, besides material goods, free

and it was cute to flaunt Kipling key-ring monkeys, there was a house. Like other houses in the sleepy suburb of Amstelveen, it appeared plain and unassuming. Though beyond its rose-dotted lawn and cat loafing in the driveway, it was unlike any other. This was Tassenmuseum Hendrikje, the largest collection of Western handbags in the world, which happened to

thinking and creativity were also exchanged—in such a society, ‘everybody is important,’ the artist believes. Schole used old-fashioned buckles to stud the piece with mini-portraits from Dutch history, with faces ranging from Spinoza to Shaffy. Cargo is represented by mother-of-pearl porcelain figurines of ‘all the most important trade products, the bicycles and the Amsterdammertjes, et cetera.’ Viewers will also get a glimpse of the bag’s fully lined Amsterdam flagpatterned interior. Although Schole assures that her creation is as pret-aporter as any other, ‘De Bagage van Amsterdam’ comes with its own display stand: a porcelain base with wooden pillars constructed by the same shipbuilder who worked on the Queen Beatrix-christened Batavia. www.jokeschole.com

occupy the private residence of the couple who spent half their lives amassing 500 years’ worth of civilisation’s various forms of baggage. But a decade after receiving some 4,000 visitors admiring its 50 display cases each year, the museum began to bulge. ‘Bags were under her bed,’ museum director and curator Sigrid Ivo says, describing the mushrooming effect that her mother, Hendrikje, had unsuspectingly set off the day she fell in love with a 19th-century German reticule with tortoise and mother-of-pearl inlay. And so, acknowledging the ‘problem’, the Ivo family began seeking new real estate that could cope with their excess baggage. In 2006, the museum closed its doors. The end, however, this was not. On 10 June, the Tassenmuseum reopens and mama’s got a brand new pad on the Herengracht, with original ceiling paintings and marble floors:

Jeltje, original occupant ‘She lived here around 1850 and she wrote in her diary: “This life is boring, totally boring.’” Sigrid Ivo, director and curator of Tassenmuseum Hendrikje is referring to Jeltje de Bosch Kemper, daughter of a prominent Amsterdam solicitor-general and professor of jurisprudence, who heaved her sighs of ennui in the mansion she called home and where, this week, the Tassenmuseum reopens. (Look for De Bosch Kemper’s portrait on Schole’s design.) Jonkvrouw Jeltje came to relieve her boredom by shunning leisure and shouldering labour. By age 36, she had established the Amsterdamsche Huishoudschool, a vocational school to train women for domestic work. Sick of their daily sketching-letter-writing-pianoplaying humdrum, honourable misses thus had a new reason to leave their

space enough to show at least half the collection of 3,500 pieces. It’s an impressive cache: leather coin purses from the Age of Exploration; 17th-century chatelaine ‘body necklaces’, for suspending everything from eating utensils to bibles; the Versace Couture carried by Madonna at the Evita premiere; a Hèrmes Kelly bag. As Ivo points out: ‘We are not only showing the history of the bag, but the history of civilisation, technology, industry, materials, techniques, social and historical events.’ Leaving the suburbs has given the museum not just more square metres, but more spending money. ‘I always say it’s like an angel flew over the building,’ says Ivo as she recounts how the Tassenmuseum went from being a momand-pop-run mecca for purse fetishists to a state-of-the-art rijksmonument. The ‘angel’ refers to the anonymous donor who not only bought the building, but also financed its remodelling. ‘My parents are now going on retirement, they are seventy and seventy-four,’ Ivo shares. ‘I mean, our dream [came true]. A well-to-do businessman comes along and buys the building and renovates it, and you get this marvellous place in Amsterdam.’ Its past incarnation as a Commerce Bank long over, the building now flaunts two refurbished period rooms for private parties, a kinder atelier, café, a shop offering the latest tote trends and a historical garden designed by Robert Broekma. The museum will also host rotating exhibitions, either highlighting a period in handbag history or showcasing upand-coming designers, from the Netherlands and abroad. For the grand reopening, Aan de Amsterdamse Grachten features works by a score of artists who were asked, in Ivo’s words, ‘to make a special bag demonstrating how we, as a museum, are an inspiration for designers, and how our new place may also be an inspiration.’ Like the double-Cs of Chanel, the exhibition is meant to evoke nostalgia while also glimpsing the future. www.tassenmuseum.nl

homes—even if it would ultimately mean entering into other people’s dirty ones. As Ivo explains, in 1891, housekeeping was not seen as menial: it was a marketable skill that created prospects for women to become independent money-makers. While the Amsterdamse Huishoudschool is now the site of hostel Stayokay Vondelpark, back at the Tassenmuseum, a spark of its founder’s someMarxist feminism is today relit. Besides honouring De Bosch Kemper as one of the premise’s famous prior inhabitants, the collection celebrates an iconic piece of female material culture. Moreover, the object is one with which many women have come not just to carry cash, but to keep control of it—in their own hands. Surely, such developments gave new meaning to the dictum found in French magazines during De Bosch Kemper’s era: ‘The lady can leave her husband but not her bag.’

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

Cap Bambino, see Friday

MUSIC Send listing suggestions at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl

Thursday 7 June

and electronics by Simon Lenski and Bo Wiget. Also with performances by De Veenfabriek. Van Gogh Museum, 20.00, €10 Opera: Wagner Dream They’ve already tackled every Wagner opera going. Now it’s time for De Nederlandse Opera to shine with a piece written about the great, though controversial, maestro. Westergasfabriek, 20.00, €35 Classical: Coro Encanto Getting choral in a Latin American and Spanish style. English Reformed Church, 20.15, €12

Singer-songwriter: Ma Rain Launching their new CD Harbour; expect a mellow, gentle evening of femalefronted tunes reminiscent of Lucinda Williams and Martha Wainwright. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 17.00, €7.50 + membership

Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (See Thursday) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €35

Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Back with chief conductor Mariss Jansons and violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky, the orchestra will be performing works by Wagemans, Hindemith, Dutilleux and Stravinsky. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €35

Pop/Rock: The Scene Long-running Amsterdam rock band with poetic singer/composer Thé Lau at the heart of the project. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €17.50 + membership

Pop/Rock: 301 Live! Live bands. OT301, 20.30, €5 Opera: Bintou Were Opera about the Sahel, based on an idea by HRH Prince Claus of the Netherlands (1926-2002), realised and performed by theatre makers from several countries in the Sahel region. See Short List. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €50 Pop/Rock: Binnenband Preparing for the upcoming Buitenband Festival (30 June) with some indoor fun. Tonight’s performers include Kiki (singer-songwriter), Sweet Sweet (electro pop) and Rosa Ana (hiphop). Sugar Factory, 21.00, €7.50 Reggae: Israel Vibration Roots reggae masters, originally formed in 1975. It’s been a number of years since their last disc featuring original recorded material, but that won’t put off any long term fans or those just seeking a sunny reggae vibe. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 21.00, €21.50 + membership Singer-songwriter: Singer-Songwriteravond With Off White, Coen Seegers, Bella & Josha and more. Volta, 21.00, €5 Latin/Jazz: Teresa Cristina & Grupo Semente Sensational samba from the Brazilian star. Bimhuis, 21.00, €16 Pop: The Bird and the Bee Sweet indie pop blended perfectly with electronic intentions and jazzy decorations. Although signed to the Blue Note label, they’re far from being a traditional jazz outfit. Instead, try to imagine how now-defunct electro-pop outfit Luscious Jackson may sound if they’d survived this far into the 21st century. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 21.00, €10 + membership Rock: 65daysofstatic Post rock electronic fusion. Loads of bands have tried to combine rock with electronica but few have succeeded like these English fellows. See Short List. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.15, €9 + membership

Friday 8 June Pop/Rock: Érmitto, Lee Mason, Coco Diverse acts ranging from experimental rock to intimate singersongwriters. Zaal 100, 20.00, €4 Friday Night Wiget-Lenski offer a concert with cello

Opera: Bintou Were (See Thursday) Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €50

Punk: 12 Jaar Sonic Rendezvous Celebrating the birthday of the independent distribution company with some Dutch punk spirit. Guests include The Apers, The Riplets, 69Charger and Undeclinables. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 21.00, €8 + membership Reggae: African Reggae Festival Sets from Jampara & The Batalion (Burundi), Burundi Drummers, Jah Soldiers and General Mathias (Guinea). De Kade, Zaandam, 21.00, €10 Contemporary: Frances-Marie Uitti & Paul Griffiths Extraordinary cellist and experimentalist Uitti is joined by author Griffiths for the Dutch premiere of There is Time Still, about Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Bimhuis, 21.00, €15 World: Tribute to Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed Sadly, the amazing blind Ethiopian singer Mohammed Jimmy Mohammed died in December 2006. Discovered and brought to the Netherlands by The Ex, his performances at OT301 left a huge impression on all who saw him, and it’s here that friends will gather to pay tribute. Ethiopian singer Etenesh Wassie will work with French band Le Tigre des Platanes, members of The Ex will be doing their thing, there’s the premiere of a documentary about the singer by Stephane Jourdain, plus Ethiopian food and high spirits. OT301, 21.00, €8 Rock: Europino-Europina AKA frog rock: all tonight’s bands are French. Tackling an array of punk sounds, from post punk to electro punk, guests include Blutschwester, La Chatte and Kap Bambino. Oh, and there are DJs too (though not necessarily French): Joseophotek, Redknightnight, Groupgriss and Voin. OCCII, 21.30, €5 Roots: T-99 Rootsy rockin’ tunes as the locals launch their new album Vagabonds. Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 21.30, €7.50 Jazz: Juliet and the Torch Ensemble Classy lounge jazz fronted by American composer and singer Juliet Annerino. Sugar Factory, 23.00, €10 Festival: Leo Smit Festival Three days of performances by musicians like soprano Irene Maessen, flautist Eleonore Pameijer, pianist Marcel Worms and a host of young musicians, too. See www.leosmit.nl. Uilenburger Synagogue, various times, €15 (some events free)

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

Saturday 9 June Festival: Future Reggae Ruigoord International twoday reggae party. Bands playing both indoors and outdoors include Radikal Dub Kolektiv, Hippy.com, Getto Flow, Smiley, Back a Wall, Soothsayers, Momo Toure, King Shiloh and The Regulators. See www.ruigoord.nl for schedule. Ruigoord, 12.00, €22.50

before the test explosion of their newly developed atomic bomb. See Short List. Het Muziektheater, 20.00, €20-€100 Classical: Evgeny Kissin Solo piano recital from the Russian virtuoso, including works by Schubert, Beethoven, Brahms and Chopin. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €48/€60

Classical: Radio Kamer Filharmonie & Radio Filharmonisch Orkest A Saturday double bill of performances, featuring the Dutch premiere of Neuwirth’s ...miramondo multiplo... and Mahler’s Seventh Symphony; conducted by Jaap van Zweden. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 14.15, 20.15, €19/€26 Opera: Die Gezeichneten Written by Franz Schreker, one of the most influential Austrian composers of the early 20th century, this opera, penned around the outbreak of WWI, draws on some infamous Wagnerian dramatic influences, but its lush masses of sound also feature impressionist colouring and Italian bel canto. Het Muziektheater, 19.30, €20-€85 Opera: Wagner Dream (See Friday) Westergasfabriek, 20.00, €35 Flamenco: Flamenco Trio Adrian Elissen Authentic flamenco moves and grooves, complete with guest singer José Ligero and dancer Silvia Cabeza. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €12.50 + membership Classical: Maarten Engeltjes Launch concert for the debut CD from the Dutch counter-tenor. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €20 Opera: Bintou Were (See Thursday) Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €50

Art Brut Rock: Art Brut Hipster indie rockers from Southern England. Following the slow-burning success of debut album Bang Bang Rock and Roll, they’re now on the cusp of releasing follow-up album It’s a Bit Complicated in a few weeks. Melkweg, The Max, 20.30, €14 + membership

Rock: Modest Mouse Isaac Brock’s back. See Short List. Melkweg, The Max, 21.00, € 13.00 + membership World: Caramundo Benefit concert for an organisation which supports youth projects in Brazil. Expect a host of diverse Brazilian outfits to be performing live, as well as tunes from the Rednose Distrikt. Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 21.00, €8 Contemporary: Frances-Marie Uitti & Paul Griffiths (See Friday) Bimhuis, 21.00, €15 Ska: The Palookas CD launch party. Also with Yakuzi. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5 Hiphop/Electronica: Wiley Drum & bass and dubstep meets rap with a thick London twist. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 22.00, €13 + membership Pop/Rock: Amsterdam BeatClub 4th Anniversary Beat Bash The clue’s in the title, really. Known for their supreme alternative party talents, the bar is being raised once more with this birthday bash. See Short List. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 23.30, €10 Festival: Leo Smit Festival (See Friday) Uilenburger Synagogue, various times, €15 (some events free)

Sunday 10 June Festival: Future Reggae Ruigoord (See Saturday) Ruigoord, 12.00, €22.50 Singer-songwriter: Mooie Noten 2007 Final of the local contest for singer-songwriters and small ensembles. Aside from the finalists, special guests throughout the afternoon include Marike Jager, Lucky Fonz III and A Balladeer. Vondelpark Openluchttheater, 14.00, free World: Balkankoor Slavuj Slavic folk in a Jordaan hofje. Concordiahofje, 15.00, free DJ: DMC Benelux DJ Championship 2007 With the best turntablists from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg out to dazzle with their fast fingers and cunning ears. Spinners include Kypski, Rockid, Savage and Grazzhoppa. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 15.00, €12.50 + membership Classical: Het Romeo Kwartet Works by Sculthorpe, Prokofiev, Gubaidulina and Debussy. Bethaniënklooster, 15.00, €15 Classical: Plantage Koor, Vocaal Ensemble Amadeus Works by Monteverdi, Haydn, Bach and Mozart. English Reformed Church, 15.15, €12 World: Buena Onda South American-inspired jam session. Blijburg, 17.00, free Contemporary: David Dramm Vocalist, guitarist and manipulator Dramm leads an international cast of musicians through a host of reinterpreted works by the likes of Xenakis, Bacharach, the Sex Pistols and Rodgers & Hammerstein. Aside from the covers chaos, look for the premiere of Dramm’s own work Orange Slice. See Short List. Bimhuis, 20.00, €15 Opera: Doctor Atomic Minimalist opera by American composer John Adams about the latter stages of WWII. Set in the desert of New Mexico, a group of brilliant physicists are hit by a moral crisis in the hours

Patti Smith Rock: Patti Smith A lady that needs no introduction, nor any promotional budget to sell out tours. On the road in support of Twelve, her new album of covers, fans will undoubtedly be hoping for some additional magic tonight with peers like Robyn Hitchcock and REM guitarist Peter Buck also in the building tonight. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, sold out Singer-songwriter: Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 A member of Cambridge punks The Soft Boys in the late ’70s, Hitchcock is something of a songwriting enigma: in that so many people know the name but not the music. Despite being an incredibly prolific writer over the last few decades, he’s never quite risen to the heights of success expected of him. But that isn’t to say he doesn’t enjoy a fanatical following still. And with Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey in tow, the REM fans will be out in force too. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.00, €15 + membership Festival: Leo Smit Festival (See Friday) Uilenburger Synagogue, various times, €15 (some events free)

Monday 11June Classical: Marieke Schneemann & Jacob Lekkerkerker Works by Bach, Martin and Karg-Ellert. Sloterkerk, 15.00, €7.50 Opera: Wagner Dream (See Friday) Westergasfabriek, 20.00, €35 Pop/Rock: The Pigeon Detectives Recent hits at London Calling, these lads from Leeds follow on in a similar vein from the Kaizer Chiefs with their stomping English indie boasting big choruses. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 20.30, €11 + membership Big band: Konrad Koselleck Big Band Jazz pop dance fusion—big band style. Joining Koselleck tonight is German singer—and winner of the Nederlands Jazz Vocalisten Concours—Esra Dalfidan. Sugar Factory, 21.00, €9 Big band: Tetzepi In this programme titled Seed, the exotic ensemble will be performing new work by Jorrit Dijkstra, Corrie van Binsbergen, Hans Leeuw, Fabrizio Puglisi, Marco C de Bruin and John Korsrud. Why the title? Canadian composer John Korsrud planted three little seeds—a couple of musical base elements that he passed on to the composers—and what grew from them is what you’ll hear. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14

