Amsterdam Weekly: Vol 4 Issue 8, 22-28 February 2007

Volume 4, Issue 8

FREE EVERY WEDNESDAY

WEEKOF 22 FEBRUARY TO 28 FEBRUARY 2007 Inside: Music, Film, Art and Events

GET INTO THE ACT AT DE BAARSJES’ SHINY NEW CENTRE PAGE 6-8

NDSM FESTIVALS UP IN SMOKE? PAGE 4 FUCK YOU! ARE YOU OFFENDED? PAGE 4 / FANCY A PRICK AT PRIK? PAGE 5 WAY OUT IN LFTFLD PAGE 11 / FOODOLOGY,NOT A SCIENCE PAGE 15

22-28 February 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

ATTACHMENTS Contents: On the cover Stage students wait to shine.

Photo by Lard Buurman.

Features NDSM safety . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Fuck you . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Hepatitis jab at PRIK. . . . . 5 Het Sieraad . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Going out Short List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 LFTFLD is three . . . . . . . . 13 Clubs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Gay & Lesbian . . . . . . . . . . 16 Stage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Lekker Bezig . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Foodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Film. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Notes on a Scandal. . . . . . 23 Film Times. . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Plus The Glutton . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Life in Hell . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Eefje Wentelteefje . . . . . . 27

Amsterdam Weekly is a free cultural paper distributed every Wednesday in Amsterdam. Paid subscriptions are available on request. For details, write to info@amsterdamweekly.nl. Contents of Amsterdam Weekly are copyright 2007 Amsterdam Weekly BV. All rights reserved.

Winner of 3 European Newspaper Awards Amsterdam Weekly BV De Ruyterkade 106, 1011 AB Amsterdam Tel: 020 522 5200 Fax: 020 620 1666 www.amsterdamweekly.nl General info: info@amsterdamweekly.nl Agenda listings: agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl Advertising: sales@amsterdamweekly.nl PUBLISHER Todd Savage EDITOR Steve Korver ASSISTANT EDITOR Kim Renfrew AGENDA EDITOR Steven McCarron FILM EDITOR Julie Phillips PROOFREADER Karina Hof EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Sarah Gehrke ART DIRECTOR Bas Morsch PRODUCTION MANAGER Vela Arbutina PRODUCTION DESIGNERS Mattijs Arts, Rogier Charles SALES ASSOCIATES Haitske van Asten, Alexander Gan, Simone Klomp, Simon Poole, Carolina Salazar OPERATIONS MANAGER Monique Gruter OPERATIONS ASSISTANT Desislava Pentcheva DISTRIBUTION COORDINATOR Patrick van der Klugt DISTRIBUTION/MARKETING INTERN Heini Suokari FINANCIAL ADVISER Kurt Schmidt, Veresis Consulting PRINTER Het Volk Printing ISSN 1872-3268 THIS WEEK’S CONTRIBUTORS Willem de Blaauw, Anuschka Blommers, Lard Buurman, Floris Dogterom, Angela Dress, Marc Driessen, Matt Groening, Karina Hof, Nanna Koekoek, Jeroen de Leijer, Nick Leslie, Kim Renfrew, Jaro Renout, Shain Shapiro, Steve Schneider, Niels Schumm, Simon Wald-Lasowski and Mark Wedin.

12 COVERED BUILDINGS by Arnoud Holleman

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Amsterdam Weekly

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22-28 February 2007

AROUND TOWN Polite line—do not cross Is it still possible to offend the cops?

MARC DRIESSEN

By Jaro Renout

Festivals up in smoke?

Can fire inspections shut down the NDSM?

By Mark Wedin For years, the NDSM Docklandshal was a huge venue for artists, performers and events, with a 6,000-visitor capacity that was regularly filled. Earlier this month however, fire inspectors showed up and declared the building unsafe for large crowds, prohibiting any event with more than 500 visitors until the necessary safety investments can be made—with possible costs estimated at up to six million euros.

A shock to everyone involved, Stadsdeel Noord and Stichting Kinetisch Noord—the folks who initiated the NDSM transformation and who organise everything there today—are now in meetings to determine what to do. Some fear that they may have to cancel the majority of events and wait years for repairs. Others fear the worst: sell the building out to corporate sponsorship. Egad! Please say it’s not true.

‘Well, probably not.’

Ah, thank you. ‘Although, we may have to tear the building down in one or two years.’ Aaahrghhh!

Brigitte van den Berg of Stadsdeel

Noord is generally calm about the matter.

She says that many of the details still have to be worked out. ‘We’ve already planned lots of big festivals and parties there for this year. And of course, we don’t want to disappoint the many venues that have booked events.’

‘The thing is,’ she continues, ‘one and a half years ago, the fire brigade told us to invest in the hall and make changes to make it safe. They said that until we made those changes, they would regularly advise us on what to do. But now, since we haven’t made those changes, they said they have to shut us down. You must remember it’s not a hall which was built for big events and concerts.’

She could not, however, share the details regarding what actually makes the building unsafe. ‘That’s difficult. The fire inspectors have written reports for us, but we haven’t decided how we want to react to them. So we are not showing them to the press at the moment. But it’s technical things, like sprinklers and exits.’

Lex Brans, director of Stichting Kinetisch Noord, is a bit more willing to share. ‘The rules say that people must be able to leave the building within one minute,’ he explains. ‘So in our space, the distance to the emergency doors is too far.

And if the hall is filled with smoke, then you can’t see where you’re going. But we want them to think of a different approach to the problem. The roof is fifteen metres high. It takes thirty minutes until there’s enough smoke to block the vision. We say that’s enough time to get out.’

But they must now wait to see if the fire department agrees with their numbers. ‘Of course, I’m very interested in the

Waiting for the (fire)man.

fire inspector’s calculations. I don’t want to take the responsibility for six thousand people who can’t breathe in my building.

But the fire inspectors say it will take weeks before they can look into this. I don’t know why it takes so long,’ he smiles. ‘We did the calculations in three days.’

Often amiable, Brans maintains a positive attitude and a philosophical stance.

‘We always learn new things about safety.

That’s why the car seat belt was invented.

But in the Netherlands, it’s becoming a luxury problem. We think we can live in one hundred per cent safety. Well, if that’s the case, we have to close down the Amsterdam ring—there’s accidents there all the time.’

If the original recommendations maintain their costly mandate, his group, made up of artists, theatre people, architects and skaters, won’t be able to continue as they are. ‘If that happens,’ says Brans, ‘we will go down. But we think there are cheaper solutions possible. You must not say that rules are rules. Yes, we have to be safe. But it’s a big empty hall with nothing to burn.’

As for the word on the street, some believe that this entire episode is not primarily about safety, but merely another dirty attempt by the government to kick out culture and bring in big business.

According to Brans, this is ‘absolutely the contrary.’ He explains: ‘Rob Post, the stadsdeelvoorzitter, said that one of the major things he wants to stay are the big events organised by Stichting Kinetisch.

I’m happy with that.’

On 2 November 2006, something utterly meaningless happened in Lelystad. But this being the Netherlands, the whole thing got blown out of proportion immediately. These are the facts: an angry resident of Almere, 30-year-old ‘SJ’ was involved in an altercation with Lelystad police officers, and used the words ‘fuck you!’ (in English) to express his ambivalent feelings towards them. The constabulary were not amused. He was arrested. However, in January, the judge assigned to the case, while stating that he found the incident ‘not very nice’, nevertheless acquitted the angry Almeerder of a €300 fine for offending a public servant while on duty.

Of course, the importance of this ruling was acknowledged straight away by Minister of Justice Ernst Hirsch Ballin.

He jumped onto the barricades to protect his law enforcers, announcing that he’d be willing (and able) to change the law if necessary. He almost certainly sensed that the precedent set in the Lelystad court case could mean the end of civilisation as we know it. But meanwhile, everyone awaits with bated breath the decision of the High Court.

Back in Amsterdam, one couldn’t help but wonder how sensitive the hardboiled (and, let’s not forget, often polyglot) Mokum cop would be to verbal abuse in the English tongue. There was only one way to find out... A street test.

Initially, this led to a few bumps in the road. First of all, the desire to go to jail miraculously left me around the time I turned 21. Secondly there’s much less blue on the beat than you’d imagine, and finally, abusing a policeman isn’t as easy as it sounds. My first few feeble attempts were greeted with looks that hovered between indifference and pity.

Around the Warmoestraat district— an area labelled as ‘high risk’—a sturdy but frank policeman is asked the more politely formulated question: ‘what happens if I say “fuck you” to your face?’ His reaction was pretty cool. ‘That depends. I can’t go around picking up everybody with a dirty mouth. There’s always some animosity in the air here, so you’re bound to get insulted in numerous languages. It’s like water off a duck’s back in many cases.’

That explains the sullen faces of the previously insulted law enforcers. So how bad can it get for a cop on the beat? ‘“Fuck you” is pretty mild compared to other expressions we’ve heard,’ says the policeman. ‘I personally draw the line at “kankerlijer” [“cancer victim”]. If you say that word, you’re coming with me to

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

I like it when you talk dirty to me.

A prick from PRIK A nice relaxing night out with a jab against hepatitis B. ‘You will always find me in the kitchen at parties...’ that’s how the lyrics to Jona Lewie’s song go and, well, I am in the kitchen. But I’m not at a party—I’m at a bar. In fact I’m in a little corner of café PRIK’s kitchen, where a male nurse is giving free hepatitis B jabs to anyone interested.

It’s not as weird as it sounds. In fact it’s quite sensible: hepatitis B is an STD, and a very contagious one at that. It can seriously affect and damage health, notably the liver. All the more reason to get a series of three hep B vaccinations.

Once done, you’re vaccinated for life. Of course, you can get a free jab at a GGD municipal health centre, but to make it even easier the GGD and Schorer—the health and information organisation for gays and lesbians—decided to take preventative measures and seek out the target group: men who have sex with men.

Ingo Lösch from GGD, explains: ‘Last year, a survey among men who got hepatitis B showed that many knew about the fact that you can get a free jab at a GGD clinic, but a lot found it too much of a hassle or too embarrassing to actually make an appointment and go to the GGD. That’s why GGD and Schorer came up with the idea to go and vaccinate in bars and other places, to make it more relaxed.’

He continues: ‘You can already get a free jab every second Sunday of the month at the Thermos Day Sauna. To extend this service we decided to have this special “Haal je prik in DE PRIK” night. Tonight, during the three hours of

MARC DRIESSEN

By Willem de Blaauw

NANNA KOEKOEK

think about your sins for a few hours.

Also, remember that we are allowed to use a little more force in this district than in most Amsterdam areas. I consider that enough punishment, the judge has better things to do.’ Well, not in Lelystad, obviously.

Asking around a few officers of the law, and an array of swear words that are regularly hurled bubble to the surface.

‘Tyfushond’, ‘Nazi’, ‘klootzak’ and, inevitably, ‘homo’. Women in uniform, meanwhile are ‘bitches’ and ‘kutwijven’.

‘Kankerlijer’ scores high in worst insult categories, up there with Third Reich associations. And you’ll definitely get to see the inside of a police cell if you refer to the good constable as ‘Hitler’.

Two slightly mature-looking officers have never heard anything beyond ‘kut smeris’, which isn’t really considered that bad. Then again, their beat was in the heart of the grachtengordel and not the Red Light District.

‘It’s not the swearing I worry about,’ says a gawky-looking law enforcer. ‘It’s the use of physical violence directed against us that bothers me.’

For better or for worse, swearing seems to be an integral part of our society, and our mothers trained most of us to look out more for sticks and stones than the occasional ‘motherfucker’ thrown at your face. And this seems to be the consensus among the boys and girls in blue, even when the line is blatantly crossed.

Everybody remembers Theo van Gogh using the term geiteneuker—‘goat fucker’—to refer to Muslims. His killer Mohammed Bouyeri didn’t forget to mention that in his statement, but he was also quick to add that the general insult had nothing to do with his motives behind the killing. Meanwhile, lawyer for the rich and dubious Bram Moszkowicz just lost the case he started against editor of Quote magazine, Jort Kelder, for calling him a ‘mafia buddy’.

So from where we stand it appears it’s still pretty much legal to say to someone: ‘Fuck you, mob-related goat fucker!’ In Amsterdam, anyway...

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our campaign there were about ten guys who decided to get a hepatitis B vaccination. That’s quite a good result. Right now, about fifty per cent of the gay men in Amsterdam are vaccinated and we’d like to see that number increased’ Of course, like any STD, hepatitis B doesn’t discriminate, so everyone who has casual sex is at risk, whether straight, bisexual or gay. But this evening’s campaign is aimed at men who have sex with men, whether they call themselves gay or bi. Just like advertising, each target group needs its own campaign.

‘It’s not a new idea to go to places where men meet men to vaccinate,’ says Lösch. ‘It happens already in other cities in the Netherlands and in some neighbouring countries. Some time ago it was even possible to get a free full STD test done in Thermos. We would like to widen the hepatitis B campaign even further and go to big parties and clubs to vaccinate. We are in the middle of organising this, talking to club owners and so on, but not every location is suitable. We need to have a quiet and hygienic area to give the jabs, like here at the kitchen in PRIK.’

A kitchen sink special.

You always read about not mixing medication with alcohol, let alone other drugs, so isn’t it dangerous to get a jab at a bar or a club when—at best—you’ve had a few?

Lösch says: ‘If you’ve had one or two beers there’s no danger at all. But it’s true, we always judge the person who wants the jab to see if he’s fit to get one.

When we hesitate, or if it’s clear they’re too far gone whether on alcohol or drugs, we refer them to the GGD to make an appointment at a later stage.’

To get vaccinated against hepatitis you need three jabs. The second injection comes a month after the initial one and the third and final one six months later. For these follow-up jabs you do need to go to a GGD clinic. Lösch explains: ‘To make it easy, we have set up an online appointment system so it’s not too much work to make these two important follow-up appointments.’ www.homohep.nl www.ggd.amsterdam.nl/geslachtziekten/HIV/SOA

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22-28 February 2007

THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN or a moment it looked like Het VoorBeeld had never ceased to exist. On the forecourt of Het Sieraad in De Baarsjes, percussionists rattled away, while stiltwalkers in fancy costumes elegantly moved about in the freezing cold. That sort of activity wasn’t an uncommon sight in the days when the slightly chaotic artist community Het VoorBeeld—meaning ‘the example’—populated the impressive Amsterdam School building at Postjesweg. But those days are over, and it remains to be seen whether the spirit of Het VoorBeeld will manifest itself in Het Sieraad.

Eighty years ago, Het Sieraad was built as the 4e Ambachtsschool, a technical college where—only—boys were trained to be carpenters, blacksmiths and electricians. Some of the sculptures on the outside of the building, made by Hildo Krop, refer to the trades the pupils were about to follow. Some 20 years after the opening, World War II left its scars on the school. Its four Jewish students had to leave. Of all the 123 Jewish students across the four technical schools that made up the Maatschappij voor den Werkenden Stand—the society for the working class—almost none survived the German extermination camps. To commemorate them, in 1991 a small monument was made, which can now be seen at the Amsterdams Historisch Museum.

At the end of the 1980s, after a few name changes the school became the Vakschool Edelsmeden Amsterdam, or ‘technical school for gold- and silversmiths’, which is why many local residents still refer to the building as the edelsmedenschool. This period still lives

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Cultural centre Het Sieraad—former home to Het VoorBeeld—in De Baarsjes was reformulated as a glistening focus for artists and creative types. But what about the community around it?

BY FLORIS DOGTEROM PHOTOS BY LARD BUURMAN, AERIAL BY MIRANDE PHERNAMBUCQ

on in the new name: Het Sieraad means ‘the jewel’.

The last school left the building in 2003—for the time being. Housing corporation and owner Ymere was looking for a new purpose for the premises, which needed a thorough renovation. To prevent the building from vacancy and nosy squatters, Stadsdeel De Baarsjes was asked to come up with a solution for temporary use, until renovation could kick off. That two-and-a-half year period became known as ‘Het VoorBeeld’. At very low prices, artists—professionals as well as amateurs—could rent space to work in. The building became an accessible, vibrant place, with art fairs, parties and social activities aimed at the whole neighbourhood. In March 2005 it came to a definitive halt; a tiny delegation of Het VoorBeeld crossed Postjesweg to the new art centre Meneer de Wit, and Het VoorBeeld became Het Sieraad.

Light atrium, gloomy basement On Friday 9 February, after having negotiated the stilt-walkers, the press is awaited by representatives of De Baarsjes and Ymere. On behalf of the latter, property developer Kees Krul gives a tour of the building. He goes straight to the atrium.

It’s an amazing space. Greyish winter light floods through the enormous glass roof. What a difference compared to the former courtyard, which was occupied by a truly monstrous gym and auditorium.

The basement is a whole other story, hardly looking different from the workshops that arty VoorBeeld types used to work in. The basement is again designated as an artistic broedplaats, or ‘breeding ground’, and the registration procedure for art collectives that want to rent the place has started. Krul declares: ‘Spaces have been kept bare, but at fifty-five euros per square metre per year, the rent will be low.’

Shine on you crazy diamond.

He advances to the first floor, where the students of the Frank Sanders’ Akademie voor Musicaltheater are sweating it out. A pretty sight—but not half as pretty as the garbage bins: move your hand over them and they open up automatically. Another nice feature is the lighting: square fittings hang from the ceilings of the long corridors, which follow the pentagonal outline of the building; the lamps disperse white light.

At every corner, three similar fittings have been mounted on the wall, whose bulbs give out red light. The lamps are not unlike classic designs from the 1930s.

On the second floor, the ROC van Amsterdam has its classrooms. An important part of its activities is adult education—new Nederlanders can learn the language here. On the ‘coffee balcony’ that sticks out of the wall into the atrium, Krul jumps up and down. The floor is wobbling. ‘No worries.’ says Krul. ‘It’s safe. It can hold three hundred kilos per square metre.’

Inspired Aboutaleb Back in the atrium, the opening ceremony commences. After two dutiful speeches by the presidents of Ymere and the ROC van Amsterdam respectively, Amsterdam’s alderman for education Ahmed Aboutaleb takes the stage. By the time this paper is published, he may already have moved to Den Haag to become the first ever Dutch vice-minister of Moroccan descent in history. If judged on only this speech, Amsterdam will lose an inspired politician

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

and motivator. ‘This building is an ode to the Amsterdam giants, whose intention it was to create beautiful things,’ he says. ‘It’s my opinion that Amsterdam has to think big again in every field: construction, dealing with unemployment and so on.

Amsterdam will receive a large chunk of the one-and-a-half billion euro for urban renewal. Let’s use that for construction projects, but also for the development of human capital. Why do I hear these stories of asylum seekers successfully integrating in British society, while at the same time, over here, we put them in refugee centres, only to see them come out six years later as certifiable cases?’ Aboutaleb receives a roar of applause.

His colleague from De Baarsjes, alderman Ab Cherribi, concludes the official part by saying: ‘We give the building back to the city. I am sure that the atrium will become the village green of De Baarsjes— even of the whole city.’ That claim seems questionable, given the fact that Het Sieraad is a rather inward-looking building with a small entrance, hidden behind trees. And once inside, the direct route to that dorpsplein is closed. In response to such criticism, Cherribi says: ‘In the future, the building has to open up. And it will, certainly when the restaurant opens.’

Tarzan Local resident Jan van Erve likes the renovated building, although he doesn’t know if he will make use of it. Seventy-one-yearold Van Erve has been invited to the opening in his role as member of the Ouderen Adviesraad De Baarsjes, an advisory body for elderly people in the area.

Around 1950 he studied to be a blacksmith at 4e Ambachtsschool. ‘It was a great time,’ he recalls. ‘The teachers were very nice, but one of them I liked the most. We called him “Tarzan”. The school was my second home. In a family of thirteen kids I didn’t receive much attention. Here, I did.”

And so will Mrs J Raadschelders and Soumaya el Bacha. At the ROC van Amsterdam, Dutch-as-a-second-language teacher Raadschelders instructs educated people who have just arrived in the country. She says she really likes the building. ‘You feel good in it. It’s not some worn-out school building. The only things I am less enthusiastic about are the teachers’ room and the coffee balconies.

They’re too small.’

El Bacha is studying to be a make-up artist. This new department of ROC van Amsterdam will move in next month. Sitting in the classroom full of dressing-room mirrors surrounded by light bulbs, El Bacha says this is the first time she has seen the building. ‘It’s impressive, spacey. My own classroom looks professional: it’s like being in the make-up room of a theatre, where the show can start any moment. I like it that the Frank Sanders’ Akademie is in the same building. They’re in the same business as we are.’

All in all, it seems that the intended interconnectivity, as wished for by Ymere, the stadsdeel and the tenants, certainly has a chance of success. All parties seem to share the same will and, once the restaurant and cultural events are in place, there’s a big chance the general public will also find its way to the old technical school. After all: there’s not that much else to do in De Baarsjes at present... www.het-sieraad.nl

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x-user Gerard de Bruin, artist ‘Here it was.’ In the basement, Gerard de Bruin looks through the window of the door of the studio he used to work in, together with his partner, the artist Hans Willemse. De Bruin made collages, while Willemse concentrated on sculptures made from vegetable matter. It was the days of Het VoorBeeld. ‘That period is very special to me,’ says 58-year-old De Bruin. ‘It meant my coming out as an artist. I especially liked the projects I did with others. In Het VoorBeeld I got a taste for art and later, Hans, I and a few others started a new, small broedplaats on Admiraal de Ruijterweg. Unfortunately, we had to leave that place, due to personal conflicts. Now I work at home, as does Hans.’

De Bruin knew upfront that Het VoorBeeld would be a temporary affair, but when the renovation plans were postponed time and again, he increasingly hoped he could stay. ‘Leaving made me sad,’ he says. As for Het Sieraad, he feels the mix of education, social functions and small creative companies is a good thing.

‘Although, in reality, spaces here in the basement will turn out to be too expensive for most artists. They say it’s fifty-five euro per square metre per year, but in fact you also have to pay for the corridor, which will double the price. On top of that, you’ll have to pay for heating, electricity and water. Maybe the whole thing is negotiable, but I’m not really sure about that. Apart from all that, only art collectives can apply for the basement.

I’m not part of a collective, and I don’t know how to join one.’

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Wim Jongedijk: ‘The question remains how much liveliness we are allowed here.’

Frank Sanders: ‘This is an unbelievably inspiring working environment.’

Gerard de Bruin: ‘It meant my coming out as an artist.’

ser Frank Sanders, director, performing arts school Frank Sanders, of the eponymous musical theatre academy, grew up in De Baarsjes. ‘As a kid, I came past this building many times,’ Sanders says. ‘It was dark, depressing even. So in my opinion, the architect did a hell of a job. He literally let the light in, made a spacious and open room of this atrium. This is an unbelievably inspiring working environment.’

Sanders—who himself starred in a number of musicals alongside hubbie, professional Bekende Nederlander Jos Brink—started his academy nine years ago. It became part of the ROC van Amsterdam three years later. Sanders says: ‘We don’t train dancers here, but musical actors. Students learn how to act, sing and dance. It’s an American approach, which will help the students to prolong their

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career. If you can only dance, your days are over pretty quickly. Alongside training, we also develop original Dutch musical theatre here.’

Sanders is in a hopeful mood about the predicted synergy of the building. ‘Now that the make-up school is here, we can do interesting things together. I do hope that the basement will house creative companies, like video artists and photographers.

We can use them and vice versa.’ The academy director also sees possibilities for the atrium becoming a stage for performances, ‘although the acoustics need to be worked on.’ He’s got a point—it’s not unlike an aviary.

Sanders says of alderman Ab Cherribi’s expectation that the atrium will become the new village green of De Baarsjes: ‘It might be possible. But it will take ten years or so. By that time I’ll be retired.’

x-user and user-to-be Wim Jongedijk, artist and film-maker Art collective Meneer de Wit on Witte de Withstraat—25 metres away from Het Sieraad—is not unlike its former big brother on the other side of Postjesweg, just considerably smaller.

Wim Jongedijk is one of a small group of VoorBeelders who have made a new start here. ‘That whole VoorBeeld period left me with an ambiguous feeling. I put so much energy in, hoping it could last. But when we saw Ymere’s plans for the building, we couldn’t assert our influence.

That was frustrating. Because we immediately knew that the atrium would be a monstrosity in terms of acoustics and heating.’

As artistic coordinator of Meneer de Wit, Jongedijk is still involved with his old accommodation. ‘I have the feeling that Stadsdeel De Baarsjes doesn’t really know what it wants to do with the building,’ he says. ‘They’ve asked us to brainstorm with them about staging cultural programmes there. [But] I do understand that the stadsdeel goes about cautiously; whatever happens in Het Sieraad, it needs to have quality.’

Despite his criticism of the atrium, Jongedijk does see possibilities. ‘When I walked in on the opening day, I got this feeling of attending a funeral service in an auditorium. With its pillars and the fake stained-glass window, it has something monumental about it. It would be great to organise something very lively in there.

It’s the kind of space where you should either make so much noise that you suppress the echo, or make no noise at all.

The question remains how much liveliness we are allowed here. I think that depends on the other tenants. But at night it shouldn’t be any problem.’

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Amsterdam Weekly

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22-28 February 2007

AN AMSTERDAM SCHOOL ome 80 years ago, the city of Amsterdam commissioned architect Arend Jan Westerman to build the enormous 4e Ambachtsschool. It’s a hell of a building. Look at it from the outside, with its bent facade and sculptures.

Look at it from the inside, where the newly installed glass covering has created a three-storey atrium. Or, if you own a helicopter, look at it from above to see its spectacular pentagonal outline.

‘A late example of the Amsterdam School,’ that’s how architect Eric Paardekooper Overman of OIII architecten defines the building. Housing corporation Ymere, owner of Het Sieraad, gave OIII the assignment to turn the old school into a multifunctional building that needed to be open to the neighbourhood.

Paardekooper Overman says: ‘Typical Amsterdam School elements are the horizontal lines formed by the windows, the rounded forms of the walls and the decorative elements: the Hildo Krop sculptures.

On the other hand, this is not Amsterdam School in the sense of Het Schip in Spaarndammerbuurt, by Michel de Klerk. That’s much more romantic than Het Sieraad, which shows the beginning of constructivism, a more down-to-earth approach to architecture, of which the Beurs van Berlage is a good example.’

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No pain, no gain Het Sieraad sports a number of sculptures by the highly prolific Krop, Amsterdam’s renowned stadsbeeldhouwer, city sculptor for the first half of the 20th century. He decorated many bridges and buildings throughout the city with his elegant yet austere work. The carvings on the Scheepvaarthuis, considered to be the first example of the Amsterdam School, on Prins Hendrikkade, and the statue of Berlage on Victorieplein are his. Two

An architect’s dream came true when he transformed a historical building into the contemporary gem Het Sieraad. ‘You can’t make many mistakes with a magnificent building like this.’

BY FLORIS DOGTEROM PHOTO BY LARD BUURMAN

stern, human figures, made of tuff stone, stand guard on both sides of Het Sieraad’s entrance. On the left-hand side, a female figure protrudes from stylised plants, expressing the idea of natural development, while on the right, a male figure stands amid tools and a steam engine. On top of the two figures an edifying inscription reads: Zonder moeite niets. Indeed: ‘no pain, no gain’.

In 2003, Het Sieraad became the first Rijksmonument in De Baarsjes, so Paardekooper Overman and his team knew they would have to deal with a lot of restrictions. ‘On the outside we couldn’t change a thing,’ he says. ‘We added some historically correct elements, like the castiron ornaments and fittings and the flagpoles. Furthermore, the door on the Kostverlorenvaart side was added, where the restaurant will be.’

Koffiepauze The most florid addition, however, is the huge glass covering that spans the original courtyard. Paardekooper Overman says: ‘Bureau Monumentenzorg had objections against it: it shouldn’t be too visible from a distance, so we couldn’t make it too high.’

The old walls couldn’t carry the weight of the glass, so the architects designed a number of columns to solve that issue.

The roof is highly insulating and ‘neutrally heat-resistant’, which means that the incoming heat of the sun is reduced to half its strength, preventing the building from becoming a pressure cooker during the summer. A high-tech ventilation system, consisting of windows in the sides of the roof that automatically open when the interior climate has reached a certain temperature, is also helpful.

On the inside, more things have changed. Paardekooper Overman says: ‘It was Ymere’s intention that the students and society have to be able to communicate with one another. That’s why we opened up one of the walls and made two coffee balconies there, from where you can look down into the atrium.’ Originally, there was a stained-glass window between the staircase and the courtyard, but it had been heavily damaged. Artist Niek Kemps was given the assignment to make a new work of art. It’s three storeys high and, at first sight, it looks like a stained-glass window. But it’s not: Kemp put human figures on transparent films. Looking at his ‘win-

Things are looking up. Bakkie koffie?

dow’ from the coffee balconies, people walking the stairs behind the films become part of the picture.

Unfinished symphony Paardekooper Overman states that he is ‘very happy with the end result, although there is always room for improvement. ‘He explains: ‘After all, it wasn’t a really hard job. You can’t make many mistakes with a magnificent building like this. However, the phone booths on the entrance side need to be removed immediately, as well as the bicycle racks. And we would like to see the cast-iron gate replaced, but that isn’t possible, due to De Baarsjes’ ideas about organising the public space. But there are plans to do something with the pavement, following the outline of the original gate as much as possible.’

Paardekooper Overman fully endorses Ymere’s ambition to draw more attention to the building. ‘We actually wanted to remove some of the big trees that block the view of the building, but that turned out to be a very sensitive subject, politically speaking. Now we have proposed to put spotlights on the building.

During the opening weekend, OIII architecten distributed leaflets with a photomontage of the cast-iron clock high up on the facade. It has been redesigned after the original: the elegant Amsterdam School letters around the clock read ‘SPQA’, which stands for ‘Senatus Populus Que Amsterdam’—the senate and the people of Amsterdam. Paardekooper Overman concludes: ‘The clock was ready to be made, but it turned out to be too expensive, for some reason. But it has to be put back. Without it, the building is an unfinished symphony.’

22-28 February 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

9

SHORT LIST

Hawnay Troof, Monday, OCCII

Blues: Big Joe Louis & His Blues Kings

THURSDAY 22 FEBRUARY Film: Andy Warhol Memorial It’s not very likely that the world is about to forget the geeky Pole from Pittsburgh who invented the Sixties and became famous for such aphorisms as ‘I like boring things’, but just in case, the Cavia is hosting two whole days of Warhola. It was exactly 20 years ago that Warhol died, though it wasn’t his first attempt. In 1968, Valerie Solonas, founder, spokeswoman and sole member of the Society for Cutting Up Men gunned Warhol down at the Factory. Mary Harron made these events into 1996’s excellent I Shot Andy Warhol, showing on Friday at 7 p.m. Warhol’s own films, sometimes inspiring, always influential and often utter nonsense, will also be screened, including the hilarious take on Solonas’ attempted murder, Women in Revolt, featuring the gamut of gender-bending Warhol superstars. There are other films by and about the bewigged enigma (see www.filmhuiscavia.nl for the full rundown), and it all closes off on Friday night with Your 15 Minutes of Fame, a ‘time-capsuled’ multimedia happening of projections, iPod plug-ins and unbridled celebrity with VJs Martijn von Dalen and Benjamin and DJs Bartski and Zenn. (Kim Renfrew) Cavia, various times, €4 per film. Also Friday.

FRIDAY 23 FEBRUARY Stage: Bestemming Oerol Amsterdammers can be a chauvinistic breed, since they normally don’t have to travel far for their regular dose of culture. But since the early ’80s, more and more of them have been heading north each summer to the Waddeneiland of Terschelling. That’s because of Oerol, now a 10-day-long fringe festival, rooted in the old island tradition of letting cattle out of the stable and having them graze all over the place. Currently in its 26th year, the festival attracts more than 50,000 visitors, with performances in the open air and exotic locations like farm sheds, boathouses or even derelict bunkers. In the last few years Oerol faced budgetary problems, but pressure from director Joop Mulder worked wonders. Since the organisers boast of the festival’s social dimension and its manifold manifestations of togetherness, they probably needn’t worry too much about future public funding, since ‘together’ is the nation’s new motto. Tonight, Oerol demonstrates its strong ties with Paradiso—which contributes to the music programming—by organising a party for festival regulars and those curious enough to find out what it is all about. (Peter Bartlema) Paradiso, 20.00, €15.

One of the best Chicago-style guitarists is returning to Amsterdam once again, this time at bluesy abode Maloe Melo. Big Joe Louis, born in Jamaica but musically raised in the UK, has had a lasting relationship with the Netherlands since his sophomore LP was released by a Dutch label in 1992. After putting out his debut in 1989, Big Joe caught the blues world by storm, with the LP selling out in a matter of days and prompting almost overnight success. Put simply, this man can play the blues—very well—and his skills have only intensified throughout his two-decade-long romp through the world of sullenness and sorrow. Furthermore, in 1995 he recorded a critically acclaimed live album at Paradiso, and he’s also won a slew of British Blues Awards. Hell, he’s even toured with Van Morrison and Jools Holland. Another plus is that his band are as good as their leader. Expect a mix of traditional romps and originals, amounting to one of the best nights of blues the city will experience all year.

(Shain Shapiro) Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5.

Gay & Lesbian: Club ArtLaunch Yes, yes, yes, it’s true. You’re always finding something about ArtLaunch in these pages, but that’s simply because they’re a dynamic force in Amsterdam’s otherwise sluggish gay scene, not least because they attract a refreshingly mixed crowd in an otherwise stupidly segregated sector. Like a constantly transmogrifying lava lamp, ArtLaunch reforms and reshapes with alarming regularity. The latest blob is Club ArtLaunch, which takes elements of the old nights Black Box and Electric Xchange, and merges them into one big, viscous disco. They’re keeping the brand special of ‘ArtLaunch meets...’, and tonight’s debut should be tense and exciting, since it pits Amsterdam against Rotterdam. Squelching out the acid and electro for the havenstad is Louis Guilliaume of SoNasty, with visuals from Ivo Hofstee, while in the Mokum corner is Spellbound’s Trashling and VJs AlexEtJeremy. There’s also a performance by TakTakShitAndToiletPaper/Cake’s Mo and Ghazal, who’ll be DJing later the backroom (no, not that kind) alongside Toon. (Kim Renfrew) Studio 80, 23.00-05.00, €7.

SATURDAY 24 FEBRUARY Walk: Medieval Amsterdam The origins of our cosmopolitan village are rather humble. Legend has it that it was founded by a couple of Frisian fishermen, who landed on the shores of the Amstel River in a small boat. The damming of the Amstel gave the village its name, and it soon

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Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

grew out to become a little town, the traces of which are still visible in the areas around Nieuwendijk, Kalverstraat, Warmoesstraat, Damrak, Rokin, Zeedijk and Nieuwmarkt. Once a month, Amsterdam Historisch Museum, in cooperation with Amsterdam City Walks, offers a combination of a tour through the museum and an urban ramble to help bring the past to life. The theme of this month’s walk is ‘Medieval Amsterdam—between heaven and hell’. You see, before the Alteration of 1578, when the city turned Protestant, Amsterdam was a very Catholic city indeed, one that worshipped Mary and feared Satan. A qualified guide will show you many of the buildings and places that attest to those peculiar habits of yore. (Floris Dogterom) Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 14.00, €15 (reservation required).

Opera: Madama Butterfly Perhaps the simplicity of the story is what made Madame Butterfly the most popular opera of all time: boy meets girl; girl loses boy; girl kills herself—a timeless tale of passion and despair that echoes down the centuries. Puccini’s opera is also one of the more restrained in the genre. No thundering Valkyries in chariots here: just one room in Nagasaki. It’s the place where Lieutenant Pinkerton woos Cio-Cio-San, abandons her in favour of a fellow American, and it is also where the bereft lover commits harakiri. Despite the understated nature of this piece, this centenary staging at the Carré fully intends to give it some welly: there’s a cast of more than a hundred and a galaxy of international soloists. It’s performed by the Romanian State Opera, who are no stranger to the work. Within a couple of years of the company being founded in 1919, they had added this to their repertoire of performances, and they’ve been blasting it out on prestigious world tours ever since. (Kim Renfrew) Carré, 20.00, €15-€44. Also Sunday, 14.00 and 20.00.

Jazz: Available Jelly Free jazz always implicitly recognises a strong underlying structure. Straight playing always revels in jazz’s call to freedom. Available Jelly are one of the best of the local bands to navigate the interflow of these streams, and what keeps their craft afloat is a great prowful of humour. A sextet featuring the sterling reedmen Michael Moore and Tobias Delius, the group jump genres and feel and ports of call with eagle-like aplomb, and sample all manner of sources: Indonesia, Kurt Weill, Duke Ellington, Madagascar and more are all referenced on their new CD, Bilbao. Yes, they’ll honk and shrill and splutter, but they’ll also snap into tunes that snag the imagination and tickle the tympanum. In short, this bunch of crackpot virtuosos wonderfully show how the tension that exists between jazz’s two foundations—structure and freedom—is actually its greatness. (Steve Schneider) Bimhuis, 21.00, €14.

MONDAY 26 FEBRUARY Hiphop: Hawnay Troof There are some bands that need four or five times as much space to properly explain or fully do justice. And here we go again. Hawnay Troof are from Alabama. A loose collective formed around MC Vice Cooler AKA Chris Touchton, the group also features Baby Donut, AKA Allison Wolfe from feminist punkers Bratmobile. As the story goes, Hawnay Troof, a purposely misspelled joke poking fun at Southern slang are a gay and lesbian hiphop crew, appropriating the works of The Gossip and Erase Errata in a highly stylised Southern-meets-gay way. The point is more comic than political, but their eccentric, oddball blend of hiphop with ostentatious, Southern twangs is interesting, to say the least. The rhymes are highly—almost perversely—sexual, as the band want you to dance, touch your privates and howl from the rooftops. A weird night indeed, but everybody needs one of those once in a while. (Shain Shapiro) OCCII, 21.00, €5.

WEDNESDAY 28 FEBRUARY Classical: Choir of the Mariinski Theatre Russian singing has long been known for both its grandeur and its fervour. For the last several years, the choir from St Petersburg’s Mariinski Theatre—the legendary hall that, starting in 1860, housed Russia’s first opera company—has become a leading ambassador/exponent of this tradition, touring widely and winning uncountable converts. One reason is that the group doesn’t take the easy way out: alongside well-worn showpieces, the singers lead us into discovery. Tonight, for instance, will centre on Rachmaninoff’s glorious, banned-by-the-Soviets Vespers (1915), but will also favour us with lesser-known works by Stravinsky, Anton Rubinstein and the composers Gavrilin and Flyarkovsky. Another reason is the husky beauty of the choir’s 40-voice sound: bronze-hued and room-fillingly resonant. The group also hold local interest, as the Mariisnki’s artistic director is the same, unstoppable Valery Gergiev who is principal conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. Here’s a chance to see what Gergiev’s doing over there, over here. Andrei Peterenko conducts. (Steve Schneider) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €25/€28.50.

Send details and images for listing consideration at least two weeks in advance to agenda@amsterdamweekly.nl.

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

Green Hornet, see Subbacultcha! on Saturday

MUSIC

Reggae/Hiphop: Iron Mic Night With live showcases, an open-mike segment and the battle to crown ‘King of Kapoe’. Café Dread Rock, 21.00

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

Jazz: Les Métamorphoses A boundary-breaking jazz programme inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, featuring Emmanuel Scarpa, Tobias Klein and many talented friends. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14

Thursday 22 February

Rock: Rock ’n’ Roll Delight A Dutch Delight special with live bands and DJs. Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 21.00, €5

Opera: Tannhäuser Wagner’s 19th-century opera based on medieval songs, sagas and romantic tales.

Strap yourself in for a long haul performance—if you manage to find tickets. Het Muziektheater, 18.30, sold out Classical: Orchestre National de France These French greats always provide a splendid aural affair.

Tonight they’re accompanying Brazilian classical pianist Nelson Freire for renditions of Schumann’s Genoveva Overture; Piano Concerto in A; and Symphony No.1 in B flat. Conducted by Kurt Masur.

Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €85 Pop: Kim Wilde At last, a real pop icon filling Paradiso, rather than just another empty shell pushed by the latest hype. Though Wilde has been more famous this decade for her garden work and greenery, those pesky Germans convinced her she still had something to offer the music world, and last year saw the release of Never Say Never throughout Europe. Fifteen hundred paying punters can always be wrong, but there are worse gigs to try get into this week. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, sold out Contemporary: Nieuw Ensemble Performing Purcell’s Fantasies (1680), reworked by Brice Pauset, Pauset’s own Vita Nova (Sérénades), Sciarrino/Gesualdo’s Le Voci Sottovetro, and a new work by Sciarrino, commissioned by Muziekgebouw, Ars Musica and Nieuw Ensemble. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €20 Hiphop/R&B: Bloemetjes Buiten Smooth grooves from young Amsterdammer Ninthe. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5

Ska Night Two-tone grooves with Jablenca and ROLF. Volta, 21.00, €5 Singer-songwriter: Pien Feith Writing sparse acoustic indie folk numbers that recall the early stripped-back sounds of Cat Power, the young female songwriter from Utrecht releases her new EP this week. Skek, 21.30, free Latin: Zuco 103 Brazilian-style electro and pop from the popular local dance trio. Badcuyp, Bovenzaal, 21.30, €8 Classical: Viola Festival Performances and workshops celebrating the sound of the viola.

Conservatorium van Amsterdam, various times and prices

Friday 23 February Classical: Lunch Concert Featuring students from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Bethaniënklooster, 12.30, free Soul: Corinne Bailey Rae Laidback grooves from Britain’s brightest soul hope. With all the financial backing in the world, she was able to hit the headlines before there was even a product to shift. Now she fills concert halls with ease with her carefree tunes that are great for hoovering to. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 19.30, sold out Classical: Budapest Festival Orchestra Performing symphonies by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven; conducted by Iván Fischer. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €50 Rock: El Camino A farewell performance from these loud but subtle post rockers. Support from melodic fuzz purveyors Zoppo. Patronaat, Haarlem, 21.00, €7 Punk: Reinco 10-jaar SXE Fest Punk up the jam, as Lärm, Vitamin-X and Soberesponse team up to honour Reincore. OCCII, 21.00, €5 Jazz: Van Merwijk’s Music Machine Exotic swinging jazz, as drummer/percussionist Lucas van Merwijk reveals a new band featuring Hammond expressionist Carlo de Wijs (from Candy Dulfer’s Funky Stuff), percussionist Roberto Vizcaino and the revolutionary steel pan player Konkie Halmeyer. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14

Goose Electro rock: Goose Icy dance pop from these postSoulwax Belgians. Predictable beats and synth lines paying homage to 1986, but that’s alright because you can dance to it, right? Melkweg, 21.00, €12 + membership

Blues: Big Joe Louis & His Blues Kings One of the best British blues bands going? See Short List. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5 Country: Prof Nomad’s Country Rock session With special guests from Van Dik Hout, Turks Fruit, De Poema’s and BJ’s Pawnshop. Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 22.00, €7.50

11

Free tickets!

Go to www.amsterdamweekly.nl and click on off the wall logo to win tickets to one of these nightlife events. To advertise your club night or concert, contact Simone Klomp at 020 522 5200 or Simone@amsterdamweekly.nl. The next page appears on 28 March.

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

Pop: Benny Sings Feel-good grooves and pop melodies. Badcuyp, Bovenzaal, 22.30, €8 Classical: Viola Festival (See Thursday) Conservatorium van Amsterdam, various times and prices

Saturday 24 February Opera: Madama Butterfly One Fine Day at the opera.

OK: two fine days. See Short List. Carré, 20.00, €15 €44 Opera: Tannhäuser (See Thursday) Het Muziektheater, 18.30, sold out Latin/Jazz: Jaijazz Featuring a screening of the documentary Jazz Parade: Feet Don’t Fail Me Now and live sets from Lapalmá, Celeste Alías Group, Mapi Quintana and a D-jam Session. Oh, and there’s tapas all night. Zaal 100, 19.00, €6 Singer-songwriter: Ayo Acoustic folk reggae in this showcase performance by the Paris-based artist. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 19.30, €8.50 + membership Reggae/Dancehall: One Nation With a live set from Dredda Youthz, plus acts taking part in the female round of the dancehall competition. OneFourOne, 20.00, €10 Rock: Subbacultcha! Rock ’n’ roll from Groningen’s Green Hornet and The 69ers. And if somehow that doesn’t slosh enough grease over the venue’s walls, zZz will be providing a dark-hearted DJ set. Opening is LA two-piece The Pity Party playing their first show outside Hollywood. They produce wonderfully dysfunctional, grotesque, yet endearing and danceable pop. You have to see it to believe it: a girl simultaneously slamming the drums and holding down the bass line on her keyboard, while a boy adds vocals while live-looping and tricking out his hook-driven guitar lines. Enjoy them now before a tour with The Raveonettes introduces them to the world—so be on time! De Nieuwe Anita, 20.00, €6 Pop/Rock: Wilhelmina 3 Jaar Something smells fishy tonight, but that won’t stop patrons showing up looking for some appeltaart and coffee in celebration of the café turning three. Den Haag’s own Americana specialists Smutfish will be on hand with their rootsy grooves. And in contrast, Fishpot will provide some old-fashioned Hammond soul, making use of those classic New Orleans funk traditions in the process.

Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina, 20.00, €7.50

Sunday 25 February Opera: Madama Butterfly The second of two fine days at the opera. Carré, 14.00 & 20.00, €15 - €44 Opera: Barokopera Amsterdam Performing excerpts from Purcell’s King Arthur. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 11.00, €11.90/€14 Pop/Rock: Subjectivisten.org An afternoon filled with exclusive performances, DJ sets and guest speakers to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the music criticism website. It should be great. Course, if we don’t say that, we’ll be slated on there next week. Paradiso, 14.30, €6.50 + membership World: Bau & Dudu Araujo Warm Cape Verdean grooves from guitarist Bau and singer Araujo. KIT Tropentheater, 15.00, €20 Classical: Beethoven Sonatas Sonatas five, six and seven, performed by pianist Klára Würtz and violinist Jószef Lendvay. Muziekgebouw, 15.00, €25 Classical: Bonjour de France A programme with a French bias, bien sur. The piano quintet, featuring members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, will be performing works by Debussy, De Bréville and Franck. Bethaniënklooster, 15.00, €15 Contemporary: Ulysses & Friends Contemporary improvised music. Zaal 100, 15.00 Classical: Ensemble Volante Performance by the flute and string quartet, with Peter Ouwerkerk guesting on the Buiksloterkerk organ. Buiksloterkerk, 16.00, €10 Pop: Junior Boys Canadian electro pop duo duo.

They’re reminiscent of The Postal Service at times, but have the advantage of being a real band and not having Ben Gibbard as singer. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 17.30, €9 + membership World: Balkan Beat Box Gypsy jazz, klezmer and classic Balkan sounds, given a modern reworking of dance and hiphop beats by these New Yorkers. P60, Amstelveen, 20.00, €14 Classical: Groot Omroepkoor A vocal performance of Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, with some help from the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest; conducted

by Philippe Herreweghe. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €40/€50 World: Ivo Papasov & His Wedding Band Balkan gypsy jazz from Bulgarian clarinettist Papasov and his band of folk maestros. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €27.50

Latin: David Russell Guitarist Russell may have been born in Scotland, but he grew up in Spain, and it’s the sounds of the Latin world that have most inspired the way he plucks those strings. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €32.50 Classical: Mario Caroli With the flautist performing works by Sciarrino. English Reformed Church, 20.15, €12.50 Classical: Nederlands Kamerorkest Performing Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, Mozart’s Violin Concerto in G, and Beethoven’s Symphony No.2 in D; featuring solo violinist Julia Fischer and conducted by Yakov Kreizberg. Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €30 Classical: Florilegium A Baroque ensemble from England performing Bolivian vocal works. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €25 World: Kardes Türküler Percussive and harmonic ‘songs of brotherhood’ from across the entire Turkish cultural spectrum. KIT Tropentheater, 20.30, €20 Jazz: Available Jelly Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, free jazz on a plate. See Short List. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 Rock: King Me Understated yet somehow epic, this Utrecht post rock outfit remain constantly fabulous.

Hardly the most uplifting bunch, their songs plod along, almost wounded at times, but there’s beauty in what they do. Also with The Motorpool. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5 World: Noite de Brasil A capoeira dance party, with a live set from Grupo Axe, dance workshops and DJs. To get you in the mood, there’s a Brazilian buffet in the downstairs café from 19.00. Badcuyp, Bovenzaal, 21.00, €8, €9 for buffet Blues: Bellies Blues & Rock Band Local blues rockers. Maloe Melo, 22.00, €5 Rock: Frustration This French band explore the dark, cold, sad but tense side of rock ’n’ roll. Influenced by post punk and coldwave bands such as Crisis, Joy Division, Killing Joke and The Fall, they’ll take you on an ’80s voyage. OCCII, 22.00, €6 Rock: The Monroes Garage rock and ’60s soul outfit from Groningen. Pacific Parc, 22.00, free

SIMON WALD-LASOWSKI

Rock: Mute Math American rockers who play it both hard and soft, throwing in a heady mix of synth rock along with their guitar assaults. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.15, sold out

13

Three-year-old mag LFTFLD toddles on— and rocks on. Proud parents say more punk babies on the way.

IT’S CHAOTIC BUT THEY LIKE IT LIKE THAT

By Mark Wedin

The Cooper Temple Clause Rock: The Cooper Temple Clause It feels like these English rockers have been off the scene for aeons. In reality, it was only a three-year album gap, but in that time they lost their bassist to Carl Barat’s Dirty Pretty Things, and it remains to be seen whether their young fanbase has also departed. Back with new album Make This Your Own, they’re sticking to that rockmeets-electronics formula, jammed in between classic Britpop and prog rock. Melkweg, 20.30, €11 + membership Jazz: Greg Osby Expressive saxophonist Osby remains one of the most impressing alto players in the US. In the form of his trio Channel Three, he’s joined by bassist Matt Brewer and drummer Tommy Crane.

Bimhuis, 21.00, €18 Rock: Sideburns Stomp Rock ’n’ roll, rockabilly and punk night, with live music from GOH and Sidekick Bob. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5 Pop/Rock: Subbacultcha! Featuring the bizarre noise and visuals of one-man band Major B. Also with Alps of New South Wales. Patronaat, Haarlem, 22.00, free

Monday 26 February Opera: Tannhäuser (See Thursday) Het Muziektheater, 18.30, sold out Heavy: Comeback Kid Hardcore punkers from Winnipeg. Making for a long night of mosh pits, support comes from Rise and Fall, Justice, Final Prayer and Omission. Concussions await. Melkweg, 19.30, €13 + membership

This Friday, counterculture magazine LFTFLD celebrates its three-year anniversary with a big bash and lots of live music at Paradiso. With 6,000 issues published every month—each one packed with indie art printed on highquality paper—they’ve got plenty of reasons to rejoice. Not only was every copy available gratis (the sign of any great rag), but the magazine also helped to shape a new scene in town—or perhaps, more accurately, shed light on the scene that never left.

‘Before we started this up,’ says Ronald Linger, ‘everyone was complaining that nothing was happening in Amsterdam. But I saw so many people busy with things. You know, in the Nineties everything was concentrated on the [squat houses] Silo and Vrieshuis.

Those buildings are now gone, but the people are still here. So we thought about starting a fancy punk magazine inspired by the fanzines from the Seventies, you know, for the underground. This is a little bit the same idea. It’s a platform for artists, and it shows people in Amsterdam what’s going on.’

The first issue took loads of work, but once it was out, they never stopped.

‘It was a bit like a pregnancy,’ says Clau-

dia Kool. ‘It was really painful, but afterwards we were proud.’

She, along with Linger, Dennis van Doorn and George Dechev, make up the LFTFLD crew. Each one of them is part of a different scene in town, making for an enormous network of artists—which explains the wide range of images and texts found in their magazine. ‘It ends up looking a bit chaotic,’ says Kool, ‘but we like it.’

As the magazine grows, most of the submissions now featured come from outside the original circle of friends.

‘Many of them, we have no idea who they are,’ says Kool. ‘We just like what they send, so we print it.’

Along with the publications, they also organise around 10 events a year, including art openings, magazine shows and big parties. But the publication remains the foundation. ‘Every single issue has stuff that you like and stuff that you say: “yeah, I don’t know what that is,”’ smiles Kool.

‘But you can now find us in the Stedelijk library,’ adds Linger. ‘They hold onto every issue, you know, for future generations.’

LFTFLD 3 Jaar, 23 February, 24.0005.00, Paradiso, Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521, €10, www.lftfld.com

Free tickets!

Go to www.amsterdamweekly.nl and click on off the wall logo to win tickets to one of these nightlife events. To advertise your club night or concert, contact Simone Klomp at 020 522 5200 or Simone@amsterdamweekly.nl. The next page appears on 28 March.

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007 Rock: Kasabian Primal Scream or Oasis for a new generation. Rather like bumbling Neanderthals, they bring fresh meaning to ‘if you give a monkey a typewriter and let it type long enough...’ That said, even their harshest critics would struggle to write off some of their new symphonic rock numbers. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 19.30, sold out Percussion: The Big Bang Ever stumbled into a musical instrument shop while a drum clinic was taking place? They’re scary things for scary people. Fortunately The Big Bang offers a higher calibre of entertainment. The World Drummers XL group features Keith Carlock and Rhani Krija who play with Sting—but don’t feel put off by that—as well as drummers from Turkey, Morocco and India. Other guests include Hip Pickles, the drummers from Golden Earring and the Anouk band, and the Iranian outfit Trio Chemirani. Even if you’ve no prior interest in battering objects with sticks, it should be quite a spectacle. Carré, 20.00, €17.50-€32.50 Classical: Nederlands Kamerorkest (See Saturday) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €30 Contemporary: Ensemble MAE Formerly the Maarten Altena Ensemble, the group tonight tackle the notion that narratives in music are old hat. In doing so, they’ll present works that deal with the idea of ‘new narratives’: how music functions when it’s up against a story presented in visual terms or how text might colour how we hear things. Featuring works by Felipe Waller and Martha Colburn, Yannis Kyriakides, Arnoud Noordegraaf, David Dramm and David Lammers and Luiz Henrique Yudo. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €15

Wednesday 28 February Jazz: Lunch Concert The Nederlands Kamerkoor take a jazzy trip with help from singer Ineke van Doorn and guitarist Marc van Vugt. Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 12.30, free Classical: Choir of the Mariinski Theater Performing Rachmaninov’s Vespers. See Short List.

Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €25/€28.50 Pop/Rock: Tomàn, Madensuyu Belgian guitar bands: Tomàn take a gentle melodic approach, while Madensuyu occasionally explode with rock ’n’ roll grime.

Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 20.30, €6 + membership Jazz: Corrie van Binsbergen: Oud & Nieuw Featuring special guests like Duo Anton Goudsmit/Harmen Fraanje and Trio Berber-Andaluz. Zaal 100, 21.00, €5 Soul: Get Up! A James Brown Tribute Night Departed but not forgotten. Musical acts involved include MiniVila, PIPS:lab and the Reverend, Represailles, Sixxxten and The Soul Prophets, though there’s all sorts of extra Brown-friendly tomfoolery planned tonight. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5 Big band: Metropole Orchestra With special guest soloist, trombonist Nils Landgren. As always, Vince Mendoza leads proceedings. Bimhuis, 21.00, €14 Hiphop: Jedi Mind Tricks Hiphop’s Star Wars-lovin’ homophobes. This duo from Philly are so angry and full of hate that when their manager might remind them they have an Amsterdam gig in two days, rage consumes them and they miss their plane—or so it seems from their history of cancellations at short notice. Melkweg, 21.30, €15 + membership

Rock: Explosions in the Sky One of the leading outfits from the instrumental post rock scene, these Texans are responsible for a rather special, emotive approach to writing guitar epics. What’s most surprising is that even after four full albums, their sound remains a fresh, glimmering pool of water in a baking desert, with songs loaded with feeling and meaning in spite of the the lack of words. Paradiso, Grote Zaal, 20.30, €12.50 + membership

CLUBS

Hiphop: Hawnay Troof No-nonsense rap and no-fi electronics. See Short List. OCCII, 21.00, €5

Thursday 22 February

Jazz: Sinas Heavy on the percussion and Latin rhythms, the eight-piece jazz act connect with their audience through dance-friendly moves. Sugar Factory, 21.00, €7

Dance Tunes A place for new DJs and producers. Studio 80, 21.00-late, €5 Poppourri Student Night: _off_BeAt Pop hits for students who can’t dance in time to hiphop, drum & bass, roots, funk, soul, breakbeats, dubstep and grime. Club 8, 22.00-03.00, €5 Flex YourSpace Kicking off with a live set from Amsterdam guitar band Ghost Trucker. Pony follows with grooves supplied by DJ Wannabeastar. Flex Bar, 22.00-late, €5

The Cuties Pop/Rock: Subbacultcha! A delectable indie line-up with quirky Australian electronic outfit Alps of New South Wales, indie folk from Swedish band Holmes, sweet pop from The Cuties and the folk grandeur of Amsterdam’s own Hospital Bombers, who never leave home without a fanclub. Bitterzoet, 21.00, €6

Tuesday 27 February Hiphop/Electronica: Play Me Loud With live showcases from Skiggy Rapz, Senna, Dwight Steven, Kenny B COW, Leona, Amolab and The Planets—all artists from the Playmeloud.com CD sampler. The party continues until late with DJs Ro ‘369’ Krom, Soundsystem UnitedSounds and Dirk Diggler. Bitterzoet, 20.00, €5 Classical: Ensemble Caméléon A viola-centric performance with special guest Esther Apituley.

Concertgebouw, Kleine Zaal, 20.15, €26.50 Classical: Nederlands Kamerorkest (See Saturday) Concertgebouw, Grote Zaal, 20.15, €30 Contemporary: This Ae Nighte With Cappella Amsterdam and the Doelenensemble performing Xenakis’ Medea, Stravinsky’s Cantata and Klaas de Vries’ Stimmen. Muziekgebouw, 20.30, €22.50 Electronica: Voidd Sessions Electronica meets live music. Winston Kingdom, 21.00, €5 Electronica/Jazz: Koop Swedish electronic jazz masters, in a similar vein as Jazzanova. On new album Koop Island, they’ve been collaborating with vocalists like Ane Brun and Earl Zinger. Paradiso, Kleine Zaal, 22.30, €16 + membership

Chelsea Girls Andy Warhol Club A new party night in a visual Warholian style. With DJs Joost van Bellen and Spencer Product and organ rockers zZz you can expect a late-night look at pop culture. 11 will also be open from 18.30 for a screening of Chelsea Girls. 11, 22.30-04.00, €9 Vreemd Outlandish electro and live performances.

Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €7.50 Poptrash Three decades’ worth of rock, electro and hiphop with The Punchout DJs. Melkweg, 23.00-late, €4

Friday 23 February DaanModern Steamy soul, rock ’n’ roll, jazz, booga-

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Amsterdam Weekly loo, rocksteady, bossa and ska, grooves from DJ DaanModern. Pacific Parc, 22.00-03.00, free

STAGE

Crush Popular tunes from (ex-pornstar) DJ Wiebthroat, with a melodic live set from French band Spyglass. Club Meander, 22.00-04.00, €4 Penis in Vagina Indie disco rave party. Tonight’s theme is Hardcore Digital Penetration, featuring 64revolt, Intifada Soundsystem, Snob! DJ crew and Fade Out Fred. Club 8, 22.00-04.00, €5

Opening Bestemming Oerol Terschelling comes to the big city.

See Short List. Paradiso, 20.00, €15

Streetbeatz Hiphop party with live sets prior to midnight then bouts of vinyl afterwards. Bitterzoet, 22.00-04.00, €5

Performance: Improfiesta A theatresport improv performance. In Dutch. Crea Theater, (Sat 20.30), €8 Music/Theatre: Stamping Classic numbers from the African repertoire, combined with traditional dance performances. Meervaart, (Sun 20.15), €30

Tet-â-Tet With DJs San Proper and Radar. Flex Bar, 22.00-05.00, €5 Rush 020 With Benny Rodrigues and MC Madd Son. Panama, 23.00-04.00, €15

Dance: Nachtschade A contemporary look at the art of the striptease by Belgian company Victoria. Those asked to share their choreography insights include Eric de Volder, Caterina Sagna, Vera Mantero, Alain Platel, Johanne Saunier, Claudia Triozzi and Wim Vandekeybus. Stadsschouwburg, (Sun, Mon 20.15), €11.50-€22

The Zoo With DJs Jean and Manga. The Zebra, 23.00-04.00, €10 Knockout Carnival An Afro-Caribbean Carnival party, so expect warm and uplifting tunes from Jamaican dancehall and reggae, West African hiplife and mapouka, Caribbean soca and modern Latin dance sounds. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €12 ¿Que Pasa? Latin-crossover night with reggae, folk, ska, punk and mestizo. Melkweg, 23.00-late, €7 + membership

Saturday 24 February Casino Royale A dance event with a difference, Casino Royale attempts to mix house and electro with a sophisticated casino vibe. DJs include The Swingkings, Goodgrip, Robert Feelgood, Jessy, Chriz and Timothy Watt. The Mansion, 21.00-03.00, €10 Static Featuring a live set from Julien Chaptal, DJs Karotte and Bart Skils and VJ Out of Order. 11, 22.0004.00, €12 GirlsLoveDJ’s The Blacklight Edition: there’ll be nowhere to escape the black lights at Club More.

Between fluorescent balloons, candy floss and a strict UV-friendly dress-code, it’s gonna be bizarre (or scary). Music includes DJs include The Flexican, Flava, Disctwins, Rubywax & Missinglinks, Terry Toner and more. Club More, 23.00-05.00, €15 Related With sets from the Artful Dodger (UK), Speaker Junk (UK), Gregor Salto, Sunnery James, Ryan Marciano, MC Andy Sherman and MC Spyder. The Powerzone, 23.00-05.00, €12.50 Rex...Electronation Live All your favourite electro sounds brought to you with a live twist. With Alexi Delano (US), Pitto and the Groove Addicts. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €15 Soixante-Neuf Sexy beats with Georgio Schultz, Yasmin Le Bon, Sir Edward, Marvelous K and many more.

Sinners, 23.00-05.00, €12 Fragile Breaks For all of your broken beat wants. Featuring Ms Syche (Budapest Delight), Chamelian & Kreed (SubUnited/Underclub), Kiki Toao (Fragile Breaks), Arrow (Loudspeaker), Freek Fabricius (030303), Hepcat (Loudspeaker) and Meneer de Beer (Fightclub). Studio 80, 23.00-late, €7.50 Dance Arena Alternative dance, pop and rock. Melkweg, 23.59-late, €7 + membership

Sunday 25 February T-Dansant Dance music, fashion and Amsterdam.

Spinning are Tom Novy (DE), Marnix, Roog and Godard, while very special guests are the Fun Lovin’ Criminals. Krasnapolsky Hotel, 17.00-00.00, €29 WickedJazzSounds Jazz, hiphop, broken beats, nujazz, funk and Afro sounds, as classic vinyl collides with live musicians. Sugar Factory, 23.00-05.00, €8.50

Monday 26 February Cheeky Monday Jungle and drum & bass night. Winston Kingdom, 22.00-03.00, €6

Tuesday 27 February Hiphopclub The clue is in the title, with Bizz Banascus (live), 81 Project (live), Switch, Turn, Love Supreme, Rapstar Cypfer and Rachid Larouz. Studio 80, 21.00late, €5

Wednesday 28 February Rock the Pop! An intoxicating mix of cocktails and pop music. Sugar Factory, 23.00-04.00, €5

22-28 February 2007

Club ArtLaunch, see Friday

GAY& LESBIAN Thursday 22 February Pimp My Drink Bump up da booze content—an extra shot of spirits for just €1. PRIK, free

Friday 23 February Vrouwenavond Busy night for lesbians and their multi-gendered, multi-sexualitied friends. Tonight, DJ Suna plays jazz-funk, ’70s, ’80s, R&B and hiphop.

Café Sappho, 21.00-03.00, free Twisted Classics & Electrics The naughtily named DJ Nookie mashes it up. PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free Club ArtLaunch A new cub night where, as the Spice Girls once eloquently said, two become one. See Short List. Studio 80, 23.00-05.00, €7

Saturday 24 February Twisted Dance Tunes DJ Danny gets all mixed up.

PRIK, 22.00-03.00, free UNK DJ Lupe’s club for fags, slags, hags and bags.

And straights. This week also featuring Herr Arter, Conrad and a show by Gloed. Club NL, 23.00-04.00, €8

Sunday 25 February Garbo in Exit Popular Sunday session, strictly women only. Happy hour runs from 17.00-18.00, with Indonesian food available for the peckish. Exit, 16.00-22.00, €4.50

Theatre: Enfants Sorciers Director and writer Guido Kleene and Compagnie Dakar present this taster for a theatre piece due later in the year. Looking at the phenomenon of ‘child sorcerers’ in the DR, it casts a critical eye on the relationships between children and adults. In Dutch. De Balie, (Sun-Tues 20.30), €15 Comedy: In Your Face! Comedy improv show. In English. Comedy Café, 21.00, €13 Theatre: Rinoceros A fresh collection of absurd concepts as Theatergroep de Nieuw Amsterdam present their latest work. Inspired by French-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco, the group start with the mundane setting of an office and its workers, and let comedic chaos ensue. In Dutch. Theater Bellevue, (Mon-Wed 20.30), €15 Theatre: De Grote Oorlog Hotel Modern present their ‘live animation film’ theatre technique in this insight into the World War I, creating a unique film set and taking audiences into the trenches of the Western Front. Much of the text is taken from the letters a French soldier wrote to his mother during his long stay in the trenches. In Dutch. Frascati, (Tues, Wed 20.30), €14

Ongoing Theatre: Het Wijde Land Arthur Schnitzler’s tragicomedy about adultery and marriage morals, in a production by Theu Boermans and De Theatercompagnie. In Dutch. Stadsschouwburg, (Thur, Fri 20.15), €10-€18.50 Theatre: De Kopvoeter A play about a disabled artist who paints with her mouth. As her popularity begins to surges and her works become known, she feels it crucial to keep her disabilty a secret. In Dutch.

Rozentheater, (Thur-Sat 20.00), €12.50 Music/Theatre: Café Noir A nightclub show inspired by the worlds of film noir and gangster musicals. With musical works by André Previn, Elmer Bernstein, Tom Waits, Kurt Weill and Leonard Cohen. Theater Bellevue, (Thur-Sat 20.30), €12 Performance: Open Mic Night For poets, artists, songwriters, storytellers, singers, comedians, writers and those just keen to silently stand stationary in front of an audience for five minutes. ABC Treehouse, (Fri 20.00), €4.50

Pannekoeken Party Flippin’ delicious pancakes from professional pancake-makers Robbert and Peter.

While the boys toss, DJ Ronald spins old pop, new pop and one-hit wonders between 20.00-1.00. PRIK, 17.0021.00, free Cinema! The Brighton-based bonking continues in episodes five and six of the UK’s teenage lesbian comedy drama Sugar Rush. Custom Café Sugar, 19.00, free

Tuesday 27 February Movie Night Tonight’s film is Bennett Miller’s Capote which chronicles the fey Alabaman writer before, during and after his murderous masterpiece In Cold Blood. PRIK, 19.00, free

Wednesday 28 February F*cking Pop Queers All right, all right, no need to swear! Pop ’n’ electro on the main floor, ArtLaunch Café round the back. Studio 80, 23.00-05.00, free before 00.00; €5 after Bückstück.brutale Musik DJs play interesting, unusual and worthwhile tunes until midnight. PRIK, Tues-Thur 16.00-01.00, Fri-Sat 16.00-03.00, free

La Bayadère Ballet: La Bayadère In Russia the story of the love between the Indian temple dancer Nikiya and the warrior Solor has touched the hearts of ballet audiences for some 130 years, and after the Kirov Ballet brought La Bayadère to the West, the work became a cornerstone of the repertoire of several Western ballet companies. It is, however, the first time Het Nationale Ballet have tackled it, interpreting its intrigue, jealousy, betrayal and remorse for Amsterdam audiences. Het Muziektheater, (Fri, Tues, Wed 20.00, Sun also 14.00), €20-€50 Dance: STAU After first presenting STAU in 2004 as a ‘research project’ exploring different stage dimensions and a strong performer/audience connection, Anouk van Dijk and her company set off on a two-year world tour. In the process, they’ve developed various residency versions, often involving local dancers.

Stadsschowburg (Wed 19.00, 21.30), €17.50

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

design and applied arts. Each year the show pivots on one discipline—or a combination of various disciplines—and works are acquired from it for the Stedelijk Museum collection. Stedelijk Museum CS (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 11 March

ART

Affichetentoonstelling A chance to view impressive selections from the Filmmuseum’s mammoth collection of old film posters from across the decades.

Filmmuseum (Mon-Fri 09.00-22.15, Sat, Sun one hour prior to show-22:15), until 14 March

Opening Hotel Y Boulevard This hotel’s claim to fame is that one of its rooms (No 18) used to be Rembrandt’s studio. Continuing the artistic heritage, the hotel invited 22 up-and-coming artists to use rooms as temporary studios, and now their work is being shown in the hallways. The Hotel Y Boulevard (Daily 10.00-22.00), opens Friday, until 8 April

Bodies Something of a controversial exhibition, though undoubtedly also hugely popular as it tours the world, this is one anatomy lesson you won’t forget.

Making use of dissected corpses in a range of poses, real foetuses and a large selection of human organs, the collection aims to educate and remind us how remarkable the human body is. Beurs van Berlage (Thur-Sat 10.00-22.00, Sun-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 15 March

Eva Besnyö: Unknown Photos Work by Eva Besnyö (1910-2003) has featured in countless publications and exhibitions. Yet after her death many still unknown and previously unpublished photos were discovered in her archive. This exhibition presents a selection of these photos, underscoring her reputation as one of the greatest photographers in the Netherlands. Joods Historisch Museum (Daily 11.00-17.00), opens Friday, until 20 May

Kees de Kort A tribute to 40 years of painting, illustrating and designing by the Dutch artist. His work shows biblical inspiration but also a great fascination with animals. Bijbels Museum (Mon-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), until 18 March

Robert Capa: Retrospective Taking a broad look at the work of Robert Capa (1913-1954), the legendary war photographer and founder of modern photojournalism. His photos of the Spanish Civil War and D-Day are etched in everyone’s memory and have shaped our image of the 20th century. Joods Historisch Museum (Daily 11.00-17.00), opens Friday, until 20 May

August Sander: People of the 20th Century A representative selection of vintage prints from the German photographer’s (1876-1964) world-famous project.

Proposing to chart the entire structure of society of his day, the result was a sociological project, a historical document and a photographic masterpiece. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 21 March

Wiebke Wilting: Ecotoerisme in Zuid-Afrika A yearlong photo reportage of eco-tourism in South Africa.

Wiebke Wilting devotes particular attention to the daily lives of the people who live there. News Photo (WedMon 11.00-18.00), opens Friday, until 29 March Laser 3.14: Today I Hired a Detective To Track Me Down The first-ever solo exhibition focused on guerilla poet Laser 3.14. You’ve walked past his street art, read about him in the paper, and now you can enjoy an overview of his cryptic works, while also checking out paintings, drawings and video art. WM Gallery (ThurSat 14.00-18.00), opens Saturday, until 31 March

Museums Facts, Fictions and Stories The first solo exhibition in the Netherlands by the South African photographers Adam Broomberg (1970) and Oliver Chanarin (1971), featuring their most recent work, Chicago . This collection shows various aspects of the war and propaganda in Israel, as well as the series Mr. Mkhize’s Portrait, which casts a glance at South Africa 10 years after the end of apartheid. Stedelijk Museum CS (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), closing Sunday Anton Rooskens A tribute to Anton Rooskens (19061976), co-founder of the CoBrA movement and one of the Netherlands’ leading post-war experimentalists.

This extensive exhibition features painterly highlights from his body of work. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), closing Sunday

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Seeing is Knowing: Perspectives in Dutch Architecture An opportunity for locals to finally take in the Netherlands’ entry at the 10th International Architecture Biennale of Venice in 2006, which explores the nation’s cities as complete, inhabitable environments rather than simply collections of disconnected buildings. Zuiderkerk (Mon 11.00-16.00, Tues-Fri 09.00-16.00, Sat 12.00-16.00), until 31 March Eva’s Story Showing paintings of Erich and Heinz Gieringer made while they were in hiding from the Nazi prosecutors. Verzetsmuseum (Tues-Fri 10.0017.00), until 6 April

Hotel Y Boulevard, see Opening

outbreak of World War I, Van Gogh’s paintings came to symbolise ‘international’ and ‘modern’ art, and he was more popular in Germany than anywhere else.

Van Gogh Museum (Mon-Thur, Sat, Sun 10.00-18.00, Fri 10.00-22.00), until 4 March

form of a family tree, Goslinga illustrates the social structures that develop out of a personal network of friends, family and coincidental acquaintances. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 7 March

Bare Hidden poverty in the Netherlands is the theme for this year’s annual ‘Document Nederland’ photography assignment organised by the Rijksmuseum and NRC Handelsblad. The works show those who literally live ‘below the minimum’. Photographer Geert van Kesteren leads the exhibition. Huis Marseille (TuesSun 11.00-18.00), until 4 March

The Girlfriend Experience Martin Butler presents four human avatars to play with. Log in at home to control your character of choice—direct the avatar, explore the space and challenge him or her. The four participants can also be observed live in Mediamatic three nights a week. Mediamatic (Wed-Fri 18.00-23.00), until 9 March

Bert Teunissen: Domestic Landscapes Taking more than 300 photos for this project over the last decade, Teunissen has been in search of the light that he remembers from his parental home, while also documenting an authentic way of life that is disappearing.

Huis Marseille (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 4 March

Collectors in St Petersburg A celebration of the cosmopolitan nature of early 20th-century St Petersburg, when the city was so prosperous that its art scene flourished and expansive collections were born. Hermitage Amsterdam (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 11 March

Gregory Crewdson: Retrospective 1985-2005 Since the mid-’80s, New York photographer Crewdson has created six carefully staged photo series in which he presents the world as an obscure cinematographic dream. Against the background of suburban America, he explores the fears, neuroses and desires that are deeply rooted in everyday modern life. Fotomuseum (Tues-Sun 12.00-18.00), Den Haag, closing Sunday

Capricious Inspired by the New York/Amsterdam based cutting-edge photography magazine of the same name, Capricious presents works by six young and experimental photographers. Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), until 4 March

French Passion During the early 20th century, private collectors in the Netherlands acquired many masterpieces by painters including Monet, Daubigny, Cézanne and other famed French artists. This exhibition provides an overview of the pieces united at the time. Centraal Museum (Tues-Sun 11.00-17.00), Utrecht, until 11 March

Vincent van Gogh and Expressionism The first show to highlight the impact of Van Gogh on German and Austrian expressionists. Between his death and the

Ringel Goslinga: Family Tree A black-and-white photo series showing portraits of people in the artist’s immediate surroundings. By presenting these in the

Just In Time The annual Municipal Art Acquisitions exhibitions allow for an overview of cultural activity in Amsterdam in the areas of visual art, photography,

Aanwinsten 2005-2006 A presentation of recent purchases, including pieces by Francis Alÿs, Mike Kelley, William Kentridge, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Aernout Mik and Thomas Ruff. Stedelijk Museum CS (Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 9 April Istanbul From Byzantium to the Ottomans, from Constantinople to Istanbul: the exhibition focuses on Ottoman heritage, displaying nearly 300 treasures of the sultans, including exhibits from Topkapi Palace Museum. Nieuwe Kerk (Thur 10.00-22.00, Fri-Wed 10.00-18.00), until 15 April Het Schaduwkabinet: Parts I & II In The Ghost of James Lee Byars Calling, the Berlin-based American artist Erik Smith fuses work by conceptual performance artist James Lee Byars with imagery from the black and death metal scenes to reflect Byars’ preoccupation with his own death. Route A1 is a playful project exploring the tension between uniqueness and reproduction through 10 artists’ creations of A1 posters. Besides those on display at De Appel, framed copies of the posters will be on view for four weeks throughout the city. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 15 April Steven Shearer The motifs for many of this Canadian artist’s colourful canvases come from the obscure, suburban subculture of the American heavy metal scene and its various Scandinavian offshoots. The satanic imagery and scenes of violence are fascinat-

ing, and Shearer pulls off a historic dialogue with the titans of European painting, from Bosch and Breughel to Bonnard and Munch—all undisputed masters of the melancholic and the Gothic spirit. De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 15 April Erik Parker: Liner Notes Parker’s large-scale, colourful paintings stylistically fit into the tradition of ’80s graffiti, ’60s psychedelic album covers and comic strips. Often they depict a hallucinogenic world, but lying below is a sharp analysis of Western subcultures.

De Appel (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00), until 15 April Oog — Eye Images from WM Hunt’s collection which all have one thing in common—the subject is never looking into the lens. By showing people with their eyes shut or looking down, veiled or wounded, or with their face or body turned away from the camera, the photos prevent any sense of contact between the viewer and the subject, even in a close-up. Foam (Sun-Wed 10.00-17.00, Thur, Fri 10.00-21.00), until 15 April Jan van der Heyden The first monographic exhibition in the Netherlands since 1937 of one of the leading 17th-century painters of Dutch cityscapes. He was also fascinated by firefighting and is still remembered to this day by many as the inventor of the fire hose.

Rijksmuseum (Daily 09.00-18.00), until 30 April Architecture of the Night: Luminous Buildings A voyage into the dark night and the beautiful buildings and lighting designs that can transform the look and feel of cities. Packed with illuminated models, artworks and stunning night photography, there’s an environmental message, too, with focus on light pollution and energy efficiency. Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00. Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, until 6 May Behind the Curtains Fifteen innovative architectural designs by Willem Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk, whose expressive buildings are icons within cities, appreciated equally by tenants and passers-by. Museum Hilversum (Tues-Sat 11.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), Hilversum, until 6 May Che! An analysis of the posterboy for the revolution, whose starting point is Korda’s 1960 portrait. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 6 May Beauty and the Bead: From Madonna to the Maasai This first exhibition ever to focus on beads as a worldwide phenomenon features beaded costumes from every epoch and all corners of the earth. Tropenmuseum (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), until 13 May Mapping the City This group exhibition focuses on the relationship between artists and the city from 1960 to the present day. The show revolves around the way in which artists perceive urban space, with emphasis on the city as social community, its behaviour, poses and urban rituals. Participating artists include Doug Aitken, Francis Alÿs, Stanley Brouwn, Matthew Buckingham, Philip Lorca diCorcia and many more. Stedelijk Museum CS (Daily 10.0018.00), until 20 May Ten Klooster: A Man With Two Lives Showing over 50 works by the Indonesian-Dutch artist Ten Klooster, varying from paintings to wood engravings. Tropenmuseum (Daily 10.00-17.00), until 20 May Moderniteit in de Tropen: Architectuur in Nederlands-Indië This collection features photographs, drawings and maquettes from Indonesia between 1850 and 1950. Nederlands Architectuurinstituut (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 11.00-17.00), Rotterdam, until 3 June Lucebert. Drawings Gouaches, drawings in Indian ink

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22-28 February 2007

LEKKER BEZIG I saw one left behind, Originally from PortuVITOR PEIXOTO I’d lock it up and make gal, Vitor Peixoto www.recycledbicycles.org a note of it. When I moved to Amsterdam a needed a new bike to few years back and fix, I knew where they was struck by the numwere.’ ber of broken bicycles After three months, and bike parts abanword had spread about doned around town. As Peixoto’s high-quality, an avid BMX rider, he low-cost bikes, and he was already a skilled couldn’t keep up with bike mechanic, and in demand. ‘I started to need of a job. buy them from AFAC, ‘I was pretty much where the police auction fed up with working for off the abandoned bikes other people,’ he smiles. they find with locks.

So he decided to collect Since I started buying the discarded parts and bikes there, I never realassemble them into ly had a shortage. I do reliable bikes, which get a lot of trash from could be sold at cheap ‘I hardly have time them though. But I’m prices—generally to fix my own bikes happy about it, because between 30 and 50 I can repair them and euros. ‘I wanted to give anymore.’ sell it cheap.’ an alternative between Now that Peixoto buying a stolen bike or is putting together one or two new bikes a buying from a more expensive shop.’ day, his time is quite full, and he’s happy He rented a basement, registered his with the work. ‘I hardly have time to fix business at the Kamer van Koophandel my own bikes anymore. But it’s really and put a few ads up in Albert Heijns and important, I want to say: I’m living off in the back of this newspaper. ‘The first this, of course, but money is not the most week I had incredible feedback. I’d put important thing. When you put together a together thirty bikes beforehand and I sold second hand bike, there’s so many details. them all within the first two days. My I always try to do my best, and basically, phone was ringing every thirty minutes.’ well, I really put love into what I do.’

At first, there was plenty of material Indeed. One man’s garbage is another to be found on the streets: ‘I never really man’s treasure. had to look for the bikes. I just saw them on my way to work or to a friend’s house.

By Mark Wedin I would always carry locks with me and if SIMON WALD-LASOWSKI

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and works on paper in mixed media, dating from 1948 to 1993. There’s also an accompanying publication with text (in Dutch and English) by the Dutch author Cyrille Offermans. CoBrA Museum (Tues-Sun 11.0017.00), until 3 June Flowers Under the Magnifying Glass: A Homage to Linnaeus A celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778), who studied and worked in the Netherlands from 1735 to 1738. In collaboration with the National Herbarium Nederland, this exhibition provides an overview of depictions of flowers, mainly by Dutch artists or artists who worked in the Netherlands. Teylers Museum (Tues-Sat 10.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), Haarlem, until 3 June 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

Galleries LFTFLD Art Show A selection of works by raw talents who’ve impressed with previous submissions to LFTFLD, the counterculture mag which is celebrating its third birthday. (See article on p. 13.) Artists include Eva Roovers, Ina Smits, Morcky, Lil’Shy, Dennis van Doorn, Timothy van Vliet and a bunch more. Chiellerie (Fri-Sun, Wed 14.00-18.00), closing Thursday Paradise Love Bar A group exhibition featuring works by three young and upcoming artists: installations and drawings by Aisling Hedgecock (Ireland); video art and photographs by Alice Finbow (England); and installations and paper cut-outs by Sangeeta Sandrasegar (Australia). Galerie Gabriel Rolt (Wed-Sun 12.0018.00), closing Saturday Kunst in Exodus 2007 Artists in exile. This collection features works from Persheng Warzandegan, Shafiq Soroush, Raouf Saleh and Zenon Abdalla. De Levante (Wed-Sun 13.00-17.30), closing Saturday

Helen Verhoeven In Verhoeven’s paintings, a sense of unrest often combines with a feeling of harmony as she blends everyday sceneries with unusual and sometimes disgusting images. Galerie Fons Welters (Tues-Sat 13.00-18.00), closing Saturday Min Kim New drawings and paintings. Torch Gallery (Thur-Sat 14.00-18.00), closing Saturday Rutger Emmelkamp Emmelkamp’s objects are often the result of a long and intensive labour process yielding a focus on the coherence of concept, work and meaning. Galerie Fons Welters (Tues-Sat 13.0018.00), closing Saturday Thomas Hoepker: Muhammed Ali Photographs of the infamous charismatic boxer, in and out of the ring, by the renowned German photographer. Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen (Thur-Sat 12.00-18.00), closing Saturday Konstruierte Landschaften Dramatic landscape paintings by Aquil Copier, with particularly vivid views from the sky. Saskia de Maree’s paintings represent an industrialised culture, but captured in bright and bold colours, a new perspective is offered. AYAC’S (Fri, Sat 13.00-17.30), closing Saturday Althea Thauberger: Alone Again (In the Likeness of Life) The Canadian artist’s first solo show in Europe, this exhibition presents five video and audio works, showing social and political allegories with an almost purist and vivid visuality. bak (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.00, Sun 13.00-17.00), Utrecht, closing Sunday W139 Coloured Reopening exhibition with works by Iris Kensmil, Paul Drissen, Peter Vos, Adriaan Rees and Rob Birza. W139 (Sun-Thur 11.00-20.00, Fri, Sat 11.0022.00), closing Sunday Corcoran Subtitled ‘Strategies of Confinement in the Age of Biopolitics’, this exhibition features installation works by Alexandra Croitoru, Johan Grimonprez, Mladen Miljanovic, Solmaz Shahbazi and Sean Snyder. De Brakke Grond (Mon 10.00-18.00, Tues-Fri 10.00-20.30, Sat 13.00-20.30, Sun 13.00-17.00), closing Sunday We Make Art Multidisciplinary artworks from some of Holland’s freshest young artists. Starting with a list of 65, Jan Maarten Voskuil (Arti), Christine van de Bergh (outLINE) and Christine Sluysmans (Kunstenaars CO) were handed the task of whittling it down to a short list of 15. Arti et Amicitiae (Tues-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday Abstract Accents Works by three European painters living and working in the Netherlands: Jack Allick, Pascale Bazille and Bernhard von Braun. ABC Treehouse (Thur-Sun 13.00-18.00), closing Sunday The Art of Fashion Fashion-inspired works by young artists, including Merel Boers, Liselotte Schuppers, Monica Ragazzini and Cindy Jeurissen. ArtOlive (MonFri 11.00-17.00, Sun 12.00-17.00), closing Sunday Docentenexpositie Featuring the works of two key Fotogram teachers: Peter Dammers and Malou van Breevoort. Fotogram (Mon-Thur 11.00-22.00, Fri, Sat 11.00-16.30), closing Wednesday Sven-Ole Frahm: Grace of Schwerkraft Paintings by the German artist, whose work is characterised by socalled ‘dual images’. Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.00), until 4 March Marie Cecile Thijs: Portretten Photographic portraits

by Thijs, who makes use of symbolism to unravel stories about those portrayed, as well as the viewer.

Melkweg Galerie (Wed-Sun 13.00-20.00), until 4 March Foodology Bringing together arts and crafts and ‘high’ and ‘low’ art, this show by Toyoko Shimada focuses

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

19

JACQUELINE DERSJANT

A new recipe for cultural integration.

While it may not exactly be a science, artist Toyoko Shimada’s Foodology gives us something to chew the fat over.

YOU ARE AND WEAR WHAT YOU EAT

By Karina Hof Toyoko Shimada has no problem throwing around F-words: fabrication, food and fashion are her three key terms. ‘You are what you create, you are what you eat and you are what you wear,’ says the Japanese artist.

Foodology is the name of her philosophy, and she has been preaching it through a multisensory, multimedia exhibition touring the country. Since its premiere last October atop the Stedelijk Museum CS, inspiration has taken the form of food-themed fashion shows, plate-painting workshops, the construction of a gate from recycled pots and

pans, wedding cake-baking and video projections of masticating mouths.

Shimada, who has lived in the Netherlands since arriving in Rotterdam to attend art academy five years ago, says her installations are first and foremost focused on their location. ‘I like this place because it looks, like, really UFO,’ she said at the Foodology exhibition’s opening last Wednesday at Platform 21.

That evening, the spherical showroom was abuzz with a deep droning white noise, the lights were dim and fragmented digital images flashed on the bare walls. With sake and sushi in hand, visitors could orbit around the room to make inspections, up close and personal, of 20

live fashion models on display. But the shape of the seminary-turned-gallery in Oud-Zuid could just as readily have evoked dinner platter as it did flying saucer. The models, who were also participants in the opening night fashion show, were each outfitted to resemble a kind of food or to make a statement about consumption.

China Girl, also the poster girl for Foodology, lived up to her two-dimensional image. Her red cheongsam was laden with the pasta shapes ziti and rotelle, and she carefully balanced a very starchy-looking headdress with the crowning jewel of a dragon figurine and dangling fibre-optic wires. In sheer mesh shirt, trousers constructed from what looked like a jute sack and a garland of platinum potatoes strewn over his exposed torso, Potato Man was nothing short of Abercrombie meets ‘De Aardappeleters’. Not far behind were two Cabbage Men dressed in sprout-dotted blue-green suits. The back of one blazer read ‘Nederland blijft Nederland’; the other, paying homage to a likely platemate, wore the message ‘Unox blijft Unox’. Also featured were works by Textielmuseum Tilburg, whose artists

collaborated on apparel such as Apple Boy’s hooded tunic with its knit image of the eternal Buddha.

Eating and dressing, as everyday practices, are the points where Shimada is best able to access questions of identity. Whether working in food, fabric or both, she brings to the table contradictory conceptions of culture, including her own as a forty-ish Japanese woman living in Holland.

When asked who her favourite Foodology study was, she identified Katenspek Man, the lanky model wearing a streaky bacon-patterned jacket with ruffled collar and long coat-tail.

‘Katenspek, for me—very special,’ Shimada said. Musing on bacon, she added: ‘You know, in this country, it’s a [staple] food. I want to make it something with frock coat, you know Oscar Wilde-style, very friendly.’ Fondness apparent, the fashion show’s finale staged the marriage of Katenspek Man to Egg Woman, a model swaddled in white tulle with sunny side-up egg decals, holding a wicker staff suggestive of nest and whisk at once.

Foodology’s multiple messages might-—in a word—be described as ‘circuitous’. Yet venue and menu worked together to achieve Shamida’s vision. As she said in a VSB Fonds-sponsored film: ‘I don’t believe mashed potato integration, I believe, like salad bowl, good salad bowl of many, many cultures. We eat every ingredient, but yet is a whole, and that I think [is] ideal integration, which maybe we can dream of.’

Still, one wonders if fair-trade Madame Chocolat, with the ‘100% organic 0% tears’ slogan printed on the back of her apron shirt would have had a bone to pick with Cocoa Cola, an Asian trio clad in shiny, red logo-emblazoned uniforms.

Foodology’s fashion line and accompanying exhibits will be on display at Platform 21 until 4 March. The night before will see the celebration of Hinamatsuri, a traditional Japanese festival that honours the prosperity of girls by displaying dolls on multi-tiered shrines. Foodology’s final installation will take place at Stedelijk Museum Zwolle this autumn.

Foodology, until 4 March, Platform 21 (Wed-Sun 12.00-18.00), Prinses Irenestraat 19, 301 8000, www.platform21.com

20 on eating habits and fashion codes. See article on previous page. Platform 21 (Wed-Sun 12.00-18.00), until 4 March Roos Houniet & Jelte Eikenaar Both artists graduated from the Rietveld Academy in 2005: Houniet with a video installation, Eikenaar with paintings. A new project combines both their disciplines. Horse Move Project (Fri-Sun 14.00-20.00), until 4 March Nick Helderman Photos of bands from the Amsterdam rock scene: Voicst, Bettie Serveert, Blues Brother Castro, et al. De Nieuwe Anita, until 4 March Between Dog and Wolf Chrystel Lebas’ new body of work, created between 2003 and 2006, comprises photographs taken in forests. Gallery Vassie (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 10 March Minimalpop A travelling group exhibition curated by Petra Bungert, director of CCNOA (Center for Contemporary Non-Objective Art) in Brussels, and German artist Tilman, featuring the works of many international artists. Arti et Amicitiae (Tues-Sun 13.00-18.00), until 11 March 34,5 m2 The works of photographic duo WassinkLundgren typically come from a sociological standpoint, with globalisation as central theme. This exhibition presents pictures taken in China, showing posters and advertising boards that seem to form an almost artificial reality. De Balie, until 11 March Oskar Nilsson/Mattijs van den Bosch Nilsson presents Hello Noir/(secret supper)/Memories from Provance, a series of paintings bubbling with personal mythology and home-made symbolism. Moroccanborn artist Van den Bosch shows paintings of street scenes and working men, created over the last couple of years. De Praktijk (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 17 March Korea Now Works by three South Korean artists: copper wire sculptures by Cheong Kwang-Ho, photography by Hong Song-Do and paintings by Nampyo Kim. Canvas International Art (Thur-Sat 14.0018.00), Amstelveen, until 17 March Renata del Medico: Soft Landscapes Italian architect who creates landscape installations from textiles.

Galerie Ra (Tues-Sat 12.00-18.00), until 17 March Helmut Smits: Friendly Fire An all-American exhibition by the Dutch artist, presenting installations, photos and objects inspired by supermarkets, television and issues facing society. Dubbelbee Galerie (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.30), until 17 March

ADDRESSES 11 Oosterdokskade 3-5, 625 5999 ABC Treehouse Voetboogstraat 11, 423 0967 agentur Witte de Withstraat 27a, 06 1438 2096 Amsterdams Historisch Museum Kalverstraat 92, 523 1822 De Appel Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10, 625 5651 ARCAM Prins Hendrikkade 600, 620 4878 Arti et Amicitiae Rokin 112, 624 5134 ArtOlive Polonceaukade 17, 675 8504 Aschenbach & Hofland Galleries Bilderdijkstraat 165C, 412 1772 AYAC'S Keizersgracht 166, 638 5240 Badcuyp 1e Sweelinckstraat 10, 675 9669 bak Lange Nieuwstraat 4, Utrecht, 030 231 6125 De Balie Kleine-Gartmanplantsoen 10, 553 5151 Bethaniënklooster Barndesteeg 6, 625 0078 Beurs van Berlage Damrak 277, 530 4141 Bijbels Museum Herengracht 366-368, 624 2436 Bimhuis Piet Heinkade 3, 788 2150 Bitterzoet Spuistraat 2, 521 3001 De Brakke Grond Nes 45, 626 6866 Buiksloterkerk Buiksloterpad 10, 493 3468 Café Dread Rock Oude Zijds Voorburgwal 67, 638 3534 Café Pakhuis Wilhelmina Veemkade 576, 419 3368 Café Sappho Vijzelstraat 103, 423 1509 Canvas International Art Fokkerlaan 46, Amstelveen, 428 6040 Carré Amstel 115-125, 524 9452 Cavia Van Hallstraat 52-I, 681 1419 Centraal Museum Nicolaaskerkhof, Utrecht, 030 236 2362 Chiellerie Raamgracht 58, 320 9448 Club 8 Admiraal de Ruyterweg 56B, 685 1703 Club Meander Voetboogstraat 3, 625 8430 Club More Rozengracht 133, 344 6402 Club NL Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 169, 622 7510 CoBrA Museum Sandbergplein 1-3, Amstelveen, 547 5050 Comedy Café Max Euweplein 43-45, 638 3971 Concertgebouw Concertgebouwplein 2-6, 671 8345 Conservatorium van Amsterdam Van Baerlestraat 27, 527 7550

Amsterdam Weekly Borderline Behaviour An exhibition regarding animation as a state of mind rather than a cinematic genre.

TENT (Tues-Sun 11.00-18.00, Daily during IFFR), Rotterdam, until 18 March Trees de Mits: After Image A series of sculptures inspired by medical apparatus and human organs.

Additionally, De Mits will be showing large format photographs. Galerie de Witte Voet (Wed-Sat 12.00-17.00), until 25 March The High Mind of Lowbrow Pop surrealist Ray Caesar’s ‘Science Fiction Meets Victorian’ print series has been shown here before, but it’s now being accompanied by works by other big names from the Lowbrow scene. KochxBos Gallery (Wed-Sat 13.00-18.00), until 1 April Beauty Unrealized A research project dedicated to the investigation of beauty and the status of objects.

New artists will step into the frame every two weeks, with ‘Extracts (Objects)’, an installation by Falke Pisano, running from 24 February until 4 March. Public Space with a Roof (Daily 15.00-19.00), until 8 April Van Huis Uit... The results of a research project by the Meertens Instituut about immigrant families and interiors of their homes. The exhibition presents a collage of photographs and stories about migration, material culture, identity and cultural exchange. Imagine IC (Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat 11.00-17.00, Thur 11.00-21.00), until 30 April

EVENTS

Intelligence, a vision that assumes a shift from PC usage to a variety of devices which are unobtrusively embedded in our environment and which are accessed via intelligent interfaces using RFID, PDA, wearables, robots, etc. In English. De Waag, 19.00, sold out Discussion: Passing the Rainbow A talk with German film and media artist Sandra Schäfer. Additional guests include Ruth Sonderegger (UvA) and Amal van Hees (Webster University). In English. agentur, 20.00, free Film festival: Andy Warhol Memorial Pop Art wonderboy gets his 48 hours of fame. See Short List.

Cavia, various times, until Friday 23 February

Friday 23 February Lifestyle: Highlife Fair A druggy paradise or a paranoid nightmare? As well as all the paraphernalia you could wish for, this festival features the ceremony for the Highlife Cup, the contest for Miss Highlife, and hiphop and reggae sets spread across the weekend from the likes of Lange Frans & Baas B, Raymzter, Typhoon, Opgezwolle, The Meditations and George Nooks & the Ruff Cut Band. RAI, 10.00-19.00, €17.50/€39.50 festival pass Expressionisten: volgelingen van Van Gogh? Were the Expressionists followers of Van Gogh? Leo Jansen, conservator of the Van Gogh Museum, debates with Expressionism expert Dr Frank Whitford (Wolfson College Cambridge). In English. Van Gogh Museum, 20.00

Saturday 24 February Thursday 22 February Lecture/Debate: Cultuur en politiek in het Duitse taalgebied Organisers of this lecture claim that the impact that culture and the arts have on society in Germany, Austria and Switzerland goes a longer way than it does in the Netherlands. Experts from all countries gather to speak about work in their respective fields and how it plays into the greater cultural and political landscape. Reservations: reservations@dare2connect.nl. In Dutch. Felix Meritis, 15.00, free Lecture: The Future of Ambient Intelligence Experts pontificate about future interactions between humans and technology, particularly in regards to Ambient

Consortium Veemkade 570, 06 2611 8950 Crea Theater Turfdraagsterpad 17, 525 1400 Custom Café Sugar Hazenstraat 19, 06 1401 3143 DanceStreet 1e Rozendwarsstraat 10, 489 7676 De Peper Overtoom 301 Dubbelbee Galerie Gerard Doustraat 142-144, 623 2884 English Reformed Church Begijnhof 48, 624 9665 Exit Reguliersdwarsstraat 42, 625 8788 Felix Meritis Keizersgracht 324, 626 2321 Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 Flex Bar Pazzanistraat 1, 486 2123 Foam Keizersgracht 609, 551 6546 Fotogram Korte Prinsengracht 33, 624 9994 Fotomuseum Stadhouderslaan 43, Den Haag, 070 338 1144 Frascati Nes 63, 626 6866 Galerie de Witte Voet Kerkstraat 135, 625 8412 Galerie Fons Welters Bloemstraat 140, 423 3046 Galerie Gabriel Rolt Elandsgracht 34, 785 5146 Galerie Ra Vijzelstraat 80, 626 5100 Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen Hazenstraat 27, 06 5203 1540 Gallery Vassie 1e Tuindwarsstraat 16, 489 4042 Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky Dam 9, 554 9111 Heineken Music Hall ArenA Boulevard 590, 0900 300 1250 Hermitage Amsterdam Nieuwe Herengracht 14, 530 8751 Horse Move Project Oosterdokskade 5 Post CS Hotel Y Boulevard Prins Hendrikkade 144-145, 623 0430 Huis Marseille Keizersgracht 401, 531 8989 Imagine IC Bijlmerplein 1006-1008, 489 4866 Joods Historisch Museum Jonas Daniel Meijerplein 2-4, 531 0310 KIT Tropentheater Mauritskade 63, 568 8711 KochxBos Gallery 1e Anjeliersdwarsstraat 3-5, 681 4567 De Levante Hobbemastraat 28, 671 5485 Lexion Avenue Overtoom 65, Westzaan, 0900-BelLexion Maloe Melo Lijnbaansgracht 163, 420 4592 The Mansion Hobbemastraat 2, 616 6664 Mediamatic Post CS, Oosterdokskade 5, 638 9901 Meervaart Meer en Vaart 300, 410 7777 Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 531 8181 Melkweg Galerie Marnixstraat 409, 531 8181

Lifestyle: Highlife Fair (See Friday) RAI, 10.00-19.00, €17.50/€39.50 festival pass Walk: Medieval Amsterdam A city walk in English, aiming to educate about the medieval history of Amsterdam. A guided tour of AHM is also available, starting at 12.30. See Short List. Amsterdams Historisch Museum, 14.00, €15 (reservations required)

22-28 February 2007 Wendingen, 16.00, €30

Sunday 25 February Lifestyle: Highlife Fair (See Friday) RAI, 10.00-18.00, €17.50/€39.50 festival pass Lecture: De geschiedenis van het Joods Historisch Museum Julie-Marthe Cohen leads this historic talk, marking the 75th anniversary of the museum. In Dutch. Joods Historisch Museum, 14.30, €7.50 (museum entry)

Monday 26 February Discussion: Broeinest Entitled ‘The Fight for Privacy’, this discussion examines the possibilities of resistance against the coming Brave New World. In particular, the combination of preemptive measures against terrorism with new technological developments, such as the new ‘listening cameras’ and intrusive RFID technology that infringe on privacy. In English and Dutch.

Plantage Doklaan 8-12, 20.00, free Discussion: Women Inc With Roos Wouters. In her book Fuck, I’m a Feminist, the writer thanks her mother’s generation for pushing forward emancipation and states that male-female relations have considerably improved. In Dutch. Pakhuis de Zwijger, 20.00, free

Tuesday 27 February Workshop: Machinima Workshop: Games as Tools Machinima involves making movies from 3D games, using games as tools to film unique scenarios. This intensive four-day workshop offers coaching from some of Europe’s most renowned Machinima experts, catering for absolute beginners, as well as those with gaming and film editing experience. De Balie, 10.0017.00, €250 Discussion: Sound Forum A spoken-word music magazine featuring lectures, discussions and presentations about contemporary compositions. Badcuyp, Bovenzaal, 20.00, free

Art/Music: Salon390 Titled ‘Herinnering’, this salon, organised by art dealer René Bruijstens and pianist Marja Bon, will feature paintings by Jet Rotmans, images by July Wickel and Thijl Wijdeveld, and a musical performance of works by Purcell, Händel, Schubert and others by soprano Irene Maessen with Bon.

Literature: Saint Amour Words in all their glorious forms. Stars of this literary tour include Remco Campert, Dimitri Verhulst, Hans Münstermann, Jessica Durlacher, Judith Herzberg, Leonard Nolens, Jules Deelder, Hafid Bouazza, Esmé Bos her band and Piet Piryns. In Dutch. Stadsschouwburg, 20.15, €11-€20

Museum Hilversum Kerkbrink 6, Hilversum, 035 629 2826 Muziekgebouw Piet Heinkade 1, 788 2010 Het Muziektheater Amstel 3, 625 5455 Nederlands Architectuurinstituut Museumpark 25, Rotterdam, 010 440 1200 News Photo Prins Hendrikkade 33, 330 8400 De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512 Nieuwe Kerk entrance on the Dam, 638 6909 OCCII Amstelveenseweg 134, 671 7778 OneFourOne Overtoom 141, 670 3313 P60 Stadsplein 100A, Amstelveen, 023 345 3445 Pacific Parc Polonceaukade 23, 488 7778 Pakhuis de Zwijger Piet Heinkade 179-181, 788 4444 Panama Oostelijke Handelskade 4, 311 8680 Paradiso Weteringschans 6-8, 626 4521 Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Patronaat Zijlsingel 2, Haarlem, 023 517 5858 Platform 21 Prinses Irenestraat 19, 344 9449 The Powerzone Spaklerweg, 681 8866 De Praktijk Lauriergracht 96, 422 1727 PRIK Spuistraat 109, 06 4544 2321 Public Space with a Roof Overtoom 301, 06 1117 4239 RAI Europaplein 22, 549 1212 Rijksmuseum Jan Luykenstraat 1, 674 7000 Rozentheater Rozengracht 117, 620 7953

Sinners Wagenstraat 3-7, 620 1375 Skek Zeedijk 4-8, 427 0551 Stadsschouwburg Leidseplein 26, 624 2311 Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam Rozenstraat 59, 422 0471 Stedelijk Museum CS Oosterdokskade 5, 573 2911 Studio 80 Rembrandtplein 70, 521 8333 Sugar Factory Lijnbaansgracht 238, 627 0008 TENT Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam, 010 413 5498 Teylers Museum Spaarne 16, Haarlem, 023 516 0960 Theater Bellevue Leidsekade 90, 530 5301 Torch Gallery Lauriergracht 94, 626 0284 Tropenmuseum Linnaeusstraat 2, 568 8200 Under the Grand Chapiteau Next to ArenA, 621 1288 Van Gogh Museum Paulus Potterstraat 7, 570 5200 Verzetsmuseum Plantage Kerklaan 61, 620 2535 Volta Houtmankade 334-336, 628 6429 W139 Warmoesstraat 139, 622 9434 De Waag Nieuwmarkt 4, 557 9898 Wendingen Herengracht 390, 330 3410 Winston Kingdom Warmoesstraat 129, 623 1380 WM Gallery Elandsgracht 35, 421 1113 Zaal 100 De Wittenstraat 100, 688 0127 The Zebra Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 14, 330 5266 Zuiderkerk Zuiderkerkhof 72, 552 7987

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

Manuale d’amore

FILM Edited by Julie Phillips.This week’s films reviewed by Shyama Daryanani (SD),Angela Dress (AD), Sven Gerrets (SG), John Hartnett (JH), Luuk van Huët (LvH), JR Jones (JJ), Dave Kehr (DK),Terri J Kester (TJK),Vincent Moritz (VM), Mike Peek (MP), Julie Phillips (JP), Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR), Marinus de Ruiter (MdR), Bregtje Schudel (BS) and Albert Williams (AW).All films are screened in English with Dutch subtitles unless otherwise noted.

Amsterdam Weekly recommends.

New this week Dreamgirls Elegant, unabashedly theatrical and packed with lush concert scenes, this musical by Bill Condon (Kinsey) is remarkably faithful to directorchoreographer Michael Bennett’s Broadway hit about a black girl group of the ’60s and ’70s. It’s a soapy showbiz saga that also chronicles the turbulent era when black music (and the aspirations it expressed) crossed over to the cultural mainstream.

Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson and Anika Noni Rose are the Supremes-like trio, Jamie Foxx is their controlling, unscrupulous producer and Eddie Murphy, in a solid performance, is an old-fashioned R&B (‘rough and black’) star who can’t make the transition to a smoother style. (AW) 123 min. Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski Manuale d’amore Four couples illustrate different stages of love—infatuation, crisis, infidelity and the breakup—in this Italian comedy by Giovanni Veronesi. In Italian with Dutch subtitles. 116 min. De Uitkijk Notes on a Scandal Teacher Cate Blanchett has an affair with a pupil; older colleague Judi Dench finds out. See review on p. 23. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski Tenacious D:The Pick of Destiny Since the late ’90s, Jack Black has teamed with Kyle Gass on American TV in the comedy-rock duo Tenacious D. Now that he’s a movie star, Black has invested some of his capital in this big-screen outing. Black’s love of heavy-metal pomp animates the giddy opening sequence, a rock opera with cameos by Meat Loaf and Ronnie James Dio, and a few choice gags pop up later (asleep on a park bench, Black is menaced by Alex and his droogs from A Clockwork Orange). But most of the movie, about the search for a magical guitar pick, farts along at the level of a Wayne’s World sketch. (JJ) 97 min.

Pathé De Munt

Still playing The Death of Mr Lazarescu The hospital scenes in

this award-winning Romanian film are a far cry from the heroics we’ve become used to from ER. When the sixty-ish Dante Remus Lazarescu is brought in complaining of headaches and vomiting, he doesn’t exactly get run over by surgeons who want to make him better. Their attitude is disinterested at best: ‘You feel sick because you have been drinking.’ Director Cristi Puiu displays a fair amount of gallows humour, but at the same time paints a very disturbing picture of a broken-down health care system. After 150 minutes and four different hospitals, viewers are just as exasperated as the ambulance nurse who sees the man dying before her eyes but isn’t able to give him the care any human being deserves. In Romanian with Dutch and French subtitles. (BS) Filmmuseum

12:08 East of Bucharest ‘Was there or wasn’t there?’ is the central question—and the original title—of this feature film debut by director Corneliu Porumboiu. Sixteen years after Romania was freed from communist rule, a pompous small-time televi-

21

East of Bucharest

sion host decides it’s time for a televised discussion on the revolution. The only two guests he can find are an alcoholic history teacher and an old man, both of who claim to have been protesting on the streets before dictator Ceausescu fled, thus making the event an uprising. Insightful and funny, with spot-on performances, the film tells us more about current Romania than its light tone might suggest. In Romanian with Dutch subtitles. (BS) 89 min. Filmmuseum

4 Elements Documentarist Jiska Rickels portrays the four elements by linking each one to man’s efforts to use—or fight—them. Each element has its own landscape, atmosphere, language and protagonists, hard workers making a living in the face of adversity. Earth is represented by a coal mine, water by crab fishermen in the Bering Strait, fire by firefighters in Siberia and air by a crew of astronauts in training. Narration and dialogue are in Russian, English, German and Kazakh, with sparing use of subtitles; but in this beautiful, thought-provoking film, the challenge to the audience is amply repaid.

(TJK) 100 min. Het Ketelhuis, Rialto Babel In a North African desert, two bored boys herding goats decide to try out their gun. The shot causes a chain reaction that changes the lives of an American couple (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), a rebellious, deaf teenage girl in Japan and a Mexican au pair caring for two American children. According to director Alejandro González Iñárritu, this is the third film in a trilogy that began with 21 Grams and Amores Perros. It’s all about relationships, love in the midst of adversity and communication. In many languages with Dutch subtitles. 142 min. Cinecenter, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Bamako In a courtyard in a slum in Bamako,

the capital of Mali, the World Bank and IMF are subjected to a mock trial, accused of creating poverty in Africa. Meanwhile, Melé, a bar singer, and her husband Chaka break up; another couple get married; the residents of the courtyard work and play alongside the abstract discussion of Africa’s economic malaise. Intriguing in both content and structure, the film was directed by Abderrahmane Sissako. In French/Bambara with Dutch subtitles. 115 min. Rialto

Bamako Blind While actress-turned-director Tamar van den Dop may have based her feature debut on a cheesy expression—‘love is blind’—the execution is dead serious. The physically and psychologically damaged Marie (Halina Reijn) finally finds love with a blind young man (Joren Seldeslachts). But when he regains his sight, will his love still be blind? Van den Dop takes full advantage of the serene snow-clad landscapes of Bulgaria (posing for Belgium) and Reijn’s perfectly restrained body language, but is more concerned with the dichotomy between seeing and being seen than with a bona fide storyline. In Dutch. (BS) 98 min. Het Ketelhuis, Pathé De Munt Blood Diamond Just like the previous effort of director Edward Zwick, The Last Samurai, this film is a hackneyed action flick bearing a preachy message. It may look splendiferous on the big screen, and the intentions are noble, but the underlying tone is condescending and exclusively occidental, with Djimon Hounsou cast in a thankless role as a ‘noble savage’ and Jennifer Connelly as a goody-two-shoes American reporter. The only redeeming factor is Leonardo DiCaprio, who shines as a morally conflicted Rhodesian mercenary; sadly, his Bogart-worthy role doesn’t rescue this insipid flick, despite all the bling bling of the title. (LvH) 143 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Casino Royale Blond, very blond. A lot of fans were left gasping for air after Daniel Craig was tapped to

come shake—not stir—things up as the new James.

But Mr Craig does a wonderful job bringing Bond back to basics. Casino Royale isn’t another part of the franchise, it’s a whole new beginning. Bond has just received his 00 status and is on the tail of a banker who finances a lot of nasty people around the world.

There are bad guys, there are Bond girls and there are spectacular stunts; it’s all just a bit more rough, tough and gadget-less. This start-over does takes some time getting used to, but after the last few instalments, that’s a small price to pay for the pleasure. (SG) 144 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

The Departed Director Martin Scorsese’s latest finds him once again in top form and at home in his favourite subjects: the underworld, money and clan loyalty. The Departed is based on the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs and set in Irish-Italian South Boston. Mob boss Frank Costello (an exuberantly evil-eyed Jack Nicholson) runs the show; Matt Damon, as Costello’s police department mole, alternates between a poker face and a winning smile. But the police have their own double agent, Leonardo DiCaprio, whose slow disintegration is at the heart of this drama about doubling and deception. (JH) 152 min. Pathé De Munt Eklavya A cross between Shakespeare and the Mahabharata, Eklavya tells the tale of a guard of Devigarh Palace whose life is devoted to the royal family. It involves the death of the queen, the return of the prince, the schemes of the king’s brother and nephew, and a secret that, when revealed, leads to despair, murder, betrayal and revenge. As the guard Eklavya, superstar Amitabh Bachchan has little dialogue; but the darkness of the story, his emotions and intentions are expressed in his eyes, as is the case with Saif Ali Khan, who plays the prince. Vidhu Vinod Chopra directed. In Hindi with Dutch subtitles. (SD) 105 min. Pathé ArenA Flags of Our Fathers Perhaps only the clout of director Clint Eastwood and co-producer Steven Spielberg could have brought us a movie about how the most inspirational photo of World War II—four GIs raising the flag at Iwo Jima—was mendaciously exploited to sell war bonds. It’s a noble undertaking, and Eastwood is stylistically bold enough to create a view of combat based mainly on images that are clearly manufactured. (As with Saving Private Ryan, the movie’s principal source is The Big Red One, whose director, Samuel Fuller, actually experienced the war.) But this film is underimagined and so thesis-ridden that it’s nearly over before it starts. With Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford and Adam Beach. (JR) 132 min. Kriterion Flandres Shy Démester lives a dull life on a farm. His only pleasure is occasional sex with free-spirited Barbe. Disaster strikes when he and a few of his friends are called up to serve in a (nameless) war.

They commit and undergo unspeakable crimes, leading to subtle but profound changes in the protagonist’s personality. French director Bruno Dumont’s films are hit or miss. His last, Twentynine Palms, was a definite miss, but Flandres, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes, is a hit. Its slow pacing and strong visuals allow us to get inside Démester’s head, even though he hardly speaks. However complex Dumont’s films may seem, his message is always simple: everyone, everywhere, wants to be loved. In Flandres, it takes the experience of evil to help the main character acknowledge this need. In French with Dutch subtitles. (MP) Rialto

The

Good Shepherd Director Robert De Niro deglamorises the profession of espionage in The Good Shepherd, viewing the CIA through the personal life of a fictional co-founder, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon). Almost by accident, Wilson becomes a key Agency figure, but his professional success is paralleled by his perfectly executed personal lapse into isolation and paranoia. People expecting an indepth exploration of the CIA will be disappointed: The Good Shepherd is less a history lesson than a film about the influence of fate and coincidence on the course of each human life. MP) 167 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski

Five-Word Movie Review

IN EU BUT NO ER The Death of Mr Lazarescu Filmmuseum

The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael The ‘ultraviolence’ in A Clockwork Orange comes off rather tame when compared to the gruesome acts performed by the protagonists in this controversial feature film by young British director Thomas Clay.

The Great Ecstasy starts off calmly as a realistic, well filmed portrait of school kids drowning in boredom and drugs in a dreary English coastal town, but gradually veers off into the ridiculously apalling. For those who like their youth dramas over the top, go ahead and visit these rare screenings. Others are advised to stay home and watch The O.C. instead. (MdR) 96 min. Melkweg Cinema

The Illusionist In 1900s Vienna, the magician Eisenheim (Edward Norton) appears capable of the greatest feats, from slowing the movement of an object in mid-air to making an orange tree grow instantaneously from a newly planted seed. His wizardry confounds both Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) and Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti), who, despite growing admiration, is ordered to shut him down. Trapped in a corner, Eisenheim hires a group of Chinese assistants and begins to dabble in the spirit world. When an apparition of the late Duchess Sophie van Teschen (Jessica Biel), his childhood love as well as the Prince’s betrothed, manifests itself onstage, the problems begin to get out of hand. Suddenly, both the monarchy and the magician are in danger. A romantic love story and intriguing political thriller, directed by Neil Burger, with score by Philip Glass. (JH) 110 min.

The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski

The Illusionist Indigènes French/Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb set his new film in 1943, when the cheerful young North Africans Saïd, Yassir, Messaoud and Abdelkader enlist in the French army to fight for their country.

Instead, they find themselves caught between the horrors of the battlefield and the prejudice of their fellow soldiers. The four leads, as a group, won last year’s Best Actor award at Cannes; after the film came out in France, President Chirac promised the surviving colonial veterans (who never received full benefits) compensation. In French and Arabic with Dutch subtitles. 128 min. Kriterion The Last King of Scotland This compelling UK drama features a titanic performance by Forest Whitaker as Idi Amin, the brutal dictator who terrorised Uganda throughout the ’70s. A fictional young Scottish doctor (James McAvoy) follows his taste for adventure to Africa and becomes personal physician to the general, who’s just seized power in a military coup. Alternately charming and sinister, vulnerable and vengeful, Amin draws the naive young man deeper into his murderous regime, and by the time the doctor fully grasps the depth of Amin’s evil he’s complicit in it. (JJ) 123 min.

The Movies, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Letters from Iwo Jima In this second panel of his diptych on the battle for Iwo Jima (after Flags of our Fathers), Clint Eastwood shows us the Japanese angle. And what do you know: the Japanese have

22-28 February 2007 feelings, too! It’s a laudable objective and Eastwood has proven himself to be a film-maker with integrity; yet the film’s three protagonists are also the ones with the most identifiable Western values, especially concerning honourable suicide. General Kuribayashi (Ken Watanabe) and Baron Nishi (Tsuyoshi Ihara) would rather die in a losing battle than take their own lives prematurely; soldier Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) just wants to get home to his wife and infant daughter.

Eastwood has made them humane, but also, inevitably, American. In Japanese and English with Dutch subtitles. (BS) 142 min. Kriterion, Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt Lights in the Dusk Aki Kaurismaki’s trilogy about Finnish despair (Drifting Clouds, The Man Without a Past) closes with this story of the lonely night watchman Koistinen (Janne Hyytiäinen), who gets caught up with a femme fatale. In Finnish with Dutch subtitles. 78 min. Filmmuseum

Little Children Five years after his superb debut

feature In the Bedroom, writer-director Todd Field returns with another story set in a close-knit community whose quietness makes the characters’ unhappiness seem like thunder. Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson, both disenchanted with their spouses, meet in a public park with their toddlers, and a series of carefully arranged playdates allows them to nurse their unspoken infatuation until it finally engulfs them. Meanwhile, a bitter ex-cop lets off steam by harassing a paroled paedophile who’s come home to live with his mother.

As in Field’s first film, the characters are drawn with such compassion their follies become our own and their desires seem as vast as the night sky. (JJ) 130 min. Cinecenter, The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski

Night at the Museum Night at the Museum Taken from a children’s book

by Croatian illustrator Milan Trenc, this fantasy isn’t exactly heavy, but its ideological implications are interesting nevertheless. A poorly educated, professionally challenged father (Ben Stiller) lands a job as a security guard at New York’s Museum of Natural History, where the historical mannequins come to life every night, most of them speaking perfect contemporary English and behaving like sitcom characters. They mostly fight among themselves until the guard brings all of global history into benign, all-American colonial harmony, even launching a romance between Teddy

Amsterdam Weekly Roosevelt (Robin Williams) and the Native American guide Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck). Reasonably entertaining. (JR) 108 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Our Daily Bread This may remind you of We Feed

the World, the documentary by Erwin Wagenhofer that was released in the Netherlands last November. Like that film, it’s a behind-the-scenes look at how meat and produce make the transition from soil to supermarket. But Our Daily Bread is far more experimental, abstaining from dialogue and even music. Alternating shots from the work floor of a meat-packing plant with the same people silently eating their lunches, Austrian director Nikolaus Geyrhalter creates a mood of inevitability. He is not interested in opinions or politics, only in showing the bizarre, almost science-fictional way our food is produced in the 21st century. (MP) 92 min. Filmhuis Griffioen, Filmmuseum Perfume: The Story of a Murderer One of the most expensive European films ever produced, Perfume, based on Patrick Süskind’s book, is a sinister fairy tale about Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), who is born with an unusually sensitive nose and becomes obsessed to the point of murder with making the perfect scent. As long as you’re not allergic to Tom Tykwer’s mysticism, it’s an incredibly sensual film. With Dustin Hoffman as master perfumer Giuseppe Baldini and Alan Rickman as the father of endangered love interest Rachel Hurd-Wood. In English. 147 min. Cinema Amstelveen, Kriterion, Pathé De Munt, De Uitkijk

A Prairie Home Companion Director Robert Alt-

man’s final film has turned a popular American radio show into an enormously entertaining backstage comedy with country and western music. The movie takes place during a fictional last performance of the show, which has been cancelled by a Texas media conglomerate; as the numbers play onstage, an angel of death (Virginia Madsen) wanders the wings searching for her prey. These hokey plot elements provide an adequate structure for some of the funniest and warmest character improvisations Altman generated in years.

(JJ) 105 min. The Movies, Pathé Tuschinski The Prestige With his fifth feature film, Christopher Nolan is back to the tricks he used successfully in Memento. The plot appears simple: it’s about the bitter rivalry between two magicians, with fatal consequences. But a keen observer will discover there’s a third man at play: Christopher Nolan himself, Master of Misdirection, who, with dazzling visuals, clever montage and intricate story lines, tries to divert our attention from the obvious. When you have such good actors at your disposal and such visual finesse, it’s a real shame to bet everything on one clever trick.

It’s a sad miscalculation in an otherwise well crafted movie. With Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, David

Bowie and Scarlett Johansson. (BS) 130 min. Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt, Pathé Tuschinski

The Princess Half Japanese-style animation and half live action, this Danish cult film tells the violent story of a priest’s bloody quest through the sex film industry to avenge the death of his pornstar sister and the abuse of her five-year-old daughter. Princess is relentless in its portrayal of porn as a life-ruining business, raising the issue whether its director, cartoonist Anders Morgenthaler, should have toned down his moral judgement. Highly recommended for those not allergic to controversy. In Danish with Dutch subtitles.

(MdR) 90 min. The Movies The Queen Helen Mirren’s flinty performance as Elizabeth II is getting all the attention, but equally impressive is Peter Morgan’s insightful script for this UK drama, which quietly teases out the social, political, and historical implications of the 1997 death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Shortly after the shocking news reaches Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) scores a PR coup by memorialising Diana as the ‘people’s princess’, while the royal family’s obstinate silence angers their grieving subjects. But Blair is more sympathetic to Elizabeth than many of his staffers, and he instinctively understands what she cannot: that in the tabloid age, celebrities are dangerously usurping the monarch’s hold on the public imagination. (JJ) 97 min. Cinecenter, Pathé Tuschinski

Red Road If there were an Oscar available for Best Film to Make You Glad You Weren’t Born in Glasgow, Andrea Arnold would walk away with it for her feature debut. Red Road presents us with Jackie (Kate Dickie), a woman who monitors CCTV cameras for signs of disorder. She begins tracking a man named Clyde; as the reasons for her actions are revealed, it’s in the sexual arena that she conspires to exact revenge. Her vulnerability and sadness are framed against the bleak buildings of a run-down sink estate to lend the film much of its power. (AD) 113 min. Het Ketelhuis, Kriterion Schoffies Documentary by Marc van Fucht about the herons of Amsterdam. In Dutch. 60 min. Het Ketelhuis

The Science of Sleep Michael Gondry’s latest flick

is a bit more lightweight than his previous efforts, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The Science of Sleep is a rumination on love and longing, in this case the love felt by the dopey Stéphane for his lanky neighbour Stéphanie, which he expresses by presenting all kinds of inventive doodads for her. While Stéphane is a cocksure and confident dude in his cardboard-riddled dreams, he turns into a clunky kid in real life.

Gondry’s inventive low-fi aesthetic is always appealing, as are the two leads, Gael García Bernal and

22 Charlotte Gainsbourg. In Spanish/English/French with Dutch subtitles. (LvH) 105 min. Filmhuis Griffioen, Kriterion Smokin’Aces It’s very easy to classify this hyperactive pile-up of exploitation genres as a wannabe-Tarantino flick; but for connoisseurs of trashy cinema who have an open mind and low expectations, this grab bag, mixing up everything from Elmore Leonard and Mad Max to Foxy Brown and Hostel, is a hyperkinetic hootand-a-half. The two drawbacks in this drama about the attempt to kill a Las Vegas entertainer are a formulaic twist that anyone with half a brain can see coming and a forced climax in which the audience is asked to care about the one-note characters. But if you want an over-the-top movie experience, knock yourself out!

Directed by Joe Carnahan; with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Piven. (LvH) Pathé ArenA, Pathé De Munt

Ten Canoes

Ten Canoes This indigenous morality drama, set in

Australia in the year 1000, begins with a young man who has taken a fancy to his older brother’s wife. To teach the youngster not to break the sacred tribal laws, the brother tells an ancestral story that directly relates to the delicate issue at hand. The story takes place in a mythical past and deals with forbidden love, kidnapping, sorcery and revenge gone deadly wrong.

Films about indigenous people tend to meet with a solemn approach. Director Rolf De Heer (born in Holland in 1951, raised in Australia) ventured far from this beaten path, mixing epic storytelling with cheeky humour in this mythic swamp comedy—a thoroughly entertaining film that will teach you how to live the proper way. In English/Ganalbingu with Dutch subtitles. (VM) 90 min. The Movies, Rialto

The Way I Spent the End of The World After years

of change and culture shock, Romanian film-makers are finally starting to portray the chaos of the 1989 revolution. This utterly charming and well-acted family portrait by Catalin Mitulescu is set in the last year before Ceausescu’s fall, when fear and repression were still part of everyday life. Small dramas are paralleled with the historical changes taking place in the background: teenager Eva falls in love with Alex, son of a Communist Party member, much to the dismay of her dictator-hating grandfather and her devious little brother. In Romanian with Dutch subtitles. (MdR) 106 min. The Movies, Rialto

Special screenings Als de Kraanvogels Overvliegen This Russian tale of a young couple separated by war won the grand prize at Cannes in 1958 and became a worldwide success. It’s artsy and greyish, but it has surprising bursts of sincere sentiment. The girl, Tatyana Samojlova, has the kind of clear face the camera loves, which helps a lot. Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, once Stalin’s head of film production. In Russian with Dutch subtitles. (DK) 95 min. Kriterion

In each the protagonist (a businessman, an ageing yakuza and a female pop singer disfigured in a traffic accident, as Kitano was several years ago) tries to compensate for having chosen work over love and winds up with a mate who has sacrificed everything for it. The overall mood is stately and melancholy, the selective use of colour is ravishing and some of the natural views are breathtaking. In Japanese with Dutch subtitles. (JR) 113 min. Rialto

Appleseed Awesome visuals battle a sluggish script in this computer-generated Japanese anime. The 2D characters are delicately drawn and anatomically precise, and the cel-shaded animation, which involves constructing a 3-D model for the character, beautifully mimics the interplay of light and shadow.

Equally impressive is the smooth integration of drawn characters and digitally photographed backgrounds.

Unfortunately, all this craft serves a familiar space opera with lots of robot fights; there’s still no computer programme capable of telling a decent story.

Shinji Aramaki directed. In Japanese with Dutch subtitles. (JJ) 103 min. Melkweg Cinema

Gosford Park This 2001 comedy drama, set in 1932 in an English country house, is probably Robert Altman’s most accomplished film since the ’70s. Among its virtues are a fine English cast, a good script that incorporates certain aspects of Agatha Christie-style whodunnit, and the interesting ground rule that no guest be shown unless a servant is present in the same scene. There are more characters of interest here than in Nashville, and an almost constantly moving camera tends to objectify the relationships among them. With Eileen Atkins, Bob Balaban (a Hollywood producer), Alan Bates (a butler), Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Derek Jacobi and Stephen Fry doing a M Hulot impersonation. (JR) 137 min. The Movies

Death Race 2000 Vintage 1975 sleaze from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures, loaded with sex, violence and general vulgarity but orchestrated by one of the most interesting personalities then operating in the exploitation field, Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul).

The story, about a road race in which the drivers are given points for running down pedestrians, becomes an elaborate and telling fantasy about our peculiar popular entertainments. Fine work carved from minimal materials. With David Carradine and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. (DK) 78 min. Melkweg Cinema

Dolls A more unabashed art movie than any of

Takeshi Kitano’s other films, this exquisitely composed 2002 feature begins with Bunraku puppet theatre before it segues into three overlapping, highly stylised but otherwise unrelated contemporary tales.

Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 Alain Tanner’s affectionate 1976 study of a group of ’60s radicals trying to make the transition to the ’70s combines Godard’s intellectual responsibility with Renoir’s faith in the resilience of the human spirit, resulting in a film that is funny, moving and instructive, a political film that speaks to the heart as well as the mind. 116 mins. Also showing: Pasolini’s 1963 short La Ricotta, starring Orson Welles. In French and Italian with English subtitles. (DK) OT301 Kino: Nieuwe Russische Cinema An evening of snacks, vodka and Russian short films. Kriterion The Man Who Wasn’t There Joel and Ethan Coen stay true to their bent for dense heroes and neo-noir, and to their conviction that life usually turns out bad-

ly. In this 2001 film they’ve cast Billy Bob Thornton as a small-town barber in the late ’40s who’s slowly enmeshed in a doomed crime plot. Apart from a couple of screwy flashbacks, several fancy plot twists and a few other postmodern indulgences, this is straight out of James Cain, though the high contrasts of Roger Deakins’ glorious black-and-white cinematography suggest at times Fellini’s 8 1/2. Also showing: the 1993 short Eau de la Vie from New Zealand’s Simon Baré. (JR) 116 min. iLLUSEUM North Country Charlize Theron, in non-glam mode, dominates this powerful drama about sexual harassment at a Minnesota iron mine in the early ’90s. Physically abused by her husband, she hits the road with her two kids, finds shelter with her parents (Richard Jenkins and Sissy Spacek), and takes advantage of a Supreme Court ruling to hire on at the mine where her father works. But the women there are mercilessly hazed, and eventually Theron begins prodding them to act. Michael Seitzman based his script on Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler’s non-fiction book Class Action, indulging in some Hollywood tropes (a courtroom melodrama that frames the action) but anchoring the story in the women’s grimy work lives. (JJ) 123 min. Pathé Tuschinski Re-animator Professor Herbert West has discovered a formula to bring dead bodies to life. After a disastrous incident in Switzerland, he returns to North America to continue his experiments. This inventive, over-the-top version of an HP Lovecraft tale comes complete with copious gore, cheap special effects, sex, death and a strong dose of black humour. 95 min. De Nieuwe Anita Ryna Ryna is the 16-year-old daughter of a Romanian gas station owner who raises her as a boy.

She struggles with her identity and, when her mother leaves, decides to break with her father.

Directed by Ruxandra Zenide. Rialto

Short Cuts Robert Altman returns to the anthology mode of Nashville to offer 22 criss-crossing characters and nine loosely related plots set in Los Angeles over a breezy 180 minutes. Inevitably, it’s a mixed bag, though the film’s assurance in keeping it all coherent is at times exhilarating. (JR) The Movies The Straight Story David Lynch’s 1999 film is based on the true story of Alvin Straight, a Midwestern septuagenarian who rode 240 miles on a lawn mower to visit his estranged brother after the latter suffered a stroke. The wonderful Richard Farnsworth plays the lead, and he was clearly born for the part. Lynch’s imaginative and heartfelt direction falters only when he tries for some of his relatively familiar weirdo effects. Otherwise this is a highly affecting and suggestive spiritual odyssey with plenty of asides and reflections about old age. (JR) 112 min. Rialto Teenage Kicks—The Undertones In this 2001 BBC music documentary, DJ John Peel goes to Derry, Northern Ireland, in search of the late-’70s punk-pop band The Undertones. 72 min. Pathé ArenA Waargebeurde verhalen: Water en vuur A new monthly series of documentaries that blur the line between truth and fiction. The first film in the line-up, Water en vuur, is a reconstruction by Joost Seelen of the 1933 trial and conviction of Reichstag arsonist Marinus van der Lubbe. De Balie Who Killed the Electric Car? Chris Paine’s documentary about General Motors’ development and withdrawal of the innovative, environment-friendly EV1 automobile is bound to reverberate with anyone who’s fallen in love with a product only to see it irrevocably yanked from the market. Nihilistic greed was the major factor when GM terminated the car in 2001, though Paine is also careful to note the passivity of the general public. The first in a new Tuesday night screening series from Vereniging Vier de Wereld (www.4DW.nl). (JR) 91 min. OT301

22-28 February 2007

Amsterdam Weekly

23 Just like Lolita, but the other way round.

Cate Blanchett squares off against Judi Dench in a tale of manipulation and desire in a North London school.

WHAT TEACHERS DO WHEN THEY’RE ALONE

By Angela Dress In Notes on a Scandal, directed by Richard Eyre from the novel by Zoë Heller, Judi Dench has been given a role to relish—a cynical, ageing North London history teacher—in this drama of manipulation, deception and desire. The teacher’s name is Barbara Covett, and the witheringly sarcastic voice-over from her diary gives us her highly unreliable point of view and sets up the framework for the

FILM TIMES Thursday 22 February until Wednesday 28 February. 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 Waargebeurde verhalen:Water en vuur Fri, Sat 20.30.

Cavia Van Hallstraat 52-I, 681 1419 Basquiat Thur 20.30 Bruxelles-Caracas Sat 20.30 Flesh for Frankenstein Thur 22.30 I Shot Andy Warhol Fri 19.00 Superstar:The Life and Times of Andy Warhol Thur 19.00 Women In Revolt Fri 21.00.

Cinecenter Lijnbaansgracht 236, 623 6615 Babel look at www.cinecenter.nl Little Children look at www.cinecenter.nl Notes on a Scandal look at www.cinecenter.nl The Queen look at www.cinecenter.nl.

Cinema Amstelveen Plein 1960 2, Amstelveen, 547 5175 Ernst, Bobbie en de geslepen Onix Sat, Tues, Wed 13.30, Sun 12.00 Happy Feet (NL) Sat, Tues, Wed 15.30, Sun 14.00 Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Thur-Sat, Tues, Wed 20.30, Thur also 15.00, Sun 16.15.

Filmhuis Griffioen Uilenstede 106, Amstelveen, 444 5100 Our Daily Bread Thur, Tues 21.15, Fri 19.00 The Science of Sleep Thur, Tues 19.00, Fri 21.00.

Filmmuseum Vondelpark 3, 589 1400 12:08 East of Bucharest daily 17.45, 19.45, 21.45 The Death of Mr Lazarescu daily 21.15, Sat, Sun also 15.30 De Grote verhuizing Sun, Wed 14.00 Lights in the Dusk Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.30 Lorange & Co Sat-Wed 13.45 Our Daily Bread daily 19.15. iLLUSEUM Witte de Withstraat 120, 770 5581 The Man Who Wasn't There Wed 20.30.

playing out of subsequent events.

First the unmarried Covett befriends the new art teacher, the younger, idealistic and beautiful Sheba Hart (Cate Blanchett). Then she discovers that Hart is having an affair with one of her pupils, a 15-year-old Irish special-needs student.

Hart is married to an older lecturer (Bill Nighy) and has a young son with Down’s syndrome. Her affair with the boy thus resembles a negative print of her own personal life.

Het Ketelhuis Haarlemmerweg 8-10, 684 0090 4 Elements Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 17.00 De Avonturen van het Molletje Sat-Wed 13.15, Sat, Mon-Wed also 15.45 Blind daily 19.15, 21.15, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 17.15 Knetter Sat-Wed 15.00 Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (NL) Sat-Wed 14.45 Lepel Sat, Mon-Wed 13.00 Minoes Sat-Wed 13.00 Ober daily 20.00, 21.45 Red Road daily 21.30, Thur-Sat, Mon, Wed also 16.45 Schoffies Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 18.45, Sat, Sun, Wed 14.30 Zwartboek daily 19.00.

Kriterion Roetersstraat 170, 623 1708 Als de Kraanvogels Overvliegen Sun 13.15, Mon 22.15 An Inconvenient Truth Mon-Wed 17.30 Buddha's Lost Children Sat, Sun 15.00 Flags of Our Fathers Thur-Sun 17.15 Indigènes Mon-Wed 17.30 Kino: Nieuwe Russische Cinema Fri 22.15 Letters from Iwo Jima daily 19.35 Little Miss Sunshine Thur-Sun, Tues, Wed 22.00, Sat, Sun 15.15 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer Thur-Sun 16.45 Red Road Thur-Mon, Wed 22.15, Sat also 0.15, Sun also 12.45 The Science of Sleep daily 20.00, Sat also 0.00 Sneak Preview Tues 22.15.

Melkweg Cinema Lijnbaansgracht 234A, 624 1777 Appleseed Fri, Sat, Wed 20.00 Death Race 2000 Mon 20.00 The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael Mon 21.45, Tues 20.00, 22.00 Origine Thur, Sun 20.00.

The Movies Haarlemmerdijk 159-165, 638 6016 Babel Fri, Sat 21.45 Beestenboel Sat-Wed 14.45 The Illusionist daily 17.00, Fri, Sat also 23.30 The Last King of Scotland daily 16.45, 19.30, 22.00, Fri, Sat also 0.15, Sun also 12.15 Little Children daily 21.45, Thur, Sun-Wed also 17.15, Sat-Wed also 14.30 Notes on a Scandal daily 21.45, Thur, Sun-Wed also 17.15, SatWed also 14.30 Prairie Home Companion,A daily 21.30, Sun also 12.45 The Princess Sun-Wed 21.45, Fri, Sat 18.00, 0.20 The Queen daily 17.30, 19.45, Sun also 12.30 Shouf Shouf Habibi! Fri, Sat 0.10 Ten Canoes daily 19.15, Sat-Wed also 15.00.

De Nieuwe Anita Frederik Hendrikstraat 111, 06 4150 3512, Re-animator Mon 20.30.

OT301 Overtoom 301, 779 4913 Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 Sun 20.30 Who Killed the Electric Car? Tues 20.30.

Pathé ArenA ArenA Boulevard 600, 0900 1458 Arthur en de Minimoys Fri-Wed 12.30, 14.45, Sat-Wed also 10.15 Babel daily 18.20

Covett by name, covetous by nature: the price of Barbara’s discretion is Hart’s ‘friendship’. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong. Repeatedly slighted by ‘bourgeois Bohemian’ Hart, Covett resorts to the malicious revelation of the affair, and the shit duly hits the fan. The depths of Covett’s deluded thinking become clear, as does the nature of her sexual ambiguity.

At one point, Covett speaks of how, as girls, she and her friends would stroke each other when they were upset, and proceeds to demonstrate on Hart. It’s precisely that reference to ‘when we were girls’ that is so telling. Covett’s diary entries recounting time spent with Hart have exactly that moony, breathless pubescent tone to them. ‘The day was bliss, a gold-star day’—she actually sticks gold stars and pictures in her diaries.

Covett may be approaching retirement, but her level of emotional maturity is that of a young girl. Her implied lesbianism is in this way coded as a regressive, teenage phenomenon, which is aligned with her

Beestenboel Thur 12.00, Fri-Wed 12.25, 13.05, 14.25, Sat-Wed also 10.25, 11.00 Blood Diamond daily 15.10, 18.10, 21.10, Thur also 12.10 Casino Royale Thur-Mon, Wed 21.00 Déjà Vu: D-4 Thur-Sun 18.15, Thur also 12.30, 15.20 DOA: Dead or Alive daily 12.05, 14.10, 16.20, Sat-Wed also 10.00 Eklavya daily 18.30, 21.15 Ernst, Bobbie en de geslepen Onix Fri-Wed 12.55, 14.40, SatTues, Wed also 11.05 Flushed Away (NL) Fri-Mon, Wed 13.55, Sat-Mon, Wed also 10.05, 12.00, Tues 10.55, 13.15 The Good Shepherd daily 20.15, Thur also 12.25, 15.55, Fri-Wed also 16.25 Happy Feet (NL) Fri-Wed 13.10, Sat-Wed also 10.45 Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek (NL) Fri-Wed 12.40, 15.20, Sat-Wed also 10.00 The Last King of Scotland daily 12.15, 15.00, 17.45, 20.30 Letters from Iwo Jima Thur, Sat, Mon, Tues 18.35 Maskeli Besler Fri, Sun, Wed 19.20 Miss Potter Mon-Wed 18.15 Night at the Museum daily 11.50, 14.15, 16.45, 19.15, 21.45 Night at the Museum (IMAX) daily 12.45, 15.30, 18.00, 20.45, Sat, Mon-Wed also 10.10 The Prestige daily 21.35, Thur-Wed also 18.45, Fri-Wed also 15.55, Thur also 13.00, 15.50, Tues also 15.15, 18.05 Pursuit of Happyness daily 13.20, 16.00, 18.40, 21.20, Sat, MonWed also 10.35 Smokin' Aces daily 17.00, 19.30, 22.00, Thur also 11.55, 14.30 Sneak Preview Tues 21.00 Son Osmanli daily 15.45, 21.45, Thur also 13.10 Teenage Kicks - The Undertones daily 16.30, 19.00, 21.40, Thur also 14.00.

Pathé De Munt Vijzelstraat 15, 0900 1458 Arthur en de Minimoys Fri, Mon-Wed 12.45, Mon-Wed also 10.15, Sat, Sun 10.20, Sat also 13.15, Sun also 12.40 Babel Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 17.20, 20.50, Sat 17.50, Sun 12.20, 20.45 Beestenboel Fri 12.00, 15.30, Sat, Sun 11.45, 14.15, 16.45, MonWed 11.15, 13.45, 16.10 Blind Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.00, 14.30, Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed also 17.30, Sat 10.25, 12.55, 15.30 Blood Diamond Thur, Fri, Sat 21.30, Thur, Fri also 12.00, 15.10, 18.20, Sun 17.30, Mon-Wed 11.30, 14.40, 17.50, 21.10 Casino Royale Thur, Fri 20.45 Charlotte's Web (NL) Sat 10.25, Sun-Wed 10.10 The Departed Mon-Wed 20.45 DOA:Dead or Alive Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 12.50, 15.05, Mon-Wed also 10.40 Dreamgirls Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 12.00, 15.00, 18.00, 21.00, Sat 11.00, 14.00, 17.00, 20.00, 23.00 Ernst, Bobbie en de geslepen Onix Fri, Sun-Wed 12.15, 14.15, Sun-Wed also 10.25, Sat 10.50, 13.00, 15.00 The Good Shepherd Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 12.20, 16.00, 20.15, Sat, Sun 19.30 Happy Feet (NL) Mon-Wed 10.45 The Holiday Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 13.15, Sat 13.45, Sun 12.50 Kicks Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 21.40, Thur, Fri, Sun, Mon, Wed also 19.00, Thur also 13.00, 15.45, Fri, Sun-Wed also 16.15, Tues also 18.50, Sat 17.35, 20.15, 23.15 The Last King of Scotland Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 12.10, 14.50, 17.40, 20.30, Sat 16.00, 19.00, 22.00, Sun 15.10, 18.10, 21.00

Machiavellian manipulations. A mature woman would have done the decent thing and grown out of it, got married and had babies.

However, Sheba Hart is not really what you’d call a beacon of emotional stability either. When her self-obsession is finally punctured and she perceives that Covett may be, as a delightful toilet graffito has it, ‘a nasty old lezza’ looking for more than friendship, Hart’s horror is disproportionate, if not entirely disingenuous. Is it really that shocking? The unwanted attentions of a pathologically lonely older woman may well be inappropriate and sad, but screwing a 15-year-old in the shed at the bottom of the family garden is both morally reprehensible and illegal.

More could have been made of the class differences at work here. Covett’s misreading of the social codes of the middle classes is excruciating to witness and central to her feelings of rejection, yet the predominant motivation for Covett’s behaviour is that, well, she’s a nasty old lezza. Hart’s motivation, we are told, is a confused sense of entitlement: ‘I wanted him.’ This seems inadequate to explain her risking her family and a prison sentence.

Still, in the end, the status quo is restored.

Hart ultimately returns to her husband, Covett seeks out a new victim, the tabloid headlines blow over and life goes on. The only figures who come out of all this with any dignity are the men, Hart’s husband and the father of the boy. The women are equally deluded in their fantasy relationships in this sorry, caricatured tale of sexual indiscretion amongst the middle classes.

Notes on a Scandal opens Thursday at Cinecenter, The Movies and Pathé Tuschinski.

Letters from Iwo Jima Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 20.00, Sat 18.15 Night at the Museum Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 16.30, 19.15, 22.00, Thur, Fri also 13.30, Sun-Wed also 13.45, Sun also 11.15, Mon-Wed also 11.10, Sat 10.15, 12.45, 15.15, 18.00, 20.45, 23.30 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 13.30, 17.15 The Prestige Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 15.15, 18.15, Thur, Fri, Tues, Wed also 21.15, Thur also 12.15, Sat 22.30, Sun 21.30 Pursuit of Happyness Thur, Fri, Tues, Wed 16.20, 19.10, 21.50, Sat, Tues, Wed 10.30, Sat also 16.40, 19.40, 23.25, Sun 10.15, 15.50, 18.45 Smokin' Aces Thur, Tues, Wed 18.40, Thur, Wed also 21.20, Thur also 13.10, Fri 17.30, 21.00, Sat 23.20 Sneak Preview Tues 21.30 Tenacious D:The Pick of Destiny Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 19.30, 22.05, Thur, Fri, Tues, Wed 12.15, 17.00, Sat 15.25, 21.00, 23.30 ’N Beetje Verliefd Thur, Fri, Mon-Wed 14.40, Sat 13.10, 23.35, Sun 16.50.

Pathé Tuschinski Reguliersbreestraat 34, 0900 1458 Arthur en de Minimoys Sat, Sun-Wed 12.00 Beestenboel Fri-Wed 12.45 Dreamgirls Thur-Sat, Mon-Wed 12.30, 15.30, Fri, Mon-Wed also 18.30, 21.30 Dreamgirls Roadshow Thur, Sat, Sun 20.30, Sun also 15.15 Ernst, Bobbie en de geslepen Onix Sat-Wed 12.15, 14.15 The Good Shepherd Thur-Mon, Wed 13.15, 17.00, 20.45, Tues 12.15, 16.00 The Illusionist Thur, Sat, Sun 21.45, Thur also 13.00 Little Children Thur, Sat-Wed 21.15, Fri-Wed 13.00 Little Miss Sunshine Thur, Sat-Wed 22.00 Miss Potter Thur, Sat-Wed 14.30, 19.30, Thur also 12.10, Fri 13.30 North Country Thur 13.30 Notes on a Scandal Thur, Sat-Wed 18.45, Thur also 16.20, Fri-Wed 16.00 Prairie Home Companion,A Thur, Sat-Wed 17.00, Fri 13.10 The Prestige daily 15.00, 18.00, 21.00, Thur also 12.00 The Queen Thur 16.00, Fri 15.50, Sat-Wed 16.30, 19.15.

Rialto Ceintuurbaan 338, 676 8700 4 Elements daily 18.00, Sat, Sun also 15.45, Sun also 11.45 Bamako Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 17.45, 21.45, Sun also 13.15, Sat 22.00 Dolls Sat 16.00 Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex Fri 16.00 Flandres daily 19.30, 21.15, Sat, Sun also 14.15 Into Great Silence Fri-Sun, Wed 16.15, Sun also 11.15 Minoes Wed 16.00 Romanian Shorts Fri 23.00 Ryna Sat 23.00 The Straight Story Sun 11.00 Ten Canoes Thur, Fri, Sun-Wed 20.00, Fri, Sun, Wed also 15.30, Sat 20.15 The Way I Spent the End of The World daily 19.45, Thur, Fri, SunWed also 22.00, Sat also 22.10, Sat, Sun also 13.45.

De Uitkijk Prinsengracht 452, 623 7460 After the Wedding Sun-Wed 21.15 Forever Sun 14.00 Manuale d'amore daily 19.00 Perfume:The Story of a Murderer Thur-Sat 21.15 Zwartboek daily 16.15.

Amsterdam Weekly

24

The end of an affair Paleis van de Weemoed Oudezijds Voorburgwal 15, 625 6964 Open Wed-Sun 19.00-late Cash, PIN, Visa Ever fancied a night of old-fashioned cabaret and dinner? Well, why not? Life is, after all, a cabaret, old chum, just like Sally Bowles sang.

The Glutton had a hankering after a trip down nostalgia lane, and headed for the Paleis van de Weemoed in the Red Light District. Now, it might not be your high-tech teacup, but it appealed to your Glutton. All the punch and putsch of incendiary interbellum Berlin, mixed with spicy, satirical Amsterdam cabaret à la LiLa-Lo Theater, formerly on De Clercqstraat, where Yiddish material was performed.

Oh, the bygone settings! Imagine what it was like! Plush or raucously sleazy? Both would be great. Cigar smoke, with fat, drooling men and desperate, pretty girls. The morphine-addicted pianist. The overdressed gangsters with their lapdog molls. The razor-eyed maître d’ scanning newcomers, evaluating whether they were high spenders or cheapskates—like me—nursing a coffee all night, watching the vocal Miss Edith Titty in action.

In the ’20s and ’30s, German caricaturist George Grosz captured these pungent personalities in ink for us to see the worst sides of ourselves. When politics suck, cabaret swings. So what would 21st-century Amsterdam bring? The Glutton was about to discover.

At the Paleis that evening was Australian cabaret artiste Fifi l’Amour and her virtuoso husband, Rodolfo Ravissant, to be enjoyed while

THE UNDERCOVER GLUTTON What haunting melodies charmed our heartstrings!

Fifi possesses a rich, chocolatey voice, and combined with Rodolfo’s playing, it was a musical feast. guzzling a four-course dinner. Total price? €39.00.

Chef Karel and his maîtresse d’ wife, Cobie, envelop their guests in hospitality. The menu changes monthly, while shows change weekly. On

the Sunday night I arrived, Cole Porter was singing ‘Let’s Misbehave’, which whetted my appetite for the evening ahead. Cobie’s watchful eyes and front-of-house orchestration made sure

22-28 February 2007

all the plates shuttling to and from Karel’s kitchen reached their destinations still hot.

The diners were out to celebrate. One table held a birthday party, another a hen night, while others hosted romantic couples. Everyone sang along. What haunting melodies charmed our heartstrings! Dutch, French, Russian, Yiddish songs. Fifi possesses a rich, chocolatey voice, and combined with Rodolfo’s playing, it was a musical feast. They made us shriek with helpless laughter when Fifi told us how she and Rodolfo met—a rather risqué story concerning gypsy music— then proceeded to sing ‘The Gypsy with the Golden Earrings’.

And then came the food. My first course was home-made gravadlax, soft and subtle. Karel had garnished it with mixed leaves, gossamer bean sprouts, and samphire and rucola, all drizzled with a dill and mustard sauce. I could have eaten plenty more as a main: it was lovely. A clear tomato bouillon with julienne courgettes and basil was too sour for my tastes, but arrived in nostalgic little soup tureens.

But my roast veal with a morel and cream sauce were slices of perfection: two thick wedges of sirloin, pink and tender. A great combination with the flavoursome mushrooms. The plate was garnished with grilled tomato halves with melted Parmesan cheese, bacon-wrapped chicory and, as the starch, a slice of... quiche! It worked for me.

There are choices for fish-lovers and vegetarians: fried baby turbot in a salted chive butter, for example. French influence ran right through all the menus.

The dessert was a Weemoed surprise, which I shall leave your curiosity to discover. Your Glutton doesn’t want to spoon-feed you, after all.

This place gets quite hectic on the weekend, so it’s advisable to book in advance. It’s worth your troubles—and your roubles—to experience this nostalgic fun. Come to the cabaret.

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007

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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.

AD OF THE WEEK AFRICAN DRUMBought in South Africa. Leather is broken but you can fix it for like €20. No longer have drum lessons so would like to sell it for €90. Email blueamore@hotmail.com.

HOUSING OFFERED 100S OF APTSavailable in A’dam immediately. From €450 p.m. www.xpatrentals.com/offers.

STUDIO APARTMENT Studio flat opposite Centraal Station, 6-mth let.€650/mth.Call0655764861.

RENOVATED 2-BDRM APT Furnished, 85m2, w/ 2 bathrooms, oak floors, double glazing and great central location. €1300 p.m. Available immediately. Contact Real Estate Vision on 416 6547/info@realestatevision.nl.

BROUWERSGRACHT APT80m2, furnished 1-bedroom warehouse apt in Jordaan. 1st floor with original beams, wooden floors, bath, modern appliances.

Available April. €1450 p.m. Contact Real Estate Vision 416 6547/info@realestatevision.nl.

1-BDRMAPTSPUI65m2,renovated

aptonNieuwezijdsVoorburgwal.

2nd floor with great view, wood floors,highcelings,etc.Quietback bedroom. €1300 p.m. No commission,only€250contractcosts.

Contact Real Estate Vision 416 6547/info@realestatevision.com.

RESIDENCE Private studio, 50m2, on canal in Jordaan.

Has basic sleeping/cooking facilities, central heating, bathroom, ADSL. Semi-furnished.

Perfect for professionals/writers/journalists/directors, etc.

Work/short visit only. Rent on weekly/monthly basis. Duration negotiable. studioinamsterdam@yahoo.com.

WENSLAUERSTRAAT Fully furnished apt for rent, 65m2, 2 bedrooms, living room, big kitchen, nice bathroom with bath, great canal view. For 6 mths from beginning of March. €1100 incl TV subscription, internet and electricity/gas. Contact +32 438 12359.

COMFY FRIENDLY B&B Double roomwithallfacilities,2minfrom Vondelpark. Leidseplein & main museums 15 min away. €70 a nightincludingbreakfast.Call640

9767 or email sue@chello.nl.

raul @romendesign.nl.

HOUSING WANTED

HOUSING TO SHARE

FLAT WANTEDA Spanish/Slovak couple looking for flat in Central A’dam area ASAP. Non-smoking,tidyandquiet.Maxrent€700.

Email milanlietava@ gmail.com.

PleasecontactMilan0618147962 or Regina 0648396816

1.5 ROOM WANTEDYoung, funny artist woman is looking for room + small bedroom for at least 6 months, somewhere close to Vondelpark. Sharing apt no problem. Rent max €400 incl. Mail Suzette at moonflavourgenerator@gmail.com.

LOOKING FOR A ROOM Responsible, clean and reliable 28 y.o. guy looking for room in A’dam West. €300.Contact0642490235/octavio _gomez@yahoo.com.

HOUSING FOR 3 ACTORS The MUZtheater is theatre company in Zaandam. For international project we are looking for housing for 2 weeks. 17-30 March: 1st week 3 Portugese, 2nd week 3 Russians. So we need 3 bedrooms. Contact 075 771 5770/ productie@muztheater.nl.

LOOKING FOR ROOM Hello. Am responsible, neat 36 y.o. Mexican graphic designer working in A’dam. Am non-smoker and not noisy.LovecookingMexicanfood.

Lookingforroomupto€350p.m. for about 6 mths, close to Leidseplein. Raul: 06 2855 4864/

OTHER SPACES PHOTO STUDIO TO RENT for amateur and professional photographers. Can also be used as meeting or gathering space.

100m2, €150/day. Also possible to rent photo equipment. Studio has high ceilings, good natural light and located on WG Plein, adjacent to Overtoom.

For appt. and more info contact D Ingel: 06 2883 4224.

GREAT STUDIO SPACEsuitable for graphic designer to rent in center of A’dam (near Leidseplein). Available from now until July. Rental duration negotiable. Internet access, well-lit, high ceilings, +/-50m2. Email basmorsch@wanadoo.nl for more information.

BULGARIAN & Florida villas for rent. Visit www.jet-villas.com for more details. Also visit our site if you’re interested in buying property abroad.

WORK OFFERED IT JOBS IN NL We have over 650 IT and technical support jobs for non-Dutch speakers all over NL. www.xpatjobs.com.

PHOTOGRAPHERS WANTED Sugar Factory looking for photographers enthusiastic about going out in our club & making high-quality pictures to grasp spirit of the night. Will put you on guest-list + 1 & all used pix used for promotional goals will have your name on it! Interested? Email sanne@sugarfactory.nl w/ work samples.

YOUR CHANCEDue to our rapid growth we are looking for people who want business opportunities. We expect that you want to achieve something in life.

Checkoutwww.reneheeren.acnrep.com and select your country right below and see the part of a fantastic opportunity. Email reneanest@ wanadoo.nl.

EXPERIENCED WAITRESS wanted for 2-3 days/wk at Green Planet. Contact Anatole on 06 1015 8145oranatole@greenplanet.nl.

TAX FORM HELP I’m looking for DutchpersonwhospeaksEnglish or Spanish to help me fill out tax form. Contact ruairi79@hotmail.com/06 4482 7896.

PHYSIOTHERAPY WORK Fully qualified physiotherapist with min 5 years experience treat-

ing musculoskeletal conditions and sports injuries sought for part-time work in corporate health clinic in A’dam. Must be fluent in English. Please send CV and covering letter to physioamsterdam@gmail.com.

MASSAGE THERAPIST required for freelance work. Must be good and have experience!

Please contact 06 4625 0081.

BIKE TAXI DRIVER WielerTaxi Amsterdam is looking for new, motivated, responsible drivers.

Combine making money with staying fit! We work all year round, 12 months a year. The earlier you start, the better prepared you are for summer. Contact 06 3882 2683/www.wielertaxi.nl/info@wielertaxi.nl for more information.

GAME SHOW CONTESTANT Wanted: UK contestants for game show. Looking for English natives, living in NL. Win up to £1500! Casting on Sat 24 or Sun 25 Feb. ‘That’s the Question’ every weekday at 19.10 on Nederland 2 (channel 2). No Dutch, US or Aussie accents.

Minimal age requirement is18.

Email TTQ@2waytraffic.com.

SWIMMING INSTRUCTORLooking for certified swimming teacher for private lessons for my 5 y.o. son at the Marnixbad once or twice a week. If you are kind and friendly, please call 486 0614 to discuss details.

EXPERIENCED COOK required for busy hotel bar located on Warmoesstraat in central A’dam.

Contact Kelly on 06 1115 4954.

Amsterdam Weekly

26

WORK WANTED HOUSECLEANING Young man lookingforhousecleaningjobs:window cleaning, ironing, etc. With references. Call 06 2377 0134 or write bigabossey@hotmail.com.

ASSISTANT to artist/crafts person, who needs help assembling projects. Am very skilled in detail work. Call 06 1716 6217.

VIDEOWORKIcanoperateacameraandeditvideofootageforshort filmsonFinalCutPro.€15/hr.Email marcelagiesche@yahoo.com.

FOR SALE TOMTOM GO 910 Full product with warranty for sale. Maps US, Canada and west Europe, MP3, etc. €400. Contact Carlos on 06 2429 6195.

DELL FLAT SCREEN 14’, barely used, €90. Email blueamore@ hotmail.com.

MOBILE DUTCH Still getting to grips w/ Dutch? Download handy translator for your mobile phone @ www.steape.com.

Available in17 languages. Each product has about 100 handy phrases & comes w/ both text & sound so your pronunciation is flawless! Steape is cheaper,

lighter & more fun than traditional phrase books!

IKEA BED with Sultan mattress.

Contact rapenburg-nl@hotmail.com or call 06 2716 0612.

ROLLER BLADES Super Stradablade to fit size 38-40 with Bauer protection pads & wrist guard.

Contact rapenburg-nl@hotmail.com or call 06 2716 0612.

SERVICES ENGLISH MAN WITH VAN can help with removals big or small, in or outside of country. Reasonable rates, quick service.

Contact Lee on 06 2388 2184 or isabelleandlee@planet.nl.

FRED'S PET CARE Friendly dogwalker with references, available from 07.00-20.00 to take care of your pets. Also possible to keep them during the day and overnight. Reasonable rates. Call Fred 06 1649 1359.

XPAT PAGES Looking for an English-speaking plumber, dentist, lawyer etc? Visit www.xpatpages.com.

BEST MOVING SERVICEIN 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.

NEEDASTUNNINGWEBSITE?Experienced web designer builds professional, unique sites for very reasonable prices. Online links to past projects a vailable. Jordan: jordangcz@yahoo.com, 06 3034 1238.

TULIPANYAre you thinking about starting a business? Do you have abusinessbutadminstrationand papers are not your thing? Call Tulipanyon0610218271orsend an email to tulipany@live.nl.

DESIGN & PRINTING services offered: flyers, T-shirts, biz cards, etc. Tel. 06 2816 3169.

DOG-SITTER-WALKERDoyouneed someone to take care of your dog while at work or on vaction? Reasonable prices. Over 20 years experience.Contact0615515068.

COMMUNICATION Freelance English Communication Specialist. Writes, edits and proofreads your English language content for website, brochures,

menus, annual reports, etc.

Very competitive rates. Call Helen on 06 1350 1570 or mail info@wordaffairs.com

HEALTH & WELLNESS THINKING ABOUT THERAPY? Heighten your quality of life and improve your relationships with the help of a native Englishspeaking therapist. My 20 years of professional experience and understanding can help you better cope with feelings and sort through stressful thoughts.

Contact Sagar 06 4626 5412.

EMOTIONAL RESCUE Want to know the secret to having a happier, more joyful and fulfilling life?

I am a professional & certified counselorwhocanhelpyousolve & end your emotional problems.

Short-termcounselingcanchange your life & bring peace & happiness back into your life (American/English). 06 4626 5412.

HEALERLife coach, yoga teacher andreikihealeravailableforalltypes of sessions. Please call 06 5210 1547orvisitwww.empowerall.eu.

AMERICAN DENTISTS2 doctors with 40 years combined experience. Educated and practiced in the US. Visit www.amsterdamdental.com.

CAUSE YOU NEED IT Foot reflex for women. €25. Near Jordaan.

Call Lucia for appointment on 618 5119. 3 years Academy of Natural Health. 17 years experience.

LIFE COACH Experienced life coach offers support with many of life’s challenges, midlife crises, relationships, spiritual lethargy, stress, public speaking. Contact Martyn 06 4638 8622 or martyn777@tiscali.o.uk.

HOME IMPROVEMENT DUTCH HANDYMANHave been expat myself for 12 years. For all technical domestic, maintenance and rebuilding jobs.

Specialising in kitchens and creating storage space in hardly and non-used space in your house. Speak fluent English.

De Bock Home Improvement.

Contact 06 1064 0697.

HANDY MAN Cleaner, painter,

22 -28 February 2007 gardener, driver, etc. Any jobs considered. Wife is qualified nurse, au pair, child-minder, cleaner. Smart, well-spoken couple. Any work considered.

Tel 06 1488 9577.

video editing, 2D animation. Also lessonsforbeginners:AdobePhotoshop, Adobe Premiere, Adobe AFTEREFFECTS, Sound Forge, eason,etc.Contact0614934482 or nsroller@gmail.com.

COMPUTERS

MASSAGE

PC HOUSE DOCTORSpecialised in virus/spyware removal, H/W, S/W repair, data recovery, wireless, cable/ADSL installation and computer lessons from friendly and experienced Microsoft professional for reasonable price.

Contact Mario 06 1644 8230.

TANTRA MASSAGEA sacred sensual massage created to arouse, circulate and increase sexual energy throughout your entire body. Moving erotic energy throughout the body not only enhances awareness and the capacity for pleasure, it can also be a powerful healing experience. Sessions for indiv & couples. 06 4277 3290.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR MAC? MAC-lover helps you with basic setups, minor troubleshooting, install, networking, basic MAC lessons, setting up programs, MS Word, QuarkXpress, etc.

Help with purchasing the right MAC. Contact Sagar at7791926.

APPLEComputer help, solutions and general trouble shooting.

Contact Jay on 06 4094 1991.

PC GARAGERemove viruses, formatingharddisks,checkforerrors, create partitions, GHOST, LAN,

EROTIC MASSAGE Very beautiful sportief Turkish boy 25 y.o, 185cm, 87kg. Brown skin, hairy, sexy sporty body, romantic, friendly. Top well hung. Would like contact with boys for erotic massage and more... Call Memeet 06 4156 0575.

SENSUAL BODY MASSAGEVery handsome top body builder, Arab, masseur. 27 y.o. 1.87m.

Active, honest, good level. Gives complete sensual body massage. Discreet and clean. Please call Gamo on 06 2413 4197.

FULL BODY MASSSAGEfor guys.

I’llcomeoverandhelpyoutorelax. €60/hr, give me a call on 06 4248 3802. Clothing optional!

COURSES TAI CHI LESSONSTai Yang school starting new courses now. Beginnerswelcomed.Cometrainbody, mind and spirit. See website and sign up for free introduction lesson.www.taiyang.nlor6230835.

INTROTOKABBALAHYou’veheard people talk about Kabbalah, you’vereadaboutKabbalah. Now you can discover Kabbalah in a 2-day intensive course, offered bytheKabbalahCentre(www.kabbalah. com). 25 Feb &18 March in A'dam. Email Arie.politi@kabbalah.com or call NL free phone 0800 023 5027 for details. !DSPAM:45db0cd31302518096 13210!

DRUMLESSONS!Studywithexperiencedprofessional.Readingand rudiments to rock ‘n’ roll. Beginnerstoworkingdrummers.CallJack Dempseyon0617078673.Email drumdempsey@hotmail.com.

IYENGARYOGACLASSESwithcertified Iyengar yoga teacher Cristina Libanori, Tues 19.30 to 21.00

Amsterdam Weekly

22-28 February 2007 at TrainingCentrum,Europaplein 127 near RAI. Tram 4 (stop Dintelstraat). €8 p/class; with yoga strippenkaart €7.50. Individual therapeutic classes arranged by appt at €20/hr. cristina@thewheel-of-yoga.com/773 5307.

STILL LOOKINGfor the right yoga class? Think you are too creaky?

At Studio Body & Mind, Herculestraat 109, it’s not about tying yourself in knots but feeling good in your own body. Trial class thru Feb. Only €5. Find a lttle time for yourself & boost your winter energy. more info www.peakexperience.nl.

HEALING WORKSHOPSStarting March in Mirror Center in A’dam Oost, Il Cielo offers foot reflexology, craniosacral workshops and holistic massage courses.

Interested? Check courses/programs on www.ilcielo.org or call 06 3004 9738. Treatments are reimbursed by health insurance.

NEW BELLY DANCE course in A’dam at Mirror Centre. Every Mon & Fri from 20.30-21.45.

More info at www.sitadance.com or contact 06 2518 1717.

VOICE- OVERS Learn a comprehensive overview of the voiceover industry. Workshops held in A’dam. For more information visit www.voicetake.com.

SPRING RETREAT Yoga and Ayurveda in daily life. Dive deep into your yoga practice and learn about the Indian art of healing. Two daily hatha yoga classes, Ayurveda lectures, meditation, chanting and healthy diet.1 hour from A’dam, 25-28 May. For more informa-

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tion contact nicolas@planet.nl or 06 5176 4621.

ization, scales, etc. For beginners and professionals. From classic to jazz, pop or rock, all styles of singing. Good prices + free introduction lesson. Contact Michael on 320 2095 or ajara77@yahoo.com.

GUITAR LESSONSClassical guitar lessons from professional, educated guitar player for €20/hr. Lecciones de guitarra clássico por tan solo €20 la hora. Isidro: 06 1870 7300.

YOGAYOGA.NL offers Hatha, Iyengar and Vinyasa Flow classes. Daily morning and evening, in English, in A’dam close to Jordaan. Also classes in the weekend: 3 on Sat as well as monthly Sun workshops. Visit www.yogayoga.nl or call 688 3418.

FUN COOKING CLASSES Rediscover your love of cooking. New cooking classes based on plantbased,organic,whole-foodingredients.TopicsfromHealthySweets to 30-min Whole Food Meals.

Classes kept small to provide personal attention. Visit www.justnosh.comorcontactjoslyn@justnosh.com for info or to reserve.

INTRO WORKSHOP DSLR Learn to love your digital camera. If you have Digital SLR and want to spend a weekend learning how to make it work, attend our Introduction to Digital workshops on 17 & 18 Mar or 21 & 22 April.

See www.JohnHindmarsh.com /travelworkshop.htm or email John@JohnHindmarsh.com or phone 06 2127 6246.

LANGUAGES LANGUAGE EXCHANGE Native Chinese speaker looking for Native English or German speaker for language exchange.

Expect to meet regularly. Please

contact 06 4524 5098 or 0561371@student.uva.nl.

DUTCH LESSONSNew evening courses starting in Feb, centre of A’dam. €200-€250 for 20 hours. Visit www.mercuurtaal.nl or contact 693 4250.

HEBREW COURSE Looking for Hebrew language course from English to Hebrew in A’dam.

Please let me know any info concerning the same. Email blueamore@hotmail.com.

ENGLISH LESSONS Want to improve your level? Experienced nativespeaker,TEFL-qualifiedwith 6yearsteachingexperienceatall levelsincludinguniversity.Private classesforanyEnglish-language level or purpose. Informal and effective classes at flexible times.

Contactgypsygriffin@gmail.com.

LEARN SPANISH! Do you want to learn or improve Spanish with professional native? Grammar, speaking etc. Phone 06 4384 5642. Y habla Espanol!

CHINESE Do you want to learn Chinese effectively from begin-

ning with flexible time & place?

Perfectindividualcoursedesigned according to your level. Lecture, literature&free.Individuallessons €10/hr; group lessons €8 (2-3 persons). Contact 06 1453 1365 or tracy1304@hotmail.com for more information.

IMPROVE YOURSPANISH! Experienced Latin American Spanish teacher in small groups as well as private lessons, conversations and grammar. Call for more info: 06 2518 1717.

SPANISH LESSONS Offered by a qualified native speaker teacher with 6 years of experience.

All levels and subjects. Easy and conversational method.

Individual lessons €18 and special rates for groups. For further info: Octavio 06 424 90 235/ octavio_gomez@yahoo.com.

PORTUGUESE LANGUAGE If you wish to communicate with Brazilians or the Portuguese people, or simply get to know their language thenIcanteachyouwithinteresting and effective method. My name is Denis and tel is 064168 1649.

SPANISH 4 U!Looking 2 improve your Spanish? Planning 2 do some tourism & be able to do more than just order beer or ask ‘donde está el baño’? Search no more! Professional, native teacher of Spanish, from Peru. Lessons 100% student-centered (lots of speaking 4 u!) & 100% in Spanish. luismcarrion@ yahoo.co.uk.

PRIVATE CHINESE TEACHER Do you want to learn Chinese with native Chinese speaker? Qualified private teacher with 2 years experience will help you improve your Chinese significantly within 3 months. Individual classes are €10/hr. Group study sessions are €8/hr. Contact 0614531365 or tracy1304@hotmail.com.

LEARNINGDUTCH?JOOSTWEET HET! €7/hr. 2x2 hrs/wk. Don’t go tosleepinwintertime,improveyour Dutch at Joost Weet Het! Courses on all levels and real quality.

Visit our website www.joostweethet.nl or call us at 420 8146 or emailinfo@aprenderholandes.nl.

INTENSIVE DUTCH COURSES at JoostWeetHet!€7/hr,4x4hrs/wk.

We have an unconventional and very clear learning method. Fun classes, emphasis on conversation and inexpensive! Visit www.joostweethet.nl or call us at 420 8146 or email info@ aprenderholandes.nl.

DUTCHLESSONSA'DAMImