Theatre Manic musical theatre

TWO WORLDS QANDY VS. JOHN

As part of her degree at HKU University of the Arts, theatremaker Quiah Shilue devised a character named John, a latemiddle-aged, charming gentleman, who always speaks his mind. For her graduation performance, Quiah wrote and performed her solo Qandy: a lewd, honestas-they-come rap queen with a mouth as big as Rihanna’s forehead. In Qandy vs. John, she brings the two characters face-to-face. The performance is in English.

> 27 and 28 March, Het Huis Utrecht

hethuisutrecht.nl theaterkikker.nl

A DIFFERENT UNIVERSE CONTINUUM

The theatrical installation Continuum, created by multidisciplinary maker Johannes Bellinkx, composer Dennis van Tilburg and theatre-maker Tamar Blom, casts doubt on our fixed ideas about reality. As soon as you walk in, you leave your trusted reality behind and travel into another dimension. A white screen and a combination of elements from cinema, dance, composition, performance and light art are enough to blur the lines between what you see, hear and feel. The experience challenges you to let go of your existing reference frameworks and make room for new perspectives. Perhaps this is exactly what we need at the moment?

> 22 to 24 April, Het Huis Utrecht

hethuisutrecht.nl theaterkikker.nl

MACHINE LEARNING ANTIBODIES

In recent decades, and particularly during the past year, we are spending more and more time online. This virtual space is regulated by self-learning machines, which use human interaction to improve themselves. We are so intertwined with our technology, that we are no longer sure whether man makes the machine, or the machine makes man. This farreaching technological progress is creating a reality in which our choices are predictable, and our actions computerised. Performance-duo Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot examines the role of the human body in this frictionless world of data. How can we regain our freedom?

Theatre

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE SYZYGY

Our body is the most powerful, and yet the most vulnerable, thing that we possess. We are all, to some extent, concerned about our bodies. How do culture and media affect our self-image? And how far can we manipulate reality? In this performance, four female performers take us on a voyage through reality and fantasy, consistently returning to the ultimate question: can you see things differently?

Travel by rail

Exhibitions & Museums

PUBLICIST AND COLLECTOR ARJAN DEN BOER HAS A THING ABOUT RAILWAY POSTERS. LUCKILY FOR US, IT MEANT THAT HE COULD COMPILE THIS EXHIBITION FOR THE RAILWAY MUSEUM (SPOORWEGMUSEUM). THE EXHIBITION SHOWS HOW IMAGES WERE SUPPOSED TO SEDUCE US INTO TRAVELLING BY RAIL.

By Arjan den Boer

Posters are ordinary as well as artistic, both artful and commercial, providing a bread image of the times in which they were produced. That’s why I started collecting railway posters. As a train lover, I can also indulge my interest in art and design. I now have hundreds of them, varying from 19th-century lithographs to recent photo posters. I started exploring the background to my latest acquisitions. The designers, for example, some of them famous, but long-forgotten. I wrote about them on www.retours.eu and in railway magazines. But now it’s all come together in one big book and an exhibition in the Railway Museum, where I’ve been a tour guide for years. It has the country’s largest collection of railway posters. I was in seventh heaven ‘shopping’ in their archives for the exhibition. But I have some posters that the museum doesn’t have, so they’re on display for the first time.

FRIVOLOUS IMAGE

By 1875, we were already seeing illustrated posters for Parisian cabaret shows, featuring voluptuous women and attractive lettering. Other sectors followed suit, but it was quite some time before the conservative Dutch railways caught onto this

new trend. They were put off by the frivolous image, so posters didn’t appear in Dutch stations until relatively late. They were initially intended to entice foreign tourists into ‘Holland’. These posters, featuring windmills and traditional dress, were produced in Paris. Some of the early railway posters were actually maritime posters, advertising boat-trains with connecting ferries to England. The oldest example, designed by none less than the architect Berlage, dates from 1893. At least that’s what I thought until I discovered a poster from 1876 advertising the boat-train from Vlissingen to Queensborough in the Zeeland archive. A massive full-colour poster like this was unheard of. A newspaper wrote that ‘As far as we know, this is the first work of art of this size to be made in the Netherlands’. This poster is in the exhibition. In 1913, Willy Sluiter produced the first ‘modern’ railway posters, which resembled cartoons. He was known as a ‘gentlemanartist’, who portrayed both simple fishermen and fashionable townies with a healthy dose of humour. One of Sluiter’s designs shows a posh couple advertising direct trains to the French Rivièra. On a poster advertising a new fast-train to Cologne, Sluiter did not reveal the destination or the mode of transport, but just showed a loved-up couple on the platform, with a porter looking on tenderly.

SPEED AND POWER

The most famous and valuable railway posters were produced around 1930 by the Frenchman A.M. Cassandre, who expertly captured the speed and power of this modern mode of transport. His poster for the Étoile du Nord between Paris and Amsterdam depicts an interplay of lines below the North Star, which the train was named after. Cassandre’s posters were an inspiration to fellow-designers, including Dutch designers. My personal post-war favourites are the posters made for the Trans Europ Express (TEE). In 1957, the European railway companies jointly challenged the competition from the

Exhibitions & Museums

up-and-coming airlines by showing off their luxurious, ultra-modern trains. The Utrecht artist Jan Rodrigo produced a colourful TEE poster featuring flags on the roof of a train. This poster was produced in several European languages. The railways decided to pimp their stuffy image around 1970. The colour of NS trains changed to bright yellow, and ‘new blood’ in the shape of Anthon Beeke and Swip Stolk was brought in for the launch of the Intercity. Their task was: ‘To swiftly remould the oldfashioned, boring image of the NS into a forward-thinking, modern, efficient service provider.’ Their poster showed a train of human heads, enhanced with a Hondekop (dog’s head) and an Apekop (monkey’s head) – nicknames for trains. After 1980, most of the posters were photo posters, which lacked the eloquence of the designer-made posters. However, some of them stand out for their styling. Fashion designer and photographer Wendelien Daan took an elegant photo of a model as a Thalys hostess. Her hair was stylishly blown back on this Paris-bound high-speed train, which ran from 1996 onwards. The newest poster in the exhibition shows a girl with a face covering, encouraging people back onto the trains after the COVID-19 pandemic. But are the days of printed railway posters numbered? Are they being replaced by digital advertising pillars at stations, and online campaigns? The sad fact may be that these 150 railway posters are the end of the line.

> Until 5 September, the Railway Museum

spoorwegmuseum.nl/en

BLACK BEAUTY VOICES OF FASHION

For decades, fashion has been presented, worn and collected from a white perspective. Fashion curator Ninke Bloemberg and co-curator and founder of Diversity Rules Janice Deul are exploring the impact that black designers have had on the world of fashion, and on what is widely considered to be fashionable. Deul’s platform Diversity Rules promotes an inclusive fashion landscape. ‘People often say that black people are the ‘Curators of Cool’, but this is never acknowledged or recognised in the circles that matter. This is all down to power and history. This exhibition is a celebration of black beauty, talent and culture, which will hopefully make people think, and finally earn the models and designers the credit that they deserve’, says Janice Deul.

> from 13 February, Centraal Museum centraalmuseum.nl

STRICTLY SECRET SSSHHHH...

The performances, videos, TV shows, installations, sculptures and experiences created by Tonnie Heijdra are rooted in her curiosity about secrets and façades. About the things that people go to so much trouble to hide: from a safe behind a painting, to the unwritten codes of social interaction. Using stereotypes, expectations and humour, she portrays absurdist versions her surroundings, in which everyone is invited to take part and where secrets are almost revealed.

> 10 March to 2 April, EXboot

exboot.nl

Exhibitions & Museums

AN ARTY AFTERNOON WALK

If all the museums and galleries are still closed, never fear: you can still get your shot of art. Museumtv.nl came up with a great idea: going for a walk past museums. In Oost district, for example, where you pass the world-famous RietveldSchröderhuis on Prins Hendriklaan. The Utrecht furniture maker Gerrit Rietveld designed this architectural highlight of

De Stijl art movement in 1924. Note the smooth transitions from inside to outside, the sleek horizontal and vertical lines and his typical use of primary colours in combination with white, grey and black. Castellum Hoge Woerd in Leidsche Rijn is another good tip. It’s a modern renovation of the Roman fort that stood here between 40 and 400 AD. The walls of the fort, the roads you walk along, the bathhouse, the river course are all in exactly the same place, and are exactly the same size, as the originals. Outdoor art initiative EXtuin was thought up by the people behind EXbunker and EXboot. They asked dozens of artists to exhibit their work in Utrecht front gardens along popular walks. Perfect for an arty, COVID-proof afternoon walk!