Dance

• The Holland Dance Festival in the Hague from 26 January to 26 February, will be premiering various productions from Dutch choreographers. One of which will be the follow-up by Conny Janssen Danst to 'Ruis', a raw, fearless and yet disarming work created in 2009 by Janssen and nine dance students from Codarts/Rotterdamse Dansacademie. 'Meer Ruis', with ten young, assertive, dancers, will be premiered at Korzo Den Haag on 24 February and will then tour the Netherlands and Switzerland.Both companies of the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) will be presenting premieres at the Lucent Danstheater in The Hague during the Holland Dance Festival. NDT 1’s programme 'Traces' includes two world premieres with new work from Crystal Pite and Marco Goecke, complemented by 'Double You' (1994) by Jiří Kylián. The premiere will be followed by a national tour. NDT 2’s programme Offspring will be opening on 24 February with two world premieres and one existing work as well. The premieres are from two associate choreographers of the Nederlands Dans Theater, Johan Inger and Alexander Ekman, and they are complemented by 'Offspring' (2009) from Lukáš Timulak.Not a world premiere, but a European premiere nonetheless, is 'Screaming Object' from puppeteer/dancer Dudu Paiva, from 17 February at the Holland Dance Festival. Screaming Object is the result of a collaboration between Paiva and Maurício Oliveira. They both began in theatre in Brazil, leaving their country to develop further in Europe, and for Paiva, that was largely in the Netherlands. They met each other again in a studio in São Paulo in April 2011 and they used their experiences to create ‘a living sculpture that can adopt unpredictable forms’.

• Het Nationale Ballet will be celebrating its fiftieth season by holding its own festival in the Amsterdamse Muziektheater from 15 February to 3 March. With the title 'Present/s', the company will present the world premiere of two programmes of new work specially commissioned for the occasion. As much attention is being spent on international choreographers like Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon and David Dawson, former permanent choreographer to the company, as the current house choreographers (Hans van Manen, Krzysztof Pastor and artistic director Ted Brandsen). Three other choreographers who have not previously made work for Het Nationale Ballet, Paul Lightfoot and Sol León, the Nederlands Dans Theater’s choreographic duo, and Ton Simons, formerly artistic director of Dance Works Rotterdam, have also been invited to take part. 

• The other dance company celebrating an anniversary, Introdans, is putting together a poetic retrospective with highpoints from its repertoire. The programme is called 'Hemels' and will include work like 'Fünf Gedichte' from Nils Christie, a hushed ode on the transition from life to death; 'Messiah', from Ed Wubbe, in praise of Handel’s oratorium; 'and Paradise?' in which Gisela Rocha traces a fragmentary world in which the dancers even sing and tapdance. The premiere is on 10 February in Apeldoorn.
  The new programme for young people from Introdans voor de Jeugd, 'MenEERvanmanen' will be premiered in Arnhem on 3 March and will be setting the octogenarian Hans van Manen in the limelight with three of his works, 'Sticky Piece', 'Black Cake' and 'Squares'.

• Two days after his father passed away in 2004, Jens van Daele was awarded the Swan for the most impressive dance achievement (in 'Spring' for Rogie & Company). Since then, he was hardly worked as a dancer but as a choreographer on his own raw and wild works. However, in 'AKN-056 (La plaque de mon père)', he returns to the stage in a restrained tribute to his father. The piece is about the fear for and the struggle against the fading of memories and together with the exuberant and internationally successful 'Battre le fer', a danced duel between two women, it makes for a full evening programme. The premiere is on 16 February in Arnhem, followed by a tour to the end of March.

• Ed Wubbes love of baroque music and the Scapino tradition of working with music ensembles is a promising starting point for the new production Pearl. As well as Vivaldi’s virtuoso music, the Consort and Wubbe looked for less well-known pearls from the baroque to accompany an energetic, ingenious and stylish choreography. The production will be accompanied live by the Combattimento Consort led by Jan Willem de Vriend and it will be premiered in the Rotterdamse Schouwburg on 9 February.

• In the new production, 'Hyperish', from the cross-over dance company ISH led by Marco Gerris, the performers expose the conflict between an oppressive and hurried society of adults and the identity of youth. The ISH performers take the theme of the book 'The Catcher in the Rye' by J.D. Salinger as their starting point and translate it with their own lives and ambitions, reflecting the alternation of light-heartedness and deadly earnestness to be found in the novel. The premiere is on 23 March in Amsterdam.

• Composers of film music can establish an atmosphere, evoke an emotion or build tension like no other. For Stephen Shropshire, artistic director of Noord Nederlands Dans, the relationship between music and dance is a source of inspiration and film music is the starting point for his choreographies in 'Cinematic'. Just as the composer Bernard Hermann built up the tension in Alfred Hitchcock’s films, the string and wind sections of the Noordpool Orkest under Reinout Douma bring the dance to life. The production will premiere in Groningen on 23 March.

Theatre

• Toneelgroep Amsterdam is going to be busy for the next couple of months with three big premieres:
  Ivo van Hove’s production 'Husbands' will be premiered on 28 February in the Théâtre National de Bretagne in Rennes, France. It will then travel through Europe, taking in Berlin, Lisbon and Modena before enjoying its Dutch premiere in Amsterdam on the 18 April. Director Ivo van Hove’s previous productions, 'Opening Night' and 'Koppen' [Faces] have already proven that he can make theatre in its purest from Cassavetes’ films. The translation has once again been written by Gerardjan Rijnders.
  Molière’s 'Tartuffe' has been substantially adapted by Dimiter Gotscheff and it is a sharp, dark satire of today’s society. It will open in NTGent’s theatre in Belgium on 3 March and the Dutch premiere is in Amsterdam on 22 March.
  'Na de zondeval' [After the Fall], based on the text by Arthur Miller, is Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s third premiere and it will be opening in Amsterdam on 4 March. It is the first main stage production for the company by young director Eric de Vroedt and it concentrates on the question whether the main character Quentin (Fedja van Huet) has lived with integrity and if, with the knowledge of his mistakes, he can begin again.

• Jeroen Willems and Marleen Scholten interpret the roles of a man and woman who are on the road with a band in 'Flow My Tears' from Wunderbaum and de Veenfabriek. The music from the 16th century composer John Dowland is the starting point for the production, which is directed by Paul Koek and designed by Theun Mosk. Flow My Tears was written by Annelies Verbeke, who previously wrote Rail Gourmet for Wunderbaum. The production will be premiered in the Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam on 8 February before touring nationally until the end of April.

• As early as 2004, the then very young Elien van den Hoek directed the production 'Altijd Weer', about the little man and the little woman in the weather house who can never be together because when it rains, the man has to stand outside, and when it shines, the woman. The director, winner of the Golden Cricket [Gouden Krekel] for best theatre production for young people in 2011 (for Adios, a co-production with Speeltheater Holland) is now working on a total remake for her company, 'Het Houten Huis'. The company can be seen in theatre studios throughout the country from 12 February, with the actors David van Griethuysen and Marica Bujaki and a live soundscape from Martin Franke, winner of the Silver Cricket [Zilveren Krekel] for his achievements as a live musician in various Van den Hoek productions.

• The man known for his long and absurd titles, Jetse Batelaan, is directing a new production with the short and resonant title 'Wij zijn blij' [We Are Happy] for the Ro Theater, where he is one of the three directors. Wij zijn blij is a production that sings the praises of life, a celebration for everyone – although Batelaan wouldn’t be Batelaan if there wasn’t a snake in the grass. Stage and lighting design are by Theun Mosk, known for his work with and for Boukje Schweigman. Wij zijn blij can only be seen in the Rotterdam Schouwburg from 29 February to mid March.

• Jochem Stavenuiter and Paul van der Laan’s company Bambie, will be in Frascati Amsterdam with their new production 'F16' from 6 March before touring the Netherlands until mid May. In a decor of backdoors, corridors and climbable landings, the Bambies practise improvement of the masses and persecution, with or without illusions of grandeur. They play regime-tick, reformed happy families and prisoners of conscience base. Guido Kleene, known from Compagnie Dakar and involved with Lotte van den Berg’s company Omsk, is responsible for directing the last stages of the production.

• Jakop Ahlbom, well known for the international hit 'Viefalt', is collaborating with 3FM radio band Alamo Race Track to make 'Lebensraum'. The production traces a surreal world with a unique, thought provoking and sometimes grisly logic, inspired by the work of Buster Keaton in the 1920’s. A lack of space in a cramped room provokes two men into creativity, the bed doubles for a bath and the record player also works as an oven. The premiere is on 23 March in Haarlem.