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7-13 June 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007 Experimental: DNK-Amsterdam The last batch of electro-acoustic live sets and experiments of the season. Look for performances from Boris Baltschun, Wiek Hijmans, and a collaborative effort by string players Julia Eckhardt, Stevie Wishart and Rhodri Davies. OT301, 21.30, €4

Tuesday 12 June Opera: Wagner Dream (See Friday) Westergasfabriek, 20.00, €35 Big band: Metropole Orchestra Led by John Adams, expect a sparkling set featuring works from his own career, as well as some swing jazz favourites from the ’30s. Also featuring Alarm Will Sound. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €25 Hiphop: The Elements of Hiphop With sets from Stephick, Jiggy Djé, A-Dimatic, Exchange, UrbQ and Fernando. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 20.30, €5 + membership Americana: Laurens Joensen American roots tunes. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5 Electronica: Stableton Live minimal and electro from El Gonzo, Pitto, Tundra and Thomas Lauren. Winston Kingdom, 22.00, €5

Wednesday 13 June Classical: Lunch Concert Sneak preview of the RCO’s main concert tonight. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 12.30, free Opera: Doctor Atomic (See Sunday) Het Muziektheater, 20.00, €85 Opera: Wagner Dream (See Friday) Westergasfabriek, 20.00, €35 Classical: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Getting vocal with the Groot Omroepkoor and singers such as Hanneke de Wit, Tania Kross, Werner Güra and David Wilson. With performances of Kuhlau’s William Shakespeare Overture, Berlioz’s Tristia and Bruckner’s Third Mass. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €37.50€52.50 Contemporary: Alarm Will Sound Music without boundaries, this 20-piece group from New York ignore all the rules. See Short List. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €25 Jazz: Finale Deloitte Jazz Award Final of the renowned jazz competition, with competitors Rembrandt Frerichs, Ben van Gelder and Rik Mol each performing with the Jazz Orchestra of the Concertgebouw. Bimhuis, 20.30, €14 Hiphop: Das EFX, Kool G Rap Old school hiphop. Das EFX emerged in the early ’90s from the shadows of EPMD’s The Hit Squad. The hiphop lessons don’t stop there, however, as NY rapper Kool G Rap, a former member of the Juice Crew, will be bringing some classic hardcore sounds to the party. Then for some modernism there’s the grooves of DJ Scram Jones. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 21.00, €19.50 + membership Reggae: Jam Session Led by Ghettowish. Musicians and vocalists welcome. Volta, 21.00, free

CLUBS Thursday 7 June Rush 3000 A new beginning for Cineac, with DJs Victor Coral, Brian S, Willy Wartaal, Mr Wix and more. Cineac, 22.00-03.00, €10 High on Testosteron With H.O.T.T. (live), David Gilmour, Manny Blitzer!, Oslo Hilton, Fire and OD. Studio 80, 22.30-late, €6 De Dixo Classics and hits from now. Club Meander, 23.00-03.00, €5 Wildvreemd Outlandish electro and live performances. Part of the Best Kept Secret Weekender, tonight’s disco superhero is Todd Terje. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €10 Poptrash Three decades’ worth of rock, electro and hiphop with The Punchout DJs. Tying Tiffany is guest for the night, out to give the audience an electro spanking. Melkweg, The Max, 23.00 -late, €5 PROPAGANDA! A night to head east for the best Balkan beats, Russian disko, mestizo and whatever mood takes the DJ team of Tommi, Pizdabolkin and Gusztav. Melkweg, Oude Zaal, 23.00-late, €5 + membership Noodlanding! Yet another DJ Zaki Dewaele special. Paradiso, 23.30-04.00, €8

Friday 8 June Discocult For one week only, the (disco)cult of Best Kept Secret. There’s a glitterball in everything, apparently, and seeking it out tonight are Malente, Graham B, Rubedo and Martin Duvall. Sugar Factory, 01.0005.00, €10 La-DS With Arter, Ata and Voldaan. Flex Bar, 22.0005.00, €10 Rauw Rock ’n’ roll electro from Mignon, Adept, Larry Tee and Joost van Bellen. 11, 22.30-04.00, €15 Marco V Worldwide Combinations III launch party, also with Dirk Dali and guests. Panama, 23.00-04.00, €15 Superstijl Dancing with democracy. Every 15 minutes, those on the dancefloor get to vote on which musical style to get down to. Hotel Arena, 23.0004.00, €10 4tothefloor A new monthly night with an old school vibe but new school music. Expect real house grooves from DJs Didier Stijn, Edo Salgado and Mark Buning. Akhnaton, 23.00-05.00, €7 Nablijven Featuring D-Rashid, Gregor Salto, Billy The Klit, Tony Cha Cha, Michiel Brink, Granmaster Issy and Lady Bee. The Powerzone, 23.00-05.00, €10 ADHD Sessions Underground electronica from Dave Ellesmere, Piet van Dongen, Carlos Rios vs Oliver Kucera, Dia.chro.na vs Recovery Sounds, Fokko Versloot & Koen Lebens, The Futurist and Onhcet. Studio 80, 23.00-late, €10 Boss With DJs Manga and Johnson. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 23.59-05.00, €12.50

Saturday 9 June Plan West Way out west parties turn wild. All music goes tonight, so long as you can dance to it. Club 8, 22.00-04.00, €6 Sneakerz With DJ sets from Don Diablo, Baggi Begovic, Funkerman and Jip Deluxe. Panama, 22.00-04.00, €15 RH Soundsystem presents... Mark Pritchard (Warp), 154 (Delsin), Cremola Baby and violent beaming by Machine Rietveld Students. Flex Bar, 22.00-05.00, €8.50 Ratio? DJ Melon gets fruity and juicy with a whole night of house tunes. 11, 22.30-04.00, €10 Kelis Hiphop/R&B: Kelis Raunchy, big-beat grooves. See Short List. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 21.00, €20 + membership Rock: The Spinshots Soulful garage punk. Casablanca Circus at Strand West, 21.00, €7.50 Pop/Rock: Club 3voor12 Live radio and TV session featuring sets from De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, The Prodigal Sons and Shameboy. Desmet Studios, 22.00, free, tickets: www.3voor12.nl

Molotov & The DirtyDirtyDirty From electro to hiphop, house to grime. With DJs Terry Toner, Flexican, Victor Coral and more. Hotel Arena, 23.00-04.00, €15 Framebusters With Raymundo vs Frederik Abas and William Shagspeare. Escape, 23.00-05.00, €15 Housexy DJs Richard Murray, Erick E, Roog, Chris Rox and Denniz call in the removal men. The Powerzone, 23.00-05.00, €15 Kindred Spirits Talent, talent and talent. That’s what

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makes for a good night out. So for this hiphop party, the usual Kindred Spirits crew will be on hand, as well as J-Live, Melodia and Nick Matthews. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €15 Passion invites David Sabat Soulful Chicago house from DJs Martijn van Dishoeck and David Sabat. Odeon, 23.00-05.00, €10 We Love 80’s By default, someone has to love the ’80s. Is it you? Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 23.00-05.00, €10 Welcome to the Future Tunes from LoSoul, Le Clic vs Quazar (live), Makcim, Dorine Dorado, Eric de Man, Jobez, Aron Friedman and Brent Roozendaal. Don’t forget your jet pack. Studio 80, 23.00-late, €12.50 Gemengd Zwemmen Two rooms of swimmingly diverse noise. In The Max take a dive into classic house tunes; in the Oude Zaal it’s indie dance, pop and rock faves all the way. Melkweg, 23.59-late, €8 Magister Tariquat Selecting Deep Dubs A dubtacular three-hour set from DJ Tariquat. OT301, 23.59-late, €2

Thursday 7 June

Saturday 9 June Club: Twisted Tunes DJ Raf until 00.30, followed by DJ Nookie. PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free Film: Gay Classics: Circuit A late-night showing of Circuit, Dirk Shafer’s movie about crime on the West Hollywood party scene. Pathé De Munt, 23.30, €9

Sunday 10 June

WickedJazzSounds Jazz, hiphop, broken beats, nujazz, funk and Afro sounds, as classic vinyl collides with live musicians. Sugar Factory, 01.00-05.00, €8.50

Happy hour: 2-for-1 Cheap drinks + sunshine + boys = chaos dans la Rue des Pédés. April, 18.00-20.00

Gilles Peterson With the Best Kept Secret Weekender drawing to a close, English beat junkie Peterson will be on hand to deliver some wicked jazz sounds, along with Nick Matthews. Sugar Factory, 21.00-01.00, €15

Social: Sing-along night Irene Hemelaar leads Les girls in a rousing chorus. Saarein, 18.00-21.00, free Club: Sweet Sin Sunday Complete prosecco brunch for €12.95. PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free

Tuesday 12 June Monday 11June Cheeky Monday A jungle and drum & bass night featuring players from the local and international scenes. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €6

Music/Theatre: Zonder Moeite Niets A musical comedy from the students of the Frank Sanders’ Akademie voor Musicaltheater. In Dutch. M-Lab, (Fri, Sat 20.15), €12.50

GAY& LESBIAN Happy hour: After Shopping Cocktail Sale Cocktails €5: everything must go! PRIK, 19.00-22.00,

Film: Sweet Sin Sunday Tonight’s movie is Muriel’s Wedding, PJ Hogans classic tale of life on Porpoise Spit. PRIK, 19.00, free

Wednesday 13 June

Games night: Gay Prize Bridge The ultimate antidote to the scene. De Looier, 19.30-23.00, €5

Michael Jackson Tribute Night Lock up the children. Get your favourite glove out of the closet. Winston Kingdom, 21.00-03.00, €5

Club: F*cking POP Queers Manga, Kmart, Claudette and De Draaivriendinnen work the dancefloor. Studio 80, 22.00-05.00, free before 00.00, €5 after

7-13 June 2007

The Nature of Hunting, see Opening

ØYSTEIN THORVALDSEN

STAGE Opening Music/Theatre: A Disappearing Number British director Simon McBurney’s Dutch debut is a take on a heartbreaking story of two mathematical geniuses: Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor brahman from South India, and GH Hardy of Cambridge University. With music by British-Indian composer Nitin Sawhney. In English. Stadsschouwburg, (Thur-Sat 20.15), €12€25 Comedy: Monty Python ... and now for something completely different! A theatre version of some of the best sketches of the Flying Circus, courageously translated into Dutch. Marvel at De Olympische Spelen van de incontinentie, sing along to Het Houthakkerliedje and ponder the dood-ness of the papegaai. In Dutch. De Kleine Komedie, (Thur-Sat, Tues, Wed 20.15), €13.50-€17.50

Performance: Zimbrabim’s Sensual Night Circus An old-style nightclub vibe with jazz, blues and gypsy tunes, extravagant performances, illusions and a sensual sfeer. Noma-Dome, (Fri, Sat 21.00), €10 Performance: The Nature of Hunting In a mixed performance containing elements of mime, dance and theatre, Norwegian/German duo Blood for Roses investigate the human hunting instincts as they clash with modern society. Are we all brutes? In Dutch. Melkweg Theater, (Fri-Sun 20.30), €8 Festival: Far Fetched Festival A two-day improv festival featuring performances by Canadian freestylers Crumbs and Colombian acrobats La Gata. Apart from the performances, there’ll also be workshops and parties. See www.farfetchedfestival.nl. Polanentheater, (Sat, Sun 20.00), €11 Music/Theatre: Eleven End project by third-year students of the Frank Sanders’ Akademie voor Musicaltheater, Eleven is about a film director in a work and life crisis. He goes to a place by the sea in hope of recovery and inspiration, but instead the sun just drives him nuts. In Dutch. De Kleine Komedie, (Sun 20.15), €9-€13 Theatre: Babel A new text by Austrian Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, staged by Wiener Burgtheater and directed by Nicolas Stemann. Babel uses Abu Ghraib and the Fallujah riots as starting points for a cultural and anthropological excursion into the dark human mind, with scenery that constantly changes—from puppet theatre to living room to night club to prison, and back again. In German with Dutch and English subtitles. Stadsschouwburg, (Sun, Mon 20.15), €12€35

Performance: Sharing the Same Shade A musical and theatrical multidisciplinary adventure from De Veenfabriek. In English and Dutch. Westergasfabriek, (Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 21.00), €20

Theatre: Fama A theatre piece by Klangforum Wien for large ensemble, eight voices, an actress and an acoustic installation. In French and German. Westergasfabriek, (Tues, Wed 20.00, Wed also 22.00), €25

Dance: Dance Works Rotterdam Performing excerpts from Human Figures. Also a performance from the young dancers of In de Voorhoede. Vondelpark Openluchttheater, (Fri 20.30), free

Theatre: It is Never the Last Supper Young group Teatro de Chile experiment with the concept of the last supper. In English. Universiteitstheater, UvA, (Wed 20.00), free

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7-13 June 2007 Music/Theatre: Onzichtbare Steden Inspired by Italo Calvino’s account of Marco Polo’s travels, this is a stampede through different cities, each of which is represented by musical means. Travelling from a city of ten ghetto blasters to one of funfair cacophony, the performance is a mixture of dialogue, jam session and concert. In Dutch. Frascati, (Wed 21.00), €12

Ongoing Dance: Nederlands Dans Theater I Dancing Sooner or Later, a new work by choreographers Paul Lightfoot and Sol León based on Shoot the Moon. Westergasfabriek, (Thur 20.30), €42 Performance: 13 Rijen Discordia and ’t Barre Land will occupy Frascati for three weeks to present a socalled ‘short notice programme’ consisting of live music, speeches, artists, theatre exercises, guest performances and excerpts of old, as well as new repertoire, ranging from Schiller to Beckett and from Voltaire to Marx Brothers. In Dutch. Frascati, (Thur, Fri, Tues, Wed 21.00), €11 Theatre: Laatste Nachtmerrie The first part of this play deals with the lies of politicians, based on the controversial documentary The Power of Nightmares. Director Laura von Dolron has worked the conspiracy-theory-inspired original material into a parody of George W. Bush and his enemies. Bush himself, meanwhile, has had enough of being parodied and turns up in the second half of the play to complain. And guess who else will have a say. Yes, it’s Bin Laden. Nice to know they both speak Dutch. In Dutch. Frascati, (Thur-Sat 20.00), €12 Theatre: Hamlet Hamlet goes multimedia thanks to The Wooster Group. See article p. 6. In English. Theater Bellevue, (Thur-Sat 20.00), €12-€35 Theatre: HRMNNH! (Kung Fu Hossel) Made in da Shade’s bizarre interactive kung-fu theatrical epic, inspired by the themes, aesthetics and spirituality of all those famous low-budget flicks from the Far East. In Dutch. See Short List. Frascati, (Thur-Sat 21.00), €14 Music/Theatre: Let’s Do It! Set to the music and lyrics of Cole Porter, Let’s Do It! is all about different aspects of one of mankind’s favourite topics: love. In English. Odeon, (Sat, Sun, Wed 19.30), €30

ART Opening Iran. Standstill or Awakening Focused particularly on young women, this photographic series by Ulla Kimmig provides an insight into modern-day Iran and its many facets, including religious beliefs, cultural groups and contemporary living. Melkweg Galerie (Wed-Sun 13.00-20.00), opens Thursday, until 1 July Joost Bakker: Between a Thought Joost Bakker is first and foremost a maker of drawings. On paper, his ideas, fascinations, and observations quickly take form. Often they remain as sketches or drawings, but more often they ask to be ‘built’. Recently Bakker has been experimenting with so-called ‘light-animateddrawings’, a link between old and newer techniques. An animation is projected onto a drawing and they merge into one composition on the border between film and drawing. agentur: in transit (Thur 19.0022.00, Fri-Sun 16.00-19.00), opens Thursday, closing Sunday Maskerdansers in Malawi A series of portraits by Canadian photographer Douglas Curran, who immersed himself in the culture of the Chewa peoples of Malawi, eventually gaining entry to the brotherhood that guards the Nyau—their ancestral spirit entities. Over the period, he captured the masks, costumes and rituals of the people on film. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), opens Thursday, until 23 July The Colour of the Maghreb: Morocco Old culture meets contemporary art in this group exhibition celebrating artists of Morocco. Contributors include Youssouf Elalamy, Abbtoy, Dounia El Yassem and Shishunk. De Levante (Wed-Sun 13.00-17.30), opens Thursday, until 22 July Water=Life An installation on the Amstel by Marlijn Franken made from West-African drink water bags. Indoors, a photo exhibition details the history of the bags. Buitenplaats Wester-Amstel (Thur-Sun 12.0016.30), Amstelveen, opens Thursday, until 24 June Carmilla Enter the realm of the vampire and feast on the mythology, superstitions, lifestyle... blood. Featur-

Maskerdansers in Malawi, see Opening ing contemporary paintings, photography and other presentations by Erica Stanga, Emilio Cejalvo, Miss Magmin, Ketra, Hyde, Sonia Arata, Christian Zanotto and Damian Boyall. Red Stamp Art Gallery (Tues-Sat 13.00-18.00), opens Friday, until 7 July Landshaft Artworks by Ursula Engel and Roel Backaert. Plan B (Sat, Sun 13.00-17.00), opens Friday, until 17 June Air Polluter An interactive smell exhibition which allows the visitor to decide how much they wish to pollute the air around them—both with nice smells and nasty. De Brakke Grond (Mon 13.00-18.00, Tues-Fri 10.00-20.30, Sat 13.00-20.30, Sun 13.00-17.00), opens Saturday, until 15 July

Thomas Elshuis, Alex Jacobs New works by both artists. Gist (Wed-Sat 13.00-17.30), opens Saturday, until 14 July Aan de Amsterdamse Grachten Marking the opening of the Museum of Bags and Purses in its new idyllic location, an overview of exhibitions from the past ten years is featured alongside the permanent collections of bags and purses. See article p.xx.Tassenmuseum Hendrikje (Daily 10.00-17.00), opens Sunday, until 9 September Toon den Heijer New works by the Dutch painter. Feel Gallery (Thur, Fri 12.00-19.00, Sat 11.00-19.00, Sun 12.00-18.00), opens Sunday, until 1 July

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Museums Enrico David: Chicken Man Gong A Docking Station installation by London-based artist Enrico David, which is a two-part work consisting of a gong and a display case. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.0018.00), closing Sunday De Engelse Kerk op het Begijnhof: 1607-2007 Exhibition marking the 400th anniversary of the English Reformed Church. Amsterdams Historisch Museum (Mon-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 17 June Raimond Wouda: School The photographs in this exhibition were taken at secondary schools in the Netherlands. Yet remarkable is Wouda’s conscious choice to avoid capturing images from classes, instead focusing on places where the pupils relax between lessons. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 17 June Testimony One of the most influential—and published—photojournalists, Nachtwey has spent more than 20 years visiting crisis areas like Rwanda, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Northern Ireland. This exhibition reflects his sense of responsibility to give a voice to victims. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 20 June Awoiska van der Molen: Maintained Ground Van der Molen photographs in and around cities that lack liveliness, to the point of leaving one feeling uncomfortable. These works show an awkward world that has a strange atmosphere, carrying a theatrical tension. Foam (Sat-Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 20 June In dienst van de stad A look at the architecture and urban design of Amsterdam, Den Haag and Rotterdam, in particular examining how the three cities have come up with such varying solutions and developments. Zuiderkerk (Mon-Fri 09.00-16.00, Sat 12.00-16.00), until 22 June Van Gogh’s Friends This print room exhibition features drawings by artists from Van Gogh’s circle of friends. These include painters who later acquired fame, including Paul Gauguin and Henri ToulouseLautrec, but also others who unjustly remained lesser known, such as Hans Olaf Heyerdahl and Meijer de Haan. Van Gogh Museum (Mon-Thur, Sat, Sun 10.0018.00, Fri 10.00-22.00), until 8 July

7-13 June 2007 Itzkovitch and Martie van der Loo. Bijbels Museum (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 26 August Le Corbusier He’s by far the most famous and according to many the most important architect and urban designer of the 20th century, but he was also a painter, sculptor, photographer and textile designer. In this first major retrospective since 1987, more than 450 original drawings, models, paintings, tapestries, films, photographs, sculptures, items of furniture and interiors will be exhibited together to demonstrate the strength and influence of Le Corbusier. Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.0017.00), Rotterdam, until 2 September Persia The St Petersburg Hermitage lends some of its dazzling collection of Persian art to Amsterdam. This exhibition includes antiquities of the Islamic period all through the end of the Qajar dynasty in 1925. Hermitage Amsterdam (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 16 September Amsterdam in de wereld—De wereld in Amsterdam A collection of immensely rare treasures owned by the Universiteit van Amsterdam, including handwritten scriptures, printed books, pictures and objects. UvA: Special Collections Library (Mon-Fri 09.30-17.00), until 16 September The Present—The Monique Zajfen Collection New contemporary artworks that have been added to The Monique Zajfen Collection since 2006. Focusing on the human figure and spanning a range of disciplines, the works in this exhibition explore various aspects of the human condition. Artists include Marlene Dumas, Thomas Schütte, Neo Rauch, Wilhelm Sasnal, Mike Kelley, Pawel Althamer, Paul Graham, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Lisa Yuskavage and George Condo. See Short List. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 16 September Oud Zeer Drawings and animations by Joep Bertrams, best known for his political commentaries in Het Parool. Persmuseum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), until 23 September To See or Not to See Hortus celebrates the 300th birthday of Carl Linnaeus, the most famous botanist ever, who wrote his major works in Amsterdam. Hortus Botanicus (Mon-Fri 09.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 10.00-17.00), until 30 September

Pantelis Makkas: Daywatch/Nightwatch Two recent video installations: Blinds and Man About Crowd. Recently a resident at De Ateliers, the artist makes use of multiple screens and digital manipulations to disorient the viewer. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), until 8 July Summer in the Church While the winter programmes offer magnificent glances into distant cultures and insights into world religions, the Nieuwe Kerk offers up a summery alternative: a programme paying tribute to the church as a special monument in its own right, with many local treasures to admire. Nieuwe Kerk (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 16 July Genesis An examination of the similarities between art and science. While the two fields may have entirely different objectives, the results of their work on information look remarkably alike. Participating artists and scientists include Ad Dekkers, Mark Dion, Edo Dooijes, Erwin Driessens & Maria Verstappen, Charles & Ray Eames, Ed Emschwiller and George Gessert, amongst others. Centraal Museum (Tues-Thur, Sat, Sun 12.0017.00, Fri 12.00-21.00), Utrecht, until 12 August Max Beckmann in Amsterdam, 1937-1947 An extensive retrospective of the work produced by the artist during his years in Amsterdam. One of the most distinguished German artists of the 20th century, Beckmann fled to the city in 1937 after the Nazis had labelled his paintings Entartete Kunst. His works bear witness to his interest in the world of cabaret, Dutch landscape and life in Amsterdam, and works featured here include the four impressive triptychs ‘Carnival’, ‘Acrobats’, ‘The Actors’ and ‘Perseus’. Van Gogh Museum (Sat-Thur 10.00-18.00, Fri 10.00-22.00), until 19 August Jonathan Meese: Jonathan Rockford (Don’t Call Back Please) One of German art’s rising stars, Meese will install a contemporary wunderkammer on the first floor of De Appel, featuring paintings, murals, drawings, assemblages, objects, collages, photos, pictures from magazines, posters and painted texts on the walls. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 19 August Dutch Eyes The relocated photography museum reopens with a broad overview of Dutch photography. Nederlands Fotomuseum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, until 26 August The Strength of Hair Two installations by contemporary visual artists looking at the important symbolic function of hair. Artists include Monica Blok, Hadas

Yoshitomo Nara Liberation Music: Songs After Five Years of Occupation A musical memorial to the emotional release that followed the end of the occupation in 1945. Verzetsmuseum (Tues-Fri 10.00-17.00, Sat-Mon 12.0017.00), until 30 September Yoshitomo Nara The first ever solo show to be held in any European museum by Yoshitomo Nara, one of today’s leading Japanese artists. As a representative of the Japanese pop art of the ’90s, he gained worldwide fame with seductive figurative paintings, drawings and sculptures, all executed in a deliberately elementary style. The emphasis in this collection will be on recent work, most of it produced especially for the occasion. GEM (Tues-Sun 12.00-18.00), Den Haag, until 7 October Scenes and Traces A lengthy exhibition focussing on three parts of the Stedelijk Museum collection: design, video and photography. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.00-18.00), until 25 November Grande Sertao A blend of photography Brazilian culture, literature and poetry, after Mark Nozeman and Marcelo Greco made a photographic journey through the Sertão—the provinces of Minas Gerais and Bahia in Brazil. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 27 January 2008

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

Galleries Student en de Stad Three score of photo portraits showing students and student life in Amsterdam. Maagdenhuis MidEvil Getting gothic, featuring paintings by Jan Marbus, Piet Linnebank and Taco Eisma, sculptures by Rohald van de Sande, and dresses by Lucinda van de Sande. The Gallery Donkersloot (Daily 12.00-20.00) Joyce van Dongen A solo exhibition featuring paintings of new worlds inspired by the bizarre and unique patterns that can be found in nature. Galerie Bart (Thur, Fri 11.00-18.00, Sat 12.00-17.00), closing Saturday National Pride A group exhibition dealing with the question of how factors of national identity and cultural interaction influence contemporary arts. Arti et Amicitiae (Tues-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday Noodkreet: Hoe leuk moeten we het maken?! Outdoor photography exhibition in aid of Artsen zonder Grenzen. Stopera (Daily), closing Sunday

from Sung Hwan Kim, Maartje Korstanje, Alon Levin, Pablo Pijnappel and Maaike Schoorel. The only catch is, for the first time ever, the remaining finalists are being shown at Witte de With in Rotterdam, so some travelling is needed to catch it all. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 1 July Uit en Thuis Diverse works by award-winning sculptor Wendela Gevers Deynoot, who creates sculptures of all shapes and sizes from materials such as wood, stone, metal, plastic and paper, as well as some more unusual sources. Galerie de Rietlanden (Sat, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 2 July Hot and New Featuring works by Maartje Korstanje (sculptures), Yvonne Lacet (photography), Haukur Oskarsson (photography), Lotte Geeven (drawings), Jeroen Glas (sculptures) and Danielle van Vree (video installations). Mart House (Thur-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 7 July Abner Preis Selected artworks by Preis, AKA Eat Shit. Wolf & Pack (Sun, Mon 13.00-19.00, Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat 12.00-19.00, Thur 12.00-21.00), until 13 July

Amanda Besl In this exhibition entitled I Want to be the Girl With the Most Cake, Besl creates oil paintings that capture both the documentary quality of photography and the language of fashion photography. Artspace Witzenhausen (Thur-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 16 June

Pom op het Menu A peek into the Suriname kitchen and the history of pom. It may spark memories or introduce you to new foodstuffs. Or it may just make you hungry. But hopefully, along with the images, there’ll be a chance to get involved and cook your own. Imagine IC (Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat 11.00-17.00, Thur 11.00-21.00), until 15 July

Takako Hamano: Satchan is Swinging in a Bamboo Forest New drawings from the Japanese artist, assembled as a large constellation of mural drawings, video, music and installations. Yoshiko Matsumoto Gallery (Wed-Sat 13.30-18.30), until 16 June

Rah Crawford: A Sassy Nation ‘Hip folk’ is the theme which inspires this latest batch of paintings from the American artist. Studio Apart (Wed 10.00-18.00, Thur 10.00-21.00, Fri 10.00-18.00, Sat 12.00-17.00), until 15 July

Forever England Photographs by London-based artist Liam Bailey of Bekonscot, the world’s oldest model village. Gallery Vassie (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 16 June

Het Licht van Tunesië Multimedia installation by Maarten Rens and Anita Mizrahi. De Levante (WedSun 13.00-17.30), until 22 July

Stanley Donwood & Dr Tchock: Department of Reclusive Paranoia Best known for his work with Radiohead—Donwood has been providing artwork for the band since the release of My Iron Lung in 1994— this exhibition features original paintings and prints he has produced over the years. V!P’s International Art Galleries (Tues-Sun 12.00-18.00), Rotterdam, until 17 June Vrije Ruimten Zuidas The national and international artists who recently took up residency in the Zuidas to live and work are reconvening to show their work and present their conclusions. Platform 21 (Wed-Sun 12.00-19.00), until 17 June Kleur Colourful textile explosions from the duo Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings. Galerie Binnen (WedSat 12.00-18.00), until 23 June 50 Jaar Espace II Part two of the 50th anniversary celebrations, featuring selected works from artists who’ve been exhibited there. Galerie Espace (WedSat 13.00-18.00), until 23 June 5 P.O. BOX: 5 Person Osmosis Box Five artists (Isabel Cordeiro, Inge van der Ven, Nanna Lahn, Menso Groeneveld and Aquil Copier) share a production space. So called ‘artworks’, are scattered around it, randomly placed where space allows for storage. Its these informal borders that define a sort of communication network between the five artists and their individual processes. An unconscious osmosis takes place between the five and its potential is explored in this exhibition. W139/Basement (Thur-Sun 13.0018.00), until 24 June Rob Voerman: Neighbours A solo exhibition featuring installations, sculptures and graphic works. Upstream Gallery (Wed-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 30 June

Spirit of the Wild Following on from the successful Earth From Above outdoor exhibitions by Yann ArthusBertrand, huge prints by South African photographer Steve Bloom are going public in Amsterdam, showing dazzling shots of the planet’s wildlife. Westermarkt (Daily), until 24 July Zomerexpositie In for the summer, 14 artists present their newest artworks. GO Gallery (Wed-Sat 12.0018.00, Sun 13.00-17.00), until 5 August Cristóbal Hara: An Imaginary Spaniard An exploration of the perceived cultural identity of Spain, by native photographer Hara. Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 26 August Han Singels: Polder Holland Following in the footsteps of Paulus Potter, Aelbert Cuyp, Gerard Bilders and Willem Roelofs, Indonesian photography Han Singels has trekked for years through the polders of North Holland, the riverbanks of Gelderland and the pastures of Utrecht. All in order to photograph cows in these magnificent landscapes. Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 26 August

EVENTS Thursday 7 June Literature: Una questione di formalità With Italian author Fabio Testini. Libreria Bonardi, 17.30, free

Armando Andrade Tudela Film, installation and drawings. Annet Gelink Gallery (Tues-Fri 10.00-18.00, Sat 13.00-18.00), until 30 June Martha Colburn New films from the self-taught American film-maker. Galerie Diana Stigter (Wed-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 30 June Malerie Marder: Nine A solo exhibition of new photographs by Los Angeles-based artist Malerie Marder. Comprised of nine large-scale photographs, it presents a narrative of pregnancy, examining the inherent physicality, sensuality and psychology of the subject matter. Galerie Gabriel Rolt (Wed-Sat 12.0018.00), until 30 June

Miranda July, see Thursday Lecture: Miranda July: No One Belongs Here More Than You Film-maker, performance artist and author talks about her new collection of short stories. In English. See Short List. Hotel Arena, 20.00, €15

Paradiso in Fantasio! Classic posters for Paradiso gigs in the ’70s and ’80s by London-born artist Martin Kaye (1932-1989). Nationaal Pop Instituut, Fantasio zaal (Mon-Fri 10.00-17.00), until 1 July

Film: Club Voyeur An evening with Fien Troch and Nanouk Leopold and the film Een ander zijn geluk. In Dutch. De Brakke Grond, 20.30, €5

Prix de Rome.nl 2007 Awarded annually to a visual artist or architect under the age of 35, the Prix de Rome always carries prestige. The actual battle began last September, but now with the entrants whittled down to a mere ten, you can check out the entries

Friday 8 June Multidisciplinary: INFOWARROOM This season the INFOWARROOM has tried to introduce its audience to the practice of critically looking at the

Amsterdam Weekly

20 most obvious phenomenon of our time: the (mainly visual) mass media. Now the time has come to declare an end to the era of mass media, and therefore the INFOWARROOM will leave the building with a two-day long festival, during which acknowledged theorists, philosophers, journalists, artists and media makers will shed their light on the function and position of mass media in our society. See www.infowarroom.org. De Balie, 16.00, free Symposium: Fast Forward Are you aware of the world around you? Find out in this multidisciplinary event inspired by a visual approach. Touching on topics like global health, genocide and behaviour in society, the programme features several lectures, a fashion show, a photo exhibition and debates. Odeon, 18.00, free Party: Camping Zeeburg Feest Celebrating ten years of tents in the city, with a three-day party especially for locals. Across the weekend look out for music, sports, performances, dining and dancing. Camping Zeeburg, various times, reserve at www.campingzeeburg.nl/feest

Saturday 9 June Art/Walk: Atelierroute Boven ’t IJ Works by more than 60 artists on display in Amsterdam-Noord. Central location is Bredero College, Meeuwenlaan 132. See www.noorderijkunst.nl for route. Various locations, 12.00-20.00, free Discussion: Space For Peace Human rights issues in Nepal and Mexico. Politicians and experts will be on hand to discuss the current circumstances in both nations, as well as an exhibition, info desks and music from a Nepalese culture group. Amnesty International, 13.30-17.30, free Multidisciplinary: INFOWARROOM (See Friday) De Balie, 16.00, free, closing party after 23.00 is €10 Dining: De Aandacht Getting organic on the plein. With a menu devised by four top chefs—Cas Spijkers, Ben van Beurten, Caspar Bürgi and Eric van Veluwen—you can dine in style with a clean organic conscience. See www.proefdeaandacht.nl. Museumplein, 18.30, €50 Festival: Realness Festival A documentary and media festival for young film makers and media consumers, who want to become active media citizens. For anyone between the ages of 12 and 25, this is the place to explore your talents, take part in workshops and hone your skills. Or you can just admire the films and check out some bands for fun. Cultuurpand Nowhere, various times, €5 Party: Camping Zeeburg Feest (See Friday) Camping Zeeburg, various times, reserve at www.campingzeeburg.nl/feest

Sunday 10 June

Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521 Persmuseum Zeeburgerkade 10, 692 8810

Uilenburger Synagogue Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 91, 427 8347

Plan B2 Herengracht 32

Under the Grand Chapiteau Next to ArenA, 621 1288

Platform 21 Prinses Irenestraat 19, 344 9449 Polanentheater Polanenstraat 174, 682 1311

Universiteitstheater, UvA Nieuwe Doelenstraat 16-18, 525 2997

Akhnaton Nieuwezijds Kolk 25, 624 3396

The Powerzone Spaklerweg, 681 8866

Upstream Gallery Kromme Waal 11, 428 4284

Allard Pierson Museum Oude Turfmarkt 127, 525 2556

PRIK Spuistraat 109, 06 4544 2321

Amnesty International Keizersgracht 177

Red Stamp Art Gallery Rusland 22, 420 8684

UvA: Special Collections Library Oude Turfmarkt 129, 525 2141

Annet Gelink Gallery Laurierstraat 187-189, 330 2066

Rembrandthuis Jodenbreestraat 4, 520 0400

April Reguliersdwarsstraat 37, 625 9572

Ruigoord Ruigoord 15, 497 5702

ArtOlive Polonceaukade 17, 675 8504

Saarein Elandsstraat 119, 623 4901

Artspace Witzenhausen Hazenstraat 60, 644 9898

Sloterkerk Osdorperweg 28

De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151

Stadsschouwburg Leidseplein 26, 624 2311

Beeldend Gesproken Borgerstraat 102, 612 1847 Bethaniënklooster Barndesteeg 6, 625 0078

Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam Rozenstraat 59, 422 0471

Bimhuis Piet Heinkade 3, 788 2150

Stopera Waterlooplein 22, 551 8117

Westergasfabriek Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 586 0710

Blijburg Bert Haanstrakade 2004, 416 0330

Studio 80 Rembrandtplein 70, 521 8333

Winston Kingdom Warmoesstraat 129, 623 1380

De Brakke Grond Nes 45, 626 6866

Studio Apart Prinsengracht 715, 422 2748

Wolf & Pack 232 Spuistraat, 427 0786

Buitenplaats Wester-Amstel Amsteldijk-Noord 55, Amstelveen

Sugar Factory Lijnbaansgracht 238, 627 0008 Tassenmuseum Hendrikje Herengracht 573, 524 6452

Yoshiko Matsumoto Gallery Weteringschans 37, 06 1437 0995

Buurcentrum de Boomsspijker Rechtboomsloot 52, 626 4002

Theater Bellevue Leidsekade 90, 530 5301

Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100, 688 0127

Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200

Zuiderkerk Zuiderkerkhof 72, 552 7987

ADDRESSES 11 Oosterdokskade 3-5, 625 5999 agentur: in transit De Bonte Zwaan, Stavangerweg 890, 06 1438 2096

Café Oranje-Nassau Nassaukade 151, 020 618 3497 Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina Veemkade 576, 419 3368 Café Sappho Vijzelstraat 103, 423 1509 Camping Zeeburg Zuider IJdijk 20, 694 4430 Casablanca Circus at Strand West Centraal Museum Nicolaaskerkhof, Utrecht, 030 236 2362 Cineac Reguliersbreestraat 31-33 Club 8 Admiraal de Ruyterweg 56B, 685 1703 Club Meander Voetboogstraat 3, 625 8430 Concertgebouw Concertgebouwplein 2-6, 671 8345 Concordiahofje Westerstraat 221-289 Consortium Veemkade 570, 06 2611 8950 Cultuurpand Nowhere Madurastraat 90, 462 3510 DanceStreet 1e Rozendwarsstraat 10, 489 7676 De Looier Looiersgracht 40, 638 1412 Desmet Studios Plantage Middenlaan 4A, 521 7100 English Reformed Church Begijnhof 48, 624 9665 Escape Rembrandtplein 11, 622 1111 Feel Gallery Frans Halsstraat 40 Felix Meritis Keizersgracht 324, 626 2321 Flex Bar Pazzanistraat 1, 486 2123 Foam Keizersgracht 609, 551 6546 Frascati Nes 63, 626 6866 Galerie Bart Bloemgracht 2, 320 6208 Galerie Binnen Keizersgracht 82, 625 9603 Galerie de Rietlanden Rietlandpark 193, 419 4705 Galerie Diana Stigter Hazenstraat 17, 624 2361 Galerie Espace Keizersgracht 548, 624 0802 The Gallery Donkersloot Leidsegracht 76, 572 2722 Gallery Vassie 1e Tuindwarsstraat 16, 489 4042 GEM Stadhouderslaan 43, Den Haag, 070 338 1133

Art/Walk: Atelierroute Boven ’t IJ (See Saturday) Various locations, 12.00-18.00, free

Gist Veemkade 364

Multidisciplinary: Slootjesfestival Cultural activities for young and old. Along with workshops, choirs and ensembles will be performing throughout the afternoon. Buurcentrum de Boomsspijker, 13.0017.00, free

Hermitage Amsterdam Nieuwe Herengracht 14, 530 8751

Festival: Realness Festival (See Saturday) Cultuurpand Nowhere, various times, €5 Party: Camping Zeeburg Feest (See Friday) Camping Zeeburg, various times, reserve at www.campingzeeburg.nl/feest

Monday 11June Talk: Doctor Atomic Revisited Composer John Adams and librettist Peter Sellars discuss about their minimalist opera, showing this week at Muziektheater. In English. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €15

GO Gallery Prinsengracht 64, 422 9580 Hortus Botanicus Plantage Middenlaan 2A, 625 9021 Hotel Arena ’s-Gravesandestraat 51, 850 2400 Imagine IC Bijlmerplein 1006-1008, 489 4866 De Kade Zuiddijk 9-11, Zaandam, 617 6972 De Kleine Komedie Amstel 56-58, 624 0534 Lexion Avenue Overtoom 65, Westzaan, 0900-BelLexion Libreria Bonardi Entrepotdok 26 M-Lab Aambeeldstraat 10E Maagdenhuis Spui 21 Maloe Melo Lijnbaansgracht 163, 420 4592 Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 531 8181 Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409, 531 8181 Melkweg Theater LIjnbaansgracht 234A, 531 8181 Melkweg, The Max Lijnbaansgracht 234a, 531 8181 Muziekgebouw Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2010 Het Muziektheater Amstel 3, 625 5455

Tuesday 12 June

Nationaal Pop Instituut, Fantasio zaal Prins Hendrikkade 142, 428 4288

Literature: Willem Jan Otten: Een zwaluw vol zaagsel With Willem Jan Otten, Bas Belleman, Kester Freriks, Ester Naomi Perquin, Chiara Tissen and Kees Verheul, and music from Tom America. De Balie, 20.00, €9

Nederlands Architectuurinstituut Museumpark 25, Rotterdam, 010 440 1200 Nederlands Fotomuseum Wilhelminakade 332, Rotterdam, 010 213 2011 Nieuwe Kerk entrance on the Dam, 638 6909 Noma-Dome Danzigerbocht 73

Wednesday 13 June Literature: Evening of the English and Irish Literature Kristien Hemmerechts in talk with authors Esther Freud, Edna O’Brien and Rachel Cusk. In English. Felix Meritis, 20.15, €10

7-13 June 2007

OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 671 7778 Odeon Singel 460, 624 9711 Oranjekerk 2e Van der Helststraat 3, 489 7048 OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913 Panama Oostelijke Handelskade 4, 311 8680

V!P's International Art Galleries Van Vollenhovenstraat 15, Rotterdam, 010 225 1120 Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200 Verzetsmuseum Plantage Kerklaan 61, 620 2535 Volta Houtmankade 334-336, 628 6429 Vondelpark Openluchttheater, 673 1499 W139/Basement Oosterdokskade 5, 06 2427 6657

7-13 June 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

Ring bells for St Martin St Martin Prinsengracht 358, 6202757 Open: Wed-Sun 12.00-24.00 Cash Have you, Dear Readers, stuck a dire warning on your letterbox, to ward off the people that shove through reams and reams of paper? And—ha ha, as if—do they respect your wishes? In my dreams, I yearn for some technological device that can scan a postperson at 50 paces, divine their intentions and, if those intentions are amiss, drive off the culprit with laser pulses. You see, my mailbox bulges with pizza and shoarma and Chin-Ind-Suri-sushi glossies, all ripe for ignoring. But sometimes, just sometimes, a letterbox drop brings to light an interesting restaurant that piques my butterfly brain’s attention. St Martin food and wine, for example, who popped a missive in my mail-hole. Perhaps I gave it a second glance because it had the name of the godly Roman who cut his cloak in two to give to a wretched beggar. Saint Martin was also the name of my first gulag—oops, sorry—boarding school. We had a Latin motto scrolled above the broken glass topped gates. ‘We do not shirk work,’ it said, and thus my lifelong indolence was born. Half amused and fully hungry, I went forth to feed. The venue is a former pancake parlour that went flat, and was left standing empty for many years. Restaurateur Martin Mansoor did valiant work rebuilding the space, turning it into a charming spot that gives off light and cosiness.

THE UNDERCOVER GLUTTON My creamy Vichyssoise was a delightful glutton’s epiphany, one of those moments when everything stands still, tranced out by a chef’s talent. A young woman showed me to my table. I was seated next to a group of well-dressed people, draped in expensive gold, who comically spoilt the effect by not really knowing how to eat

with a knife and fork. On the Friday night I went, a guest chef—a friend of Martin’s, Michel Salah—had created the menu: three courses, each offering three

choices. I observed the owner sitting at a table eating from a large soup bowl. Ah, yes. Vichyssoise for me, please. Creamy leeks and potatoes, with a pinch of saffron to deepen the colour; snippets of fresh oregano, and a twist of black pepper. This was epicurean stuff. Each time I gently dipped the spoon and slid it into my mouth, I wished the moment would never end. It was a delightful glutton’s epiphany, when everything stands still, tranced out by a chef’s talent. Believe me, I wanted more! (I decided to ignore the astonished reactions to my Oliver Twist impersonation.) My main course was a grilled hunk of tuna, covered with sweet butter, capers and samphire—that salty, crunchy succulent. Next to that was a green medley of peas, beans and asparagus, a big wedge of potato quiche—great—and a bowl of salad. People who eat this food item-by-item miss out on the clever chef’s intentions: the textures and flavours combine to create a harmonic experience. Each forkful becomes a one-off special. I sat back, beaming like a Buddha who’s won the lottery, ready for a piece of the sweet-sour berry pie, garnished with black grapes as big as eyeballs, strawberries and cream. The coffee I had to accompany the cake was excellent, and the chocolate-covered coffee bean that came with it was a nice touch. There are also daily specials that change according to what’s available. They cost €17.50— not bad for a Prinsengracht eatery. The informal atmosphere here is wonderful, and the noon opening makes it an ideal place for a Sunday brunch: you can take your time, no one is chasing you away, here. I’m glad that this Saint Martin shared his cloak with me.

Amsterdam Weekly

Jesus Camp

FILM

Edited by Julie Phillips.This week’s films reviewed by Shyama Daryanani (SD), Angela Dress (AD), Sven Gerrets (SG), René Glas (RG),Andrea Gronvall (AG), Luuk van Huët (LvH), JR Jones (JJ), Joshua Katzman (JK), Dave Kehr (DK), Peter Margasak (PM),Marie-Claire Melzer (MM),Mike Peek (MP), Gusta Reijnders (GR), Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR), Marinus de Ruiter (MdR) and Bregtje Schudel (BS). All films are screened in English with Dutch subtitles unless otherwise noted. Amsterdam Weekly recommends.

Festivals Beeld voor Beeld A five-day festival of new documentaries exploring other cultures and our own. Two

7-13 June 2007

Cashback young Dutch-Kurdish women make a documentary on honour killing; a forgotten village in Ukraine marks a dividing line between the new Europe and the old Soviet states; Eugene Hütz, lead singer of the New York Gypsy Punk band Gogol Bordello, looks for his roots. A gender programme combines films about women raised as men in Albania and members of the third sex in India, while a programme on Iran looks at the lives of women and Teheran’s alternative music scene. All films are subtitled in English. See article p. 4. KIT Tropentheater, Kleine Zaal Hong Kong Film Panorama The fourth edition of the Panorama arrives at Filmmuseum with the usual mix of premieres and classics. This year, for the tenth anniversary of the reversion of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic, there are three films on the programme that were made shortly after the change: Made in Hong Kong (Xianggang Zhizao, 1997), The Longest Summer (Fruit Chan, 1998) and Ordinary Heroes (Ann Hui, 1999). Some films are subtitled in Dutch, some in English. Filmmuseum

New this weekCashback There should be a movie law against using American Beauty-like music over supposedly ‘deep’ moments, especially if they are followed by fart jokes just a few scenes later. In this full-length remake of his own short film about an art student who turns into an insomniac after being dumped, director Sean Ellis seems incapable of delivering a consistent stylistic whole. Instead he keeps shifting from romantic drama to juvenile high jinks and back. Some of the cinematographic experiments linked to the manipulation and distortion of time—the film’s theme—are genuinely well made, but most of them are just used to get women undressed. Cashback feels like a pretentious take on the teen sex comedy, more often baffling than funny. (RG) 90 min. Kriterion, Pathé Tuschinski Death Proof Quentin Tarantino’s homage to the slasher film. See review p. 22. Kriterion, The Movies, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Five-Word Movie Review

THEO AND KATJA GO AMERICA Interview The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski

Jesus Camp Profoundly disturbing documentary about evangelical Christian summer camps for children in the US, directed by Heidi Ewing. The film includes footage shot at the ‘Kids on Fire’ camp at, appropriately, Devil’s Lake in North Dakota, where camp pastor Becky Fischer ‘preaches’ these children to the point of hysteria, then calls their distress evi-

Special screenings Amarcord A piece of fanciful recollection (1974) about his childhood from Federico Fellini—uneven, loosely structured, and at times pretty vulgar as well as sentimental, but with some touching and lovely episodes, most memorably the village’s look at an ocean liner and a wedding party. Screening as part of a retrospective of the work of artist and Fellini protégè Ele d’Artagnan at Galerie Arps. In Italian with Dutch subtitles. (DK) 127 min. Filmmuseum Broken Flowers Bill Murray’s minimalism as an actor combines with Jim Jarmusch’s as a writerdirector to yield a certain redundancy, making this 2005 comedy Jarmusch’s starkest film to date. (JR) 105 min. Pathé ArenA Come and See Elem Klimov’s 1985 work is according to some a harrowing masterpiece of antiwar film-making, according to others ‘longer on outrage than complex understanding’. This story of a Belarussian youth whose village is destroyed by a band of Nazi savages was commissioned by the Soviet government to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Allies’ victory over Hitler, but was suppressed after it was made. In Russian with English subtitles. Also showing: Father and Daughter, the lovely 2000 animated short from Michael Dudok de Wit (no dialogue). 140 min. De Roode Bioscoop Design for Living When Ernst Lubitsch’s film of Noel Coward’s famous ménage à trois farce was released in 1933, Ben Hecht’s screenplay was attacked for coarsening Coward, and Lubitsch was ridiculed for casting Gary Cooper, Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins in the parts played onstage by Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne and Coward himself. Well, maybe it is a little lumpy for Lubitsch, but the film more than holds its own. Cooper is a problem, but the bubbles rise in spite of him. Very glossy, very continental and sometimes very funny. (DK) 91 min. Filmmuseum Desire Nominally directed by Frank Borzage, this engaging 1936 romantic comedy about an American executive (Gary Cooper) who spends his Riviera vacation with a jewel thief (Marlene Dietrich) was produced by Ernst Lubitsch, and reflects his personality much more than Borzage’s. (DK) 89 min. Filmmuseum

Dr Strangelove Like most of his work, Stanley Kubrick’s deadly black satirical comedy-thriller on Cold War madness and its possible effects (1964) has aged well: the manic, cartoonish performances of George C Scott, Sterling Hayden and Peter Sellers (in three separate roles, including the title part) look as brilliant as ever, and Kubrick’s icy contempt for 20th-century humanity may find its purest expression in the figure of Strangelove himself, a savage

extrapolation of a then-obscure Henry Kissinger conflated with Wernher von Braun and Dr Mabuse to suggest a flawed, spastic machine with Nazi reflexes that ultimately turns on itself. With Peter Bull, Keenan Wynn, Slim Pickens and James Earl Jones. (JR) 93 min. Kriterion Exils One day, Zano suggests a crazy idea to his girlfriend Naïma: travel across France and Spain down to Algeria, back to the land their parents left. Reversing the steps of exiles, the two find themselves lost in a dreamy, musical, intense experience filled with furtive farmworkers, transient gitanas and colourful locals. Tony Gatlif won Best Director for this film at Cannes 2004. In French/Spanish with Dutch subtitles. 104 min. Melkweg Cinema Gadjo Dilo The title of Tony Gatlif’s 1997 French feature is Romany for ‘crazy stranger’; the stranger, our main point of identification, is a young scholar and music buff from France who scours the Romanian countryside looking for a legendary singer until a direct and extended encounter with Gypsy culture throws him for a loop. The third part of Gatlif’s ‘Gypsy Trilogy’, this is a pretty good romantic comedy with neither the formal originality nor the musical excitement of Latcho drom, though it’s certainly watchable and entertaining throughout. In French/Romanian/Romany with Dutch subtitles. (JR) 102 min. Melkweg Cinema Ghetto Girls In this documentary, directors Lamia Abbassi, Samira Ahli, Chafina Ben Dahman and Mina Ouaouirst—all young Moroccan-Dutch women—go in search of the identity of the girls of their generation. Starting with the riots in the Paris banlieues in autumn 2005, they work their way back to Amsterdam, asking, Where are the women? What problems do they face? In the process they give a voice to a generation of ambitious young women attempting to resolve questions of identity, loyalty and choice. Discussion with the directors follows. In Dutch. 50 min. Rialto Kill Bill: Vol 1 Quentin Tarantino’s lively, show-offy tribute to Asian martial-arts flicks, bloody anime, and spaghetti westerns is even more gory and adolescent than its models, which explains both the fun and the unpleasantness of this globe-trotting romp. I assume the idea of volumes reflects the mind-set of a former video-store clerk who thinks in terms of shelf life. The first part is essentially 93 minutes of mayhem, with hyperbolic revenge plots and phallic Amazonian women behaving like nine-year-old boys. With Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba, Daryl Hannah, Julie Dreyfuss, and Chiaki Kuriyama. (JR) 93 min. The Movies Kill Bill:Vol 2 The revenge-seeking Bride (Uma Thurman) is back, and this time, instead of slicing up baddies with her samurai sword, she’s kicking ass

kung fu-style. The body count has dropped considerably since Vol 1, though. Here, the first episode’s bizarre killing spree makes way for a touch of drama, and the return of Tarantino’s famous dialogue. The director sometimes loses himself in his homages to Sergio Leone and bad kung fu flicks, but Kill Bill Vol 2 is another whirlwind of instant-classic moments and cinematic beauty. (SG) The Movies

The Man with the Movie Camera Dziga Vertov’s 1928 Russian film amounts to a catalogue of all the tricks movies can perform. As a newsreel cameraman travels through a city, Vertov transforms the images captured by his camera through a kaleidoscope of slow motion, superimposition, animation and wild montage effects. The film’s real influence did not emerge for another 40 years, when it was taken up by American structuralist film-makers on one side of the Atlantic and by French neo-leftists on the other. (DK) 69 min. De Balie Oldboy In this 2003 second instalment of Chan-wook Park’s Vengeance trilogy, a seemingly innocent Korean salaryman is kidnapped and held prisoner for 15 years. One might expect the good man to hold a bit of a grudge, so it’s no surprise when Dae-Su Oh goes on a rightous rampage of revenge in his quest to find out the who and why of his capture. When he eventually unmasks his nemesis, he’s drawn deeper into a game in which all the odds are against him. Although the influences of Miike, Fincher and Lynch are obvious, director Park manages to combine them, with remarkable vision and excellent craftmanship, into a refreshing tale of revenge gone wrong. On one hand, Oldboy is thought to have inspired the shootings at Virginia Tech. On the other, it received a Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. In Korean with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 120 min. Rialto

atrist also analyzes the trainee, becoming an even more commanding father figure to her than the boss (Scott Glenn) who sends her on this mission. The radical premise that our society implicitly worships as well as fears serial killers underlies the queasy impact of this gory 1991 thriller without becoming its overriding thesis, and while Demme has said that this story takes ‘some really good pokes at patriarchy’, this is mainly wishful thinking. The film, like its flesh-eating psycho, is more bent on exploiting its insights than on teaching us anything. It has, however, been chosen by Dutch film critics as one of the 10 best films of the past 25 years, which is why it’s screening now. (JR) 118 min. Het Ketelhuis Swing Tony Gatlif’s 2002 film takes place in France. A 10-year-old boy becomes fascinated with Gypsy jazz, starts to learn guitar and strikes up a friendship with a Gypsy child. In French with Dutch subtitles. 90 min. Melkweg Cinema An Unfinished Life Robert Redford stars as Einar Gilkyson, a flinty old Wyoming rancher who since his son’s death in a car accident has spent ten years choking on his own bile and pushing away everyone in his life. Everyone, that is, except for Morgan Freeman, who once again plays the loyal, noble best friend to an acrid, aging white man. Jennifer Lopez is the estranged daughter-in-law, whom Einar has never stopped blaming for his son’s death, and who suddenly shows up with her 11-year-old daughter in tow, fleeing a physically abusive boyfriend. If the plot seems overly familiar, Lasse Hallstrom at least directs the action with conviction and style, and his drama is greatly abetted by the scenic big sky locales. (JK) 107 min. Pathé Tuschinski

The Red Shoes Michael Powell and Emeric Press-

burger’s 1948 ballet film has been the cult property of dance freaks for far too long. A look beneath its lushly romantic surface reveals a dark, complex sensibility, and that surface, rendered in the somber tones of British Technicolor, reflects a fantastically rich cinematic inventiveness. Moira Shearer is the ballerina who, following the outlines of a Hans Christian Andersen tale, trades her life for her art; Anton Walbrook, as her impresario, is perhaps the most forceful embodiment of the shaman figures—magical, outsized, sinister—who haunt Powell and Pressburger’s work. The Red Shoes remains the best known of Powell and Pressburger’s 18 features, yet it’s only the tip of the iceberg—beneath it lies the most commanding body of work in the British cinema. (DK) 134 min. Pathé Tuschinski

Vanishing Point Now that Quentin Tarantino has name-checked it in Death Proof, there may be new life for this 1971 road movie. After driving non-stop from San Francisco to Denver, a silent macho type (Barry Newman) accepts a bet that he can make it back again in 15 hours. A blind DJ named Super Soul (Cleavon Little) cheers him on while the cops doggedly chase him. While Richard Sarafian’s direction of this action thriller and drive-in favourite isn’t especially distinguished, the script by Cuban author Guillermo Cabrera Infante (writing here under the pseudonym he adopted as a film critic, G Cain) takes full advantage of the subject’s existential and mythical undertones without being pretentious. You certainly get a run for your money, along with a lot of rock music. (JR) 98 min. De Nieuwe Anita

The Silence of the Lambs Jodie Foster, an FBI trainee, goes to serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) for help in tracking down another mad killer. In the course of parceling out his wisdom, the psychi-

Wallace and Gromit zijn terug! More animated shorts from Aardman Studios, including A Close Shave. In English with Dutch subtitles. 79 min. Filmmuseum

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

23 Girls with balls seek revenge flick.

Tarantino embraces exploitation, splits a double bill, and finds box office success with a very scary Kurt Russell.

A HIGH-OCTANE, BALLSY CHICK FLICK FILM Death Proof Opens Thursday at Kriterion, The Movies, Pathé ArenA and Pathé De Munt. By Luuk van Huët

When Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez joined forces to bring the ‘grindhouse’—i.e. exploitation flick— phenomenon back into the cinemas in all its sleaze-infested glory, analysts were

dence of communion with God. There is no voice-over or any other form of editorial comment—the footage speaks for itself, revealing a vile, ideologically incoherent mess of religious fundamentalism and right-wing politics. In one scene, an anti-abortion campaigner hands out miniature plastic foetuses to children as young as five and tapes their mouths closed with blood-coloured duct tape with the word ‘LIFE’ written on it. Jesus Camp is an eye-opener for those of us who would like to dismiss fundamentalist Christians as a lunatic fringe. Also appearing in this film about how children are blatantly targeted by the religious right is Ted Haggard, leader of the politically well-connected National Association of Evangelicals until, in 2006 (after this film was made), a scandal involving a male prostitute and methamphetamines suggested he’d found other ways of getting closer to God. (AD) 84 min. The Movies

salivating over the greenbacks it would generate. Alas, when their two-part, feature-length film Grindhouse was released in the US, the great expectations were dashed by disappointing returns. That prompted Grindhouse’s producers, the Weinstein brothers, to surgically divide the cinematic Siamese twins, stretch both to feature length and release them separately. And although cinephiles are royally pissed off, it might improve the quality of both films in the end.

opportunity. (GR) 110 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Shootout at Lokhandwala Based on a true incident, this movie portrays what happened on November 16, 1991, at the Lokhandwala complex in Mumbai: five gangsters, 286 cops, 6 hours of shooting. Maya (Vivek Oberoi) and his partner in crime, Buva (Tusshar Kapoor), are the most powerful criminals in the underworld of Mumbai. Inspector Khan (Sanjay Dutt) is the man in charge of the Anti-Terrorist Squad, and is out to eliminate any form of terrorism in the city even if it involves killing in cold blood. Enough blood and violence to make most stomachs go queasy. Special appearances by father and son Amitabh and Abishek Bachchan. In Hindi with Dutch subtitles. (SD) Pathé ArenA

Still playing

Premonition Premonition The premise of this time-shifting thriller, from German-Turkish director Mennan Yapo and screenwriter Bill Kelly, is an intriguing one. Each day, housewife Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) receives the news that her husband Jim (Julian McMahon) has died in a car accident, only to wake up the next morning and find him very much alive. Was it a nightmare, or a foretelling of tragedy yet to come? If so, does she have the power to prevent it? Then it happens again: some days Linda finds Jim alive, while on others she awakens a widow. Inexplicably, Linda is living the days of her life out of order. At first the film’s non-linear structure rouses your curiosity. But the follow-up lacks cohesion and depth, making Premonition as boring as a housewife’s routine. A good idea but a missed

Anche libero va bene Italian family drama from Kim Rossi Stuart, told from the point of view of an 11-yearold boy whose mother disappears for weeks at a time, and whose father (played by Rossi Stuart) struggles to hold the family together. The Movies, Rialto Azuloscurocasinegro A bittersweet coming-of-age drama set in contemporary Madrid, where Jorge (Quim Gutiérrez) lives with his invalid father (Héctor Colomé). Despite his university degree, he works as a concierge. His brother Antonio (Antonio de la Torre) is in prison and his mother is dead, leaving him to take care of his father. When he meets Paula (Marta Etura), he realises that there may be more to life than slaving for others, and that he must take that responsibility. Yet his future stil looks His future looks ‘azuloscurocasinegro’: ‘dark blue, almost black’. Directed by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (MM) 105 min. Cinecenter Berlin Alexanderplatz Troubled German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 15-hour magnum opus from 1981. Het Ketelhuis

In the case of Tarantino’s Death Proof, reviews of Grindhouse consistently named it the weaker part of the film, citing lack of characterisation and a lot of banter for banter’s sake. There’s even more of Quentin’s blabbermouthing in the full-length version, but it’s easy on the ears and sets the stage for some exhilarating action sequences. In the full-length (114 min.) Death Proof, two posses of comely gals are stalked by a scarred maniac with a deadly set of wheels who goes by the name of Stuntman Mike. This stock exploitation character is played with laid-back menace by Kurt Russell, returning to his badass B-movie roots. Stuntman Mike is introduced as an easygoing, down-to-earth dude, leering at bodacious babes half his age without actually turning into a complete sleazebag. The three girls and assorted needy wanna-be boyfriends (one played by fellow director Eli Roth, who may or may not be method acting as an utter berk) chew the fat on sex, weed and obscure

Black Snake Moan Imagine Samuel L Jackson as a dirt-poor, God-fearing Tennessee farmer who finds a barely clad, molested young woman (Christina Ricci) on his farmyard. To make matters more complicated, she turns out to be a nympho when she comes to. What does he do? Does he turn her in to the local authorities? No, he chains her to his radiator to train the debauchery out of this girl the Jackson way. Might this not sound that inviting for you, how about director/writer Craig Brewer’s infusion of the blues in all that is visible and audible. Like his previous picture, Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan sizzles with style and feeling. The soundtrack, with Jackson doing his own songs, is a must-have. (RG) 116 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

flicks while boozing and toking it up. Meanwhile, Stuntman Mike offers sweet stranded blonde Pam (Rose McGowan) a lift, from the apparent goodness of his heart, while nipping on a virgin Piña Colada. His transformation into a bloodthirsty road warrior is actually made more thrilling because of the longer build-up, as he tracks and mows down the women. Unfortunately for Mike, his next set of potential victims includes two stunt-driving women who turn the tables on him, leading to one of the most satisfyingly gratuitous car chases ever filmed. While the plot is flimsy and predictable, there’s no denying the movie’s faithfulness to its grindhouse roots. Tarantino further employs funky freeze frames, scratched film stock, missing frames and a sequence in black-and-white to honour his inspirations, complementing these with cross-references to his own oeuvre. The film will undoubtedly offend politically correct thinkers with a stream of profanity and racial slurs, while the ogling camera seems intoxicated by the curvaceous aspects of the female anatomy on display. But the women ultimately are empowered and just as capable of bloodthirsty mayhem as Stuntman Mike. And as the main part of the film features tough, determined gals trading insults and philosophising, it’s sometimes akin to watching a testosterone-heavy chick flick. Even though I would have loved a three-hour exploitation extravaganza as envisioned in the original Grindhouse, I’ll settle for two separate films—especially if Planet Terror, due here in August, turns out to be as much of a guilty pleasure as Death Proof.

story with some sarcasm, witty remarks and a touch of something sweet. In Hindi with Dutch subtitles. (SD) Pathé ArenA

Children of Men

The Boss of It All Ravn (Peter Gantzler) pays an actor (Jens Albinus) to play his boss, a fictional character he himself has created to make the hard decisions in the company. Granted, the idea is novel, and seen solely as a comedy of errors it is rather entertaining. Unfortunately, director Lars von Trier can’t leave it at that. Every artificial pan—created by a new, experimental computer programme called Automavision—and time-out, during which Von Trier comments on the film’s progress—screams his name, making it impossible to see the film as just an enjoyable satire. Von Trier is the boss of it all and everyone shall know! In Danish/Icelandic with Dutch subtitles. (BS) 99 min. Het Ketelhuis, Kriterion

Children of Men Adapted from PD James’s dystopian novel, this SF feature by Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá También) takes place in England in 2027, when the human race has mysteriously become infertile and faces extinction. A onetime revolutionary (Clive Owen) is asked by an old flame (Julianne Moore) to take part in her underground movement defending illegal aliens, who are trucked off to concentration camps; assisted by an older hippie pal (Michael Caine in an Oscar-worthy performance), he agrees to smuggle a young woman (Claire-Hope Ashitey) out of the country. The film gradually devolves into action-adventure, then the equivalent of a war movie. But the film-making is pungent throughout, and the first half hour is so jaw-dropping in its fleshed-out extrapolation that Cuaron earns the right to coast a bit. (JR) 109 min. Cavia

Cheeni Kum Buddhadev (superstar Amitabh Bachchan) is an arrogant, proud chef in a Londonbased restaurant that serves authentic Indian food. Tabu is Neena, the first customer ever to send a dish back to the kitchen. Buddhadev goes out and puts Neena in her place, only to have her walk out of the restaurant and retort by sending him the dish the way it is supposed to be made. (Cheeni Kum means ‘less sugar’.) Buddhadev realises his mistake and while attempting to apologise, falls in love with Neena and vice versa. The problem? He is 64. She is 34. Her father is 58. How will Buddhadev convince Neena’s father to give him her hand in marriage? A cute love

Close to Home It’s almost impossible for an Israeli fiction film to do right. If it concerns itself with politics it’s deemed propaganda, if it doesn’t, it’s escapist amusement. Close to Home, by directors Vardit Bilu and Dalia Hagar, sits awkwardly between the two. It’s a drama about two young women serving in the Israeli army; it doesn’t make any political or social statements, but it doesn’t have a real story, either. The girls seem more preoccupied with boys and playing hooky than with asking Arabs for identification. Debuting actresses Neama Shendar and Smadar Sayar are naturals, but seem a bit lost without a real plot to guide them. In Hebrew with Dutch subtitles. 90 min. Rialto

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007

Crossing the Bridge:The Sound of Istanbul This lively 2005 documentary by German-Turkish director Fatih Akin (Gegen die Wand) follows bassist Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten through the crumbling streets of Istanbul to present a dynamic and wide-ranging portrait of the ancient city’s musical riches. The intimate performance footage ranges from more traditional sounds to Turkish iterations of global styles like rock, hiphop and electronica, delivering commentary on the nation’s conflicted status as a bridge between Europe and Asia that’s even more poignant than the passionate and informative interviews. Among the featured artists are rock pioneer Erkin Koray, the powerful Kurdish singer Aynur, polyglot DJ Mercan Dede, and arabesk legend Orhan Gencebay. In English/German/Turkish with Dutch subtitles. (PM) 92 min. Filmhuis Griffioen

Fracture An engineer (Anthony Hopkins) goes on trial in Los Angeles for trying to murder his wife (Embeth Davidtz), and the prosecutor (Ryan Gosling) attempts to push through what appears to be an open-and-shut case but isn’t. With its lavish architecture and Spielbergian lighting, this absorbing thriller has a high-toned look, but director Gregory Hoblit and writers Daniel Pyne and Glenn Gers got much of their training in TV cop shows, which shows in the adroit way they semaphorically abbreviate certain characters and plot developments to slide us past various incongruities. The main interest here is the juxtaposing of Gosling’s Method acting with Hopkins’s more classical style, a spectacle even more mesmerising than the settings. With David Strathairn and Rosamund Pike. (JR) 112 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Curse of the Golden Flower After wowing the international community of chop-socky lovers with Hero and House of Flying Daggers, Yimou Zhang is poised to bedazzle once again with Curse of the Golden Flower. Aficionados of the work of gaijin like Segal’s or Van Damme’s will scratch their noggins, but the true connoisseur will appreciate the lavish lushness of the production design, the Machiavellian scheming within the decadent Imperial Court and the expertly choreographed fights, which are mesmerising to behold. Tricked out with the richest colours, most opulent costume design and most Shakespearean plot of the year, the decline of an empire never looked better. In Mandarin with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 114 min. Cinema Amstelveen, De Uitkijk

The Hoax As Orson Welles demonstrated in F for Fake (1974), the true story of novelist Clifford Irving, who sold a fraudulent autobiography of the millionaire Howard Hughes to a New York publisher for a fortune, is a classic tale of consummate con artistry. So it’s pretty perverse for William Wheeler, who scripted this feature, to get most of the facts wrong, inflating details that don’t need any spin. (As Irving himself remarked, ‘You could call it a hoax about a hoax.’) Director Lasse Hallstrom does an OK job with this dubious property; Richard Gere is less charismatic than Irving and Alfred Molina turns Irving’s assistant into a buffoon, but the secondary cast (Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, Stanley Tucci, Julie Delpy, Eli Wallach) is fun to watch. (JR) 115 min. The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski

Daratt At the close of the 40-year civil war in Chad, a man gives a gun to his 16-year-old grandson, Atim (Ali Barkai), and sends him in search of Nassara (Youssouf Djaoro), the man who killed his father. to avenge the death of his father. Nassara now owns a small bakery; Atim becomes his apprentice, and he and Nassara begin to develop a bond. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun directed this powerful parable of respect and revenge. In Arabic with Dutch subtitles. 96 min. Rialto

Hot Fuzz The creative team behind Shaun of the Dead, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, return with a vengeance in a buddy-cop flick that, like Shaun, is simultaneously a hilarious spoof and loving homage to a genre. Top bobby Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is demoted for making his colleagues look bad, but finds a crime wave in the sleepy hamlet of Sandford that only he can bring to justice, aided by his loyal sidekick PC Butterman (Frost). Frost and co-writer Pegg prove to be a well-oiled comedic machine, while leaving room for the rest of the star-studded cast (Martin Freeman, Bill Nighy, Billie Whitelaw) to shine. (LvH) 121 min. Cinema Amstelveen

The Dead Girl The Dead Girl Unrelievedly grim, this searing second feature by TV actress Karen Moncrieff (Blue Car) guides an unusually able cast through a five-part feature that’s closer to a collection of interconnected short stories than to a novel. The episodes all revolve around the brutal murder of a young woman, and Moncrieff’s psychological and sociological perspective on the characters—and on the sickness and unhappiness that seem to bind them together—is almost always acute and never merely sensational. With Toni Collette, Rose Byrne, Mary Beth Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, Brittany Murphy, Kerry Washington, Giovanni Ribisi, Piper Laurie, Mary Steenburgen and Josh Brolin. 93 min. Cinecenter, Pathé Tuschinski

Drummer In this interpretation of the 1994 Flemish novel by Herman Brusselmans, an arrogant writer is convinced by three physically challenged freaks to join their rock band. He decides to lead them in a local band contest to provoke the literary establishment and to get in touch with some ‘real people’ in the process. Flanders was shocked by the profanity and gross images in this pitch-black comedy, but that was exactly the comment that director Koen Mortier was aiming for in his attempt to break through the indifference of the cultural elite towards genuine social problems. In Flemish with Dutch subtitles. (MdR) 90 min. Het Ketelhuis

Exiled Fantastically silly Macau-based gangster flick, the tedium of which remains unrelieved by frenetic bouts of pointless gunfire. Halfway through it morphs into an Asian revenge version of Gunfight at the OK Corral. Truly weird. Intensely homoerotic in the tradition of all such gangster movies/westerns (in the press notes the cast is described as ‘virile’). There is much loving fetishisation of firearms and ostentatious slo-mo puffing on fags. Former gangster Wo—having been in, you guessed it, exile—has returned to Macau just before the Chinese take over from the Portugese, in defiance of local gangster chief Boss Fay. Fay promptly dispatches a hit squad, who turn out to be Wo’s former pals. Will they remain loyal to their old friend, or their new boss? Ooh—I wonder. A reasonable cast including Francis Ng and Anthony Wong of Infernal Affairs fame fail to compel much interest. Johnny To directed; Josie Ho, as Mrs Wo, serves the time-honoured function of securing our hero’s heterosexuality but doesn’t have much else to do except look upset. There is an actor in this film called Lam Suet, playing a character named Fat, which I thought was the best thing about it. In Cantonese with Dutch subtitles. (AD) 110 min. Filmmuseum

I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone This leisurely, sensual new film from minimalist Malaysian-Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang (The Wayward Cloud) is about a friendship between three young people adrift in Kuala Lumpur. Hsiao-kang (played by Tsai’s regular leading man, Lee Kang-sheng) is a homeless Chinese man who gets mugged and is rescued by Rawang, an equally impoverished Bangladeshi guest worker. Later, Hsiao-kang meets a waitress named Chyi who helps care for her boss’ paralysed son, and the friendship between Hsiao-kang and Rawang is tested. With Dutch subtitles. 115 min. Filmmuseum Interview In this first remake in the Triple Theo Project—Blind Date and 06 are still to come—director and star Steve Buscemi does a respectable job of translating Theo van Gogh’s film to an American setting. The idea remains the same—an uninterested political journalist interviews a shallow B-actress—but the story is a little smoother around the edges. The dialogue is tart and Steve Buscemi excels as yet another loser. Even Sienna Miller does a decent job, though she lacks the presence and sex appeal of Katja Schuurman, the starlet of the original film. Also showing: Raak. Hanro Smitsman’s 10-minute, Dutch-language short, about a boy who throws a stone from an overpass and hits a car, won Best Short Film in Berlin this year. (BS) 83 min. Kriterion, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski Knallhart Fifteen-year-old Michael (David Kross) moves to a gritty Berlin neighbourhood, where he is beaten and blackmailed by the school bullies. Then a chance meeting with the local drug lord turns his life upside down. He starts delivering to local dealers in exchange for money and protection from his high school enemies. But who will protect Michael from his protectors? Knallhart resembles the 1981 film Christiane F one generation on, and director Detlev Buck has pimped the film’s style accordingly: in the first hour, the shaky images and flashy editing make the film seem too self-consciously ‘cool’. But as Michael penetrates ever deeper into Berlin’s criminal milieu, the film gains power and a surreal intensity. In German with Dutch subtitles. (MP) 98 min. Het Ketelhuis Das Leben der Anderen This Oscar winner by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck mostly deserves all the praise and admiration it has received. A study in the dehumanising effects of state surveillance, it focuses on two men living in East Germany in 1984: a playwright (Sebastian Koch) who attracts the interest of the state and a Stasi officer (Ulrich Mühe) whose loyalty to the socialist cause is starting to erode. Predictable and slightly distant, but also disturbing and effective. In German with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 137 min. Cinecenter, Cinema Amstelveen, Het Ketelhuis, Pathé Tuschinski, Rialto

7-13 June 2007 The Messengers This stylish ghost story from rising Hong Kong codirectors Danny and Oxide Pang (the ‘Eye’ trilogy) and producer Sam Raimi earns points for its set and sound design, eerily desaturated palette, able cast and one really good special effect. Sadly, the movie just doesn’t deliver chills. Kristen Stewart (Panic Room) plays a troubled teen who reluctantly moves to a run-down North Dakota farm with her anxious parents (Dylan McDermott and Penelope Ann Miller) and mute toddler brother. Soon the tot is communing with the vengeful spirits of the previous inhabitants, who target the girl. The Pangs’ editing style of juxtaposing similar images shot from different angles and distances—a technique that worked in Bangkok Dangerous—here only dilutes what little suspense screenwriter Mark Wheaton could muster. (AG) 90 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt The Namesake Mira Nair’s film of Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel starts off with Ashoke (Bollywood veteran Irfan Khan) on a train. The man across from him talks about leaving India. Ashoke answers: ‘My grandfather said that’s what books are for, to travel without moving an inch.’ But after the train crashes, Ashoke decides to follow the advice he was given: he moves to New York, marries and names his son Gogol, after the Russian novel he was reading on the train. As Gogol (Kal Penn) grows up, he distances himself from his parents’ culture, but his name pursues him until he comes to his own decisive moment. Penn, who starred in the teen comedy Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, shines in a serious role. Throw in a score by Nitin Sawhney, whose music has both Eastern and Western influences, and the movie is complete, showing how two cultures clash but also where they come together. (SD) 122 min. Pathé Tuschinski

Ninotchka Ninotchka Ernst Lubitsch’s sparkling, witty political fairy tale from 1939, about a cold but beautiful lady commissar (Greta Garbo) who melts to the bourgeois charms of Paris and Melvyn Douglas, jeopardising both honour and career. Garbo fully complements Lubitsch’s casual sophistication and stylistic grace, cleverly playing off her dour public image. The satire may be mostly a matter of easy contrasts, but the lovers inhabit a world of

FILM TIMES Thursday 7 June until Wednesday 13 June. Times are provided by cinemas and are subject to last-minute changes. Film times also at www.amsterdamweekly.nl. De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 The Man with the Movie Camera Fri 20.00. Cavia Van Hallstraat 52-I, 681 1419 Children of Men Thur 20.30 Snow Cake Fri 20.30. Cinecenter Lijnbaansgracht 236, 623 6615 AzulOscuroCasiNegro daily 16.15, 19.15, 21.45, Sun also 11.00, 13.30 The Dead Girl daily 16.30, 19.45, 22.00, Sun also 11.15, 14.15 Das Leben der Anderen daily 15.45, 18.45, 21.45, Sun also 11.15 Pan's Labyrinth daily 16.15, 19.00, 21.45, Sun also 11.00, 13.30. Cinema Amstelveen Plein 1960 2, Amstelveen, 547 5175 Assepoester en de Keukenprins Sat, Wed 13.30, Sun 12.00 Curse of the Golden Flower Tues, Wed 20.30 Haaibaai Sat, Wed 15.30, Sun 14.00 Hot Fuzz Thur-Sat 20.30 Das Leben der Anderen Thur 15.00, Sun 16.00. Filmhuis Griffioen Uilenstede 106, Amstelveen, 444 5100 Crossing the Bridge:The Sound of Istanbul Thur 19.00. Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 After This Our Exile Sat 21.30 Amarcord Sun 15.30 Angel (1937) Mon 19.15 Bluebeard's Eighth Wife Fri 19.15 Design for Living Sat, Tues, Wed 19.15 Desire Thur, Sun 19.15 Ernst Lubitsch in Berlin Sun 16.00 Exiled daily 21.45 The Heavenly Kings Sun 21.30 Hong Kong Film Panorama Thur-Wed I Don't Want to Sleep Alone Fri, Sat, Tues, Wed 17.00 The Longest Summer Thur 21.30 Made in Hong Kong Tues 21.30 The Night of the Hunter Thur, Mon 17.00 Ninotchka daily 19.30, Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed also 17.15

Amsterdam Weekly elegance and poise that is uniquely and movingly Lubitsch’s. Billy Wilder, who would later uncurdle into the last exemplar of the Lubitsch tradition, collaborated on the script. (DK) 109 min. Filmmuseum Notes on a Scandal A bitter old history teacher at a wild English high school (Judi Dench) befriends an attractive young colleague who’s just arrived (Cate Blanchett), only to discover she’s having sex with a 15year-old student. Adapted from a novel by Zoë Heller, this drama is both literate and urgently plotted, with a voice-over from Dench that cuts like broken glass. Her character is sly, controlling, desperately lonely and capable of anything, and when Blanchett’s secret gets out, a proper chamber drama explodes into something much more troubling. Richard Eyre (Iris) directed. (JJ) 91 min. De Uitkijk Nue propriété Isabelle Huppert plays a Belgian mother who feels her life is weighing her down. She decides to sell her house and, together with her new lover, start a bed and breakfast in the Alps. Left to their own devices, her twin sons take their abandonment out on each other in this film by Joachim Lafosse; the English title is Private Property. In French with Dutch subtitles. 105 min. De Uitkijk The Number 23 Jim Carrey stars as a dogcatcher who becomes obsessed with the numerological implications of 23, seeing it everywhere (if not the digits themselves, then in sums or the numeric values of letters and months) and eventually unnerving his wife (Virginia Madsen, in her latest sturdy-spouse role). Narrated in voice-over by the hero, the movie is an object lesson in the dangers of having a storyteller who manufactures his own logic. As Carrey becomes more engrossed in an obscure novel about the number, this balloons into a murder mystery with multiple layers of reality, and before long I wasn’t even sure what might constitute a conclusion. Joel Schumacher directed; with Danny Huston. (JJ) 95 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Nuovomondo At the start of the 20th century, a widowed Sicilian farmer (Vincenzo Amato) emigrates to America with his sons. Just before they embark, he meets an Englishwoman named Lucy (Charlotte Gainsbourg) who needs someone to marry her so she too can go to America. This film about the dream of a new world was acclaimed at the Venice Film Festival. Directed by Emmanuele Crialese, with cinematography by Agnès Godard (Wings of Desire, Beau Travail). In Italian/English with Dutch subtitles. 120 min. Pathé Tuschinski

On the Edge Wed 21.30 Ordinary Heroes Fri 21.30 Perhaps Love Mon 21.30 The Sand Castle Sun, Wed 13.45 Wallace & Gromit zijn terug! Sun, Wed 14.00. Het Ketelhuis Westergasfabriek, Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 684 0090 De Avonturen van het Molletje Sat, Sun, Wed 14.00 Berlin Alexanderplatz parts 8-11: Thur 19.15, parts 12, 13: Mon 19.15, parts 1-7: Sat 13.30, parts 8-13: Sun 13.30 The Boss of It All Thur, Fri 17.00, Mon-Wed 17.45, 19.45, 21.45 Ex Drummer Thur-Tues 17.15 Holland Ano Paradijs Mon, Wed 19.30 The Kid Sat, Sun, Wed 14.15 Knallhart daily 21.15 Das Leben der Anderen Thur-Sat, Mon, Wed 21.15, Thur-Sat also 18.30, Sat, Sun, Wed 15.30 The Silence of the Lambs Sun 19.30 Tussen hemel en aarde daily 19.30, Sun, Wed also 15.30. KIT Tropentheater, Kleine Zaal Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8500 Beeld voor Beeld Thur-Sat China in Transitie Sat 11.00 De Culturele Erfenis van Indonesië Thur 10.00 De School: Microkosmos van de Maatschappij Fri 10.00, 14.30, 17.00, 20.30 Gypsy Night Sat 20.30 Ingrijpen in de Natuur Sun 15.30 Iran: Kinderen van de Revolutie Thur 20.00 Mannen worden Vrouwen, Vrouwen worden Mannen Thur 14.00 Na de Oorlog Sat 14.30 Treasure Mountain Sun 13.00. Kriterion Roetersstraat 170, 623 1708 The Boss of It All Sat, Sun 15.30 Cashback Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 22.00, Thur-Sun also 19.45, Sat also 0.00, Sun also 13.30 Death Proof daily 17.45, 20.00, Thur-Mon, Wed also 22.15, Fri, Sat also 0.30, Sat, Sun also 15.15 Dr Strangelove Sun 13.15, Mon 22.00 Interview daily 17.30, Wed also 19.45 Sneak Preview Tues 22.15. Melkweg Cinema Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 624 1777 Exils Thur, Sun 20.00 Gadjo Dilo Mon-Wed 20.00 Roots in Beeld Thur-Wed Swing Fri, Sat 20.00. The Movies Haarlemmerdijk 159-165, 638 6016 Anche libero va bene daily 17.00, 19.15, Sun also 12.15 Bridge to Terabithia Sat, Sun, Wed 15.30 Death Proof daily 17.30, 19.45, 22.00, Fri, Sat also 0.15 The Hoax daily 17.15, 21.45, Thur-Sat also 19.30, Sun also 13.15 Interview daily 21.30, Sat, Sun, Wed also 14.45 Jesus Camp daily 17.45, Sun-Wed also 19.30, Sat, Sun, Wed also 15.15 Kill Bill:Vol 1 Fri, Sat 23.30

Pan’s Labyrinth By mixing the narrative setting he

already visited in The Devil’s Backbone with the Grand Guignol sensibilities he’s shown in his Hollywood films, Guillermo del Toro has managed to create a perfect, poignant fairy tale of the Grimm variety. Young Ofelia must undergo a perilous quest that takes her through the depths of the underworld and pits her against her nefarious new father. Bittersweet and darkly disturbing at the same time, this movie’s guaranteed to keep your inner child up at night with delicious fright. Just refrain from accepting candy from Fascists and fauns and you’ll be fine. In Spanish with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 112 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 Pirates of the Caribbean 3 An improvement on the lacklustre middle section of this particular franchise— oops, I mean trilogy—but still not as good as the first part. Pirates 3 does give us Johnny ’n’ Keef attempting to out-camp each other (after two rounds of being imitated by Johnny Depp, Keith Richards actually accepted a role) amidst all the precariously staged swordfights and general—yes—swashbuckling about. But that’s pretty much the only difference. Keira Knightley limply does the will-she/won’t-she number between naughty rascal Jack and, er, the other one. The skinny bloke with the funny eyeball is back. There are lots of groovy special effects. The bloke with the tentacles hanging off his head is back. Jack still has gold teeth. There is much dashing and prancing. Everyone basically reprises everything they’ve done before only more so, especially Geoffrey Rush, whose gurning Oirish loon pirate captain must surely rate as one of the hammiest performances ever to bless the silver screen. Ah well—ker-ching and shiver me timbers. (AD) 168 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski Spider-Man 3 When a super-hero franchise reaches the third instalment, the result is usually a let-down featuring rubber nipples or Richard Pryor on skis. While Spidey’s third outing doesn’t reach those alltime lows, it still is a step backwards from the first two magnificent films. The problem boils down to an overabundance of villains, love interests and plot lines that

Kill Bill:Vol 2 Fri, Sat 0.00 Pan's Labyrinth daily 19.30, 21.45, Fri, Sat also 0.00, Sat, Sun, Wed also 15.15, Sun also 12.45. De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512, Vanishing Point Mon 20.30. Pathé ArenA ArenA Boulevard 600, 0900 1458 Assepoester en de Keukenprins Sat, Sun 10.15, 12.15 Black Snake Moan Thur-Sun 15.25, 18.00, Thur, Fri also 12.40 Broken Flowers Tues 13.30 Cheeni Kum Thur-Tues 14.20, 17.40 Death Proof daily 12.50, 15.30, 18.30, 21.20 Fracture daily 15.50, 18.20, Thur-Mon, Wed also 13.10, Sat, Sun also 10.45 Haaibaai Sat, Sun 10.05, 12.00, 13.50 The Messengers daily 15.45, 17.45, 19.50, 22.10, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.50, Wed also 13.45 Mr Bean's Holiday daily 12.25, 14.30, 16.45, 19.15, Sat, Sun also 10.20 Next Thur-Sun 20.40 The Number 23 daily 21.40 Ocean's Thirteen Wed 12.00, 13.40, 14.40, 16.25, 17.20, 19.10, 20.20, 21.45 Perfect Stranger Thur-Tues 20.50 Pirates of the Caribbean 3 daily 11.50, 13.30, 14.00, 15.20, 16.00, 17.00, 17.30, 18.45, 19.30, 20.45, 21.00, Thur-Tues also 12.30, Thur-Mon, Wed also 20.30, Sat, Sun also 10.30 Premonition daily 13.40, 16.15, 19.00, 21.30, Sat, Sun also 11.10 The Reaping daily 21.50 Shootout at Lokhandwala daily 12.10, 15.35, 18.40 Sneak Preview Tues 21.00 Spider-Man 3 (IMAX) daily 15.15, 18.20, 21.25, Thur-Mon, Wed also 12.15 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sat, Sun 11.00, 13.05, Wed 11.40, 13.50 Zodiac 21. Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Black Snake Moan Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 12.50, 15.50, 18.50, 21.40, Sun also 10.15, Sat 12.00, 15.30, 19.15, 22.10, Wed 16.30, 19.45 Blades of Glory Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues 12.05, 14.30, 18.00, Sat 16.20, 18.50, Sun 16.25, 18.40, Wed 17.10, 19.30 Circuit Sat 23.30 Death Proof Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 13.40, 16.15, 19.00, 21.45, Sun also 10.50, Sat, Wed 12.30, 15.15, Sat also 18.00, 20.40, 23.35, Wed also 18.30, 21.40 Fracture Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 12.30, 15.15, 18.45, 21.30, Sat 11.30, 14.15, 17.00, 19.45, 22.45, Wed 12.50, 15.30, 18.20, 21.10 Haaibaai Sat 11.10, 13.10, 15.10, Sun 10.10, 12.00, 14.00, Wed 12.20, 14.20 The Messengers Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 22.00, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 19.45, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 13.20, 15.30, 17.45, Sun also 15.55, 17.55, Sat 17.15, 19.20, 21.30, 23.40 Mr Bean's Holiday Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 12.20, 14.45, 17.00, Sat 11.45, 14.00, 16.30, 18.45 Next Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 15.00, 17.15, Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon also 19.30, Thur, Fri, Mon, Tues also 12.40, Sat 10.45, 13.30, 15.45, 18.15, 23.25

25 entangle the cast, sometimes slowing the proceedings to a sticky stop in between the flabbergasting action sequences. Besides, in keeping with blockbuster season, there’s an awful lot of action. Two-and-a-half angstful hours might be more bang for your buck than you bargained for. Directed by Sam Raimi, with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. (LvH) 156 min. Pathé De Munt Transylvania Director Tony Gatlif likes to make gypsy road movies—his most famous one being Gadjo Dilo—and his latest film is no exception. This time we follow female protagonist Zingarina (Asia Argento) to the Romanian region of Transylvania to be reunited with her boyfriend. When he rejects her and their unborn baby, Zingarina is inconsolable. Yet love lurks in unlikely places. It’s uncommon for Gatlif to feature a female lead, yet actress Biro Ünel (the anti-hero of Gegen die Wand) steals every scene. What Transylvania lacks in narrative, it amply makes up for in vibrant music and raw emotion. In French/Romanian/English with Dutch subtitles. (BS) 103 min. Rialto Tussen hemel en aarde A Dutch documentary about two veteran circus performers in Uzbekistan, Achat and Tursun Ali. The two have been friends since childhood but differ sharply in their political opinions. Tursun Ali’s goal is to keep the circus tradition alive and the authorities at bay, while Achat challenges the Uzbek dictatorship and advocates human rights. Their openness about their life and friendship makes this a revealing documentary about Uzbek society and a dazzling chronicle of nights at the circus. Directed by Frank van den Engel en Masja Novikova. Van den Engel will be present at Rialto on Saturday. In Uzbek with Dutch subtitles. 70 min. Het Ketelhuis, Rialto Waarom heeft niemand mij verteld... Using his mobile phone, Cyrus Frisch recorded tension between immigrants, locals and police. He presents this documentary footage as the observations of a traumatised soldier back from Uruzgan. Frisch will be present at the screening on Friday, June 8. In Dutch. 70 min. Rialto

Zodiac David Fincher has come a long way in the five years since his last skilful but empty exercise in style, Panic Room. In Zodiac, about four men obsessed with their search for the infamous Zodiac Killer, Fincher finally emerges as a real storyteller. While Robert Downey Jr can claim an amazing comeback. After rocky years battling drug addiction and poor film choices, he now dazzles us with a cynical, funny and genuinely moving performance. (BS) 158 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

The Number 23 Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 12.00, 14.15, 16.30, 19.10, 21.55, Sat 12.10, 14.30, 17.15, 19.30, 22.00, Wed 12.40, 15.20, 17.45, 20.15 Perfect Stranger Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 20.45, Sat 21.10 Pirates of the Caribbean 3 daily 16.45, 20.30, Thur-Sat, MonWed also 13.00, Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed also 12.15, 19.15, 20.00, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 16.00, Sat also 11.00, 14.45, 18.30, 21.15, 22.15, Sun also 11.30, Wed also 16.15 Premonition Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 15.45, Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues also 13.15, 18.30, 21.15, Sun also 10.45, Wed also 12.45, 18.45, 21.30, Sat 10.10, 12.35, 15.00, 17.45, 20.20, 23.00 The Reaping Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon 21.50, Sat 21.00 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Spider-Man 3 Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.10, 15.10, 18.10, 21.20, Sat 12.20, 15.40, 18.40, 21.45 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sat, Sun 10.15, 12.15, 14.20, Wed 12.00, 14.30 Zodiac Thur, Fri, Sun-Tues 14.00, 17.30, 21.00, Sun also 10.30, Sat 12.00, 15.30, 19.00, 22.30, Wed 13.45, 17.15, 20.45. Pathé Tuschinski Reguliersbreestraat 34, 0900 1458 Cashback daily 21.45, Thur-Mon, Wed also 12.15, 17.15, 19.30, Tues also 12.00, 16.45 The Dead Girl daily 16.15, Thur-Mon also 21.50, Wed also 18.45 Haaibaai Sun 12.45, Wed 13.00 The Hoax Thur-Mon 19.00, Fri-Mon also 13.30, Wed 13.15 Interview daily 16.30, Thur-Mon, Wed also 22.00, Tues also 18.45 Das Leben der Anderen daily 15.00, 18.10, 21.20, Thur-Sat, Mon, Tues also 12.00 The Namesake Thur-Mon, Wed 14.30, Tues 14.00 Nuovomondo daily 13.45, Thur-Mon, Wed also 19.15 Ocean's Thirteen Wed 12.30, 15.30, 18.30, 21.30 Pan's Labyrinth Thur-Mon 18.45, 21.30, Fri-Tues 13.00, 16.00, Tues also 19.00, Wed 12.15, 15.10, 18.00, 21.15 Pirates of the Caribbean 3 daily 21.00, Thur-Tues 13.15, ThurMon also 17.00 The Red Shoes Sun 10.30 Unfinished Life,An Thur, Tues 13.30. Rialto Ceintuurbaan 338, 676 8700 Anche libero va bene Thur, Sun-Wed 17.45, Wed also 15.15 Close to Home daily 20.00, Sat also 15.15 Daratt daily 19.45, Fri, Sun, Wed also 15.45 Ghetto Girls Sat 16.00 Khadak daily 19.00, 21.00, Fri-Sun, Wed also 15.30 Das Leben der Anderen daily 21.45 Oldboy Fri 16.00 Transylvania daily 22.00, Sun also 15.15 Tussen hemel en aarde Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 18.00 Waarom heeft niemand mij verteld... Fri, Sat 23.00. De Roode Bioscoop Haarlemmerplein 7H, 625 7500, Come and See Sun 21.00. De Uitkijk Prinsengracht 452, 623 7460 Curse of the Golden Flower daily 19.00 Notes on a Scandal daily 17.00 Nue propriété daily 21.15, Sun also 15.00.

Amsterdam Weekly

WEEKLY CLASSIFIEDS Ads are free, space permitting. They will be posted both to the paper and online. Guaranteed placement is available for a small fee; see our website for details. Ads may be published in English, het Nederlands or whatever language is best for you to communicate your message. How to submit an ad: via our website at www.amsterdamweekly.nl, by fax at 020 620 1666 or post to Amsterdam Weekly, De Ruyterkade 106, 1011 AB Amsterdam. Deadline: Monday at 12.00, the week of publication. near Jordaan or centrum max €400 incl. Please conART STUDENT/ARTIST? Hi, I am looking to buy tact aidafs@gmail.com. some small pencil drawings of the city. Maybe you THANKS! draw and have the talent to make a few for me. I can- STUDIO/1-2 KAMER APT not afford much but email if you can help: natasha- Young couple, hard-working buurman@hotmail.com. Regards J.C. & seriously studying since 2 years in A’dam. We’re absoSUNNY 3-RM APT offered lutely trustworthy & looking HOUSING OFFERED from Aug ’07-Jan ’08 in Indis- for place to call home. 30m2+, HOUSE CLOSE TO JOR- che buurt. 10 min bike ride up to €700 incl inside the DAAN Very cozy studio w/ to CS. Fully furnished incl ring, with contract and regseparate big toilet & kitchen. washing machine, TV/ istration, for 1 yr or more, Fully furnished. Lots of light DVD/ADSL/video. Garden per direct: 06 1076 9820. Look& privacy. Microwave, oven, and veranda, young cat which ing forward to hearing from washing machine, fridge. needs some tenderness. Max you! Next to public transport & 2 pers. €750 incl g/w/e + 1 ROOM/STUDIO IN ADAM all shops & in front of West- mth deposit. Email kara- Female theatermaker/choreerpark which you see from ba1976@gmail.com. ogr looking for home. Prefer huge roof terrace. €700 incl studio. Shared is fine as long HOUSING WANTED p.m. Deposit 2 mths. ibalas privacy guaranteed. I’m ROOM WANTEDQuiet, non- not party animal but busy & ladelahorra@yahoo.com. ROOM FOR RENT Looking smoking girl looking for small responsible person who needs room. Can also be an attic. quiet spot to zzz. Need to regfor a room? I have single, twin Email optzecisiopt@yahoo.ca. ister. Please reply only if posand double rooms available from €25/night per person STUDIO APT WANTED sible. Internet connection. €400 incl. located in central A’dam on Young male professional Max Prinsengracht. Long-term working for ABN AMRO look- cromson_lily@aol.nl. rentals also available for low ing for furnished apt or stuHOUSING TO SHARE monthly rate of €500 with dio in or around centre. Places kitchen and laundry. Inter- with easy access also con- ROOM IN OOSTERPARKto ested? Call Marvin at 06 2713 sidered. No addictions, busy rent in very nice 2 bdrm fullife, tidy & gay with boyfriend ly furnished apt in new build5005. who lives in Belgium. (That’s ing with lift. To share with one HOLIDAY APT DAM SQ the sad part.) Max€650/mth. only. €600, utilities incl, 2 Luxury air-conditioned stuHope to hear! jrm_uk2003@ mth deposit required. Availdio in hotspot next to Dam yahoo.co.uk. able immediately. ennio85@ Square for short-term rental. Price starts at €149/day. LOOKING FOR 2 ROOMS hotmail.com.

AD OF THE WEEK

to Vondelpark from first week of June-beg July. Price:€250 all incl. Call 06 4277 4518. STUDIO/SHARED 25 y.o. friendly female student from Finland, seeking place to live, temporary or permanent. Up to €600/mth. Call Marina on 06 2286 8779 and make my day!

OTHER SPACES PHOTO STUDIO For amateur and professional photographers. Can also be used as meeting or gathering space. 100m2,€150/day. Possible to rent photo equipment. High ceilings, good, natural light and located on WG Plein, adjacent to Overtoom. For appointment and more info contact D. Ingel: 06 2883 4224. SHARED WORKPLACE Available workplace in shared office space. Light, airy, open space with kitchen, close to Leidseplein, sharing with 6 freelancers (text etc). Monthly cost €276 (incl €43 VAT, ADSL, cleaning) in small office building with reception. Contact 06 2620 6697 or info@hendriks-james.nl.

WORK OFFERED

ENGLISH-SPEAKING JOB We have all the English-speakwww.amsterdamcityapart- Hello, we’re 2 girls from ROOM FOR RENTin shared ing and other foreign-lanBarcelona looking for 2 rooms apt for 1 mth. Located close guage jobs from all major ment.com.

7-13 June 2007

employment agencies and corporate and private indiWORK WANTED employers in NL on one web- viduals. Full details with podcasts www.thespeaker.eu. WORK WANTEDHard-worksite. www.xpatjobs.com. ing man looking for cleaning HARD ROCK WANTS YOU! Martyn: 06 4638 8622. We are currently hiring for all CAN YOU WRITE? Looking job in snack bars, restaurants staff positions, including dish- for volunteers to write arti- as well as house cleaning. washers, cooks and kitchen cles about A’dam life for our Long-term or hiring. Call me supervisor. If you like to work website. Email info@hos- on 06 4361 0019 and ask for John. with fun and passionate peo- tels-amsterdam.nl. ple, this is the job for you! No WORK WANTED! 18 y.o. PARALEGAL EXEC ASST appt necessary. Just come in female looking for summer Blue Lynx, multi-lingual and ask for application. Bring job in A’dam! Already have apt recruitment looking for parpassport photo. No phone downtown. Can do almost alegal Executive Assistant calls please. everything. Speak 4 languages for int’l co. near A’dam. FluUNDUTCHABLES Recruit- ent Dutch & English with and have experience in cusment Agency A’veen looking paralegal and/or legal qual- tomer service and p.a. service. for Order Administrators/Cus- ification. Contact Char- Will arrive 25 June. Also looktomer Service English & lotte@bluelynx.com/070 311 ing for course in fashion design or art? Please do reply preferably good German. 7821/www.bluelynx.com. to fifja_isis@yahoo.com. (Marjan Stoit); Credit & Collections speaking (French BUSINESS LIBRARIANWe WRITER/EDITOR 24 y.o. Morten Arstad); Database are a global consulting firm female Harvard graduate will Engineers (SQL) (Wesley Fel- looking for a f/t English-speak- spend summer in A’dam. Am ida). Email amstelveen@ ing business librarian to join looking for work in editing, undutchables.nl.See for more our European research sup- copy-editing, translating, freepositions www.undutch- port center, based in A’dam. lance or travel writing. FluLibrary/information qualifi- ent in English, French, Rusables.nl. cations preferred. Email sian. Please email me at UNDUTCHABLES A’DAM looking for German financials; skim@spencerstuart.com for AnnaMD83@gmail.com. Russian secretary; Tourist information. 19 FROM POLAND Hi. I am agents all languages; Italian THE EXPAT COMPANY is a student from Poland lookor Nordic Accounts Payable; actively looking for an EMEA ing for job in A’dam from July French Dutch sales or Cus- German Credit Collector for to late Aug. Have experience tomer Service; Polish + Ger- an international company in in gastronomy, but could also man account representative; A’dam. Must have experience work as gardener or any difPlease send CV to Amster- in credit collection and supe- ferent job. Am studying dam@undutchables.nl or rior customer service expe- designing of clothes so also check www.undutchables.nl. rience. Interested? Please know something about fashASST OFFICE MANAGER send your CV in Word format ion and materials. Call mobile Office junior required for to p.kendall@expatcompa- nr +48 (0)790 262 824. trendy marketing consultancy ny.nl. ANY WORK WANTED My in centrum. Perfect starter- THE EXPAT COMPANYis in name is Paul Valenti & have role for administrator fluent search of an Italian speaker over 15 years sales and manin English (ideally native) (fluent or native) with cus- agement experience. Have and speaks some Dutch. tomer service and sales sup- sofi-number and permission Please send all CVs to jill@sec- port experience. Our client to work thru my company retariesbyadams.com. is an international company without permit. Is your busiSKILLED SPEAKER Experienced public speaker available for all manner of group events, also available to coach individual or seminar events,

based in Amersfoort. Interested? Please send your CV in Word format to a.timmerman@expatcompany.nl or visit www.expatcompany.nl.

ness is in need of marketing theme, ad plan, or you just need someone to mind the store part-time? If so call 06 2751 1012.

FOR SALE CLASSIC MENS BICYCLEIn perfect condition.€120 ONO. Email sets077@yahoo.com.

VEHICLES UK J REG VOLVO 440 I brought my car over here but haven’t used it once so I’m now selling it. It’s red J reg Volvo 440, 62,000 miles. Not glamorous but very reliable. UK tax disc. €800 ONO. Car is currently in A’dam. Email me on hthackray@hotmail.com.

SERVICES BEST MOVING SERVICE IN TOWN Driver with van (10m3) or truck (40m3) available. Plus extra moving men, hoisting rope and elevator. Any combinations possible. Call Taco on 06 4486 4390, email info@vrachttaxi.com or check out www.vrachttaxi.com. ACUPUNCTURE works to re-program & restore normal functions by stimulating certain meridians points to free up Chi energy. At CHINESE ACUPUNCTURE PRAKTIJK A’DAM you will get medical acupuncture, a therapy following orthodox medical diagnosis by John Lie-MD. Appt: 600 6730 or www.chineseacupunctuurpraktijk.nl. CATERING ON LOCATION Experienced caterer for all your needs. From intimate settings for 2 to celebrations for groups. At your home, work, boat, event and even proper BBQ’s in park. I can set up entire atmosphere or just prepare everything and let you take over. Endless possibilities. Contact hsc@ iname.com/06 1673 4821.

Amsterdam Weekly

7-13 June 2007 DOGWALKER Need caring professional to walk your dog in Utrecht? Look no further. 30 min walk, €5. 1 hr, €10. Call 030 238 0988 for more information. BRAZILIAN WAXINGBritish Beauty Therapist. 30 yrs experience, CIDESCO, BABTAC ANBOS, laser electrolysis, P8N8 Skin Therapy Centre: acne/rejuvenation/cleanse Linda Young Aesethetics. New address: Eerste Jan Steenstraat 109 in De Pijp. Contact 06 4079 9921 or visit www.lindayoungaesthetics.com. HOUSEKEEPING & NANNY Friendly young woman with au pair experience and pedagogy degree available to babysit and houseclean also on weekends and evenings. Portuguese and English spoken. For personal information and special arrangements call Daniela on 06 1126 2363.

courses. Min intensive: 15 hrs= 215.55. Mon-Sun. 10.00-21.00. http://home.tiscali.nl/stylusphant/indexdutch.html, excellentdutch@hotmail.com or call 06 3612 2870.

HEALTH & WELLNESS ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE Call for free try-out lesson: 624 3015. Check www.atworks.nl. TAROT & COUNSELING Astarte is een kleine praktijk voor Tarot en Counseling in het centrum van A’dam. Kijk voor meer informatie op www.praktijkastarte.nl. THINKING ABOUT THERAPY? Heighten your quality of life and improve your relationships with the help of a native English-speaking therapist. My 20 yrs of professional experience and understanding can help you better cope with feelings and sort through stressful thoughts. Contact Sagar 06 4626 5412.

YOGACAFE.ORG New yoga beginners course starts 7 June. For more information about the course and other weekly on-going classes, ESCORT SERVICEMake top please visit www.yogacafe.org €€ and work with us. Nice or send email to info@yogalooking young men and womcafe.org. en from 18 to 25 yrs (straight, bi or gay) needed for new HEALINGFor stress-release escort service in A’dam. All and deep relaxation, with Ajit inquires discrete and confi- Kaur Sandhu, a highly expedential. Call Cameron at 06 rienced healer and reiki mas2713 5005 for appointment. ter. Also gives reiki and MagPhoto is optional for inter- nified Healing courses. For more information call 679 view. 8753 or 06 2214 3030. Email BUSINESS ADVICEAre you ajit@acornconsultancy.nl. thinking about starting your own business? Do you have CORPORATE YOGA For a company but administra- stress-relief, improved tion and papers are not your breathing technique and thing? Do you need a business relaxation in the workplace. plan, labour from abroad, to Highly-qualified and experibuy real estate or moving enced Hatha Yoga teacher abroad? Call Tulipany for and breathing (adem) theradvice on 06 10218271, email apist. For info go to info@tulipany.nl or go to www.acornconsultancy.nl or call 679 8753 or 06 2214 3030. www.tulipany.nl!

boats and canal houses. Very experienced and reliable. VIETNAMESE MASSAGE Free estimates. Please call Treat yourself to a moment 06 2324 5957. of complete relaxation and let our therapists pamper you NEED A HAND? Well-travwith traditional Vietnamese elled, versatile and reliable massage. Also weekends and handyman offers manual evenings. www.chine- assistance with moving house, seacupunctuurpraktijk.nl. construction, landscaping, decorating etc. €11/hr. Jack: TANTRA MASSAGETantric 06 1410 3234. massage is a sacred sensual massage created to arouse, PAINTING/FLOORINGYou circulate and increase sexu- buy the materials and I’ll do al energy throughout your the work! Realistically good entire body. www.whitelo- prices, clean and fast work! tuseast.com. Select ‘God- Call 06 4514 1329 or email desses Europe’ Amsterdam. lasherio@hotmmail.com. Contact Shanti on COMPUTERS Shanti.TantraCoach@gmail. com/06 4277 3290. PC HOUSE DOCTOR Spe1ST-TIME MASSEURLook- cialised in virus/spyware ing to make some extra spend- removal, h/w, s/w repair, data ing money. Haven’t massaged recovery, wireless, cable/ much but if interested I was ADSL installation and comthinking€20/hr? You provide puter lessons from friendly place. I am 22 y.o. male. If and experienced Microsoft interested email amster- professional for reasonable price. Contact Mario 06 1644 damkrant@yahoo.com. 8230.

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INTENSIVE DUTCH COURSES. Do you really want to learn Dutch? Follow an intensive course at Joost Weet Het! Fun classes and emphasis on conversation. Prepare your exams here. Classes 4x4 hours p/wk. 3,4 and 8 weeks courses. Visit http:// www.joostweethet.nl or email info@joostweethet.nl or call setting up programs, MS http://access-nl.org. More 420 8146. Word, QuarkXpress, etc. Help courses coming to help expats with purchasing the right enjoy their stay here. PERSONALS MAC. Contact Sagar at 779 ACTING SUMMER CAMP! PLATONIC PASSIONForty1926. C. C. Courtney, considered something man in by many to be the best act- andropause seeking womCOURSES ing Meisner teacher in the an in menopause for wild YOGA HOME CLASSESPri- world, will be teaching a platonic passion. At last an vate lessons adapted to your course in Mallorca in July. honest ad! Find a man who needs, injuries, imbalances. Mr. Courtney was trained by admits he is impotent even Certified teacher with 17 yrs Sanford Meisner himself, first before the first date! Write experience. Prices for as an actor and then a teach- to platonicloverman@ series/flexible rates. Call Jen er. Contact www.cccourt- gmail.com. at 668 4239. ney.com or Fernando fborre23 Y.O. AMERICAN MALE IYENGAR YOGA CLASSES da@yahoo.es. looking for Dutch girl. Poor with certified Iyengar yoga WANNA LEARN TO SING? but rich with love . Athletic teacher Cristina Libanori, American vocal coach tak- body I guess. 5’10’. Um, don’t Tues 19.30-21.00 at Training ing students now. €25/hr. be shy. Email amsterCentrum, Europaplein 127 Amateur to professionals wel- damvos@walla.com. near RAI. Tram 4 (stop Din- come. Brandon: 030 238 0988. BI GUY SEEKS BI OR telstraat).€10/class; with 10STRAIGHTNice English guy, LANGUAGES card yoga strippenkaart €9/class. Indiv therapeutic FIRST STEPS IN DUTCH mid 40’s, looking for Bi or classes arranged by appt at Enroll in very special 2-wk straight guy who just wants to €20/hr. cristina@the-wheel- summer course everyday receive a nice uncomplicated BJ once in a while. Disof-yoga.com/773 5307. Dutch for beginners. Lively cretion assured and expected. course in heart of A’dam with BIKINI BOOTCAMP biinamsterdam@gmail.com. ACCESS Fitness offers you a opportunity to practice a lot. LADIES Intimate fun for www.glossa.nl. 6-wk course to get in great ladies. All ages. Call 06 2324 shape for summer. Work close- DUTCH LESSONS A'DAM 5957. ly with Program Leader from Improve conversation/prowww.ariavitale.nl. Take fessional purpose/stud- LOOKING FOR GIRLadvantage of our special offer ies/NT2. Also online. Min FRIEND Hi ladies. Here is now. For more info, pls call individual rate€15/hr. Adults male, 33, in A’dam looking 423 3217 or check & children. Also intensive for nice girlfriend. Age does

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ANNOUNCEMENTS BOOK PRESENTATION by Fabio Testini on 7 June at 17.30 in Libreria Bonardi bookstore on Entrepotdok 26. ‘Una Questione di Formalità’ is a book that embroiders ordinary stories and tangible poetry. Grazie! ANTON MARTINEAU Gevraagd: groot erotisch schilderij van Anton Martineau. Hoe groter hoe mooier. Maximaal €1800. Ook gevraagd groot werk van Walter van Oel. Maximaal€1000. 06 4623 6158 of adelaer@hotmail.com. INVITATION in the Research: Diagnosed and living with rheumatoid arthritis! Are youbetween 20-50? Do you speak English? Then you have opportunity to participate in research conducted at the UvA. 1.5 hour interview. Please contact ninuca26@yahoo.com. Thank you! SOCIAL EXPLOSIONSWould you fall for me? Thurs 7 June at 15.00 in Beeldentuin/Westerpark/Haarlemmerweg 8-10, A’dam. Look for the crane and explode with me. You would be a great help in my project (video film). Lollipops and other sweet stuff for everyone! socialexplosions@ gmail.com/Barbara. CIRCLE OF JUST BEING We are all in the same slowly sinking boat and we should learn to laud and applaud the supreme courage of each conscious mind as it incurs existence only to encounter its own extinction. Contact perpetualpond@yahoo.com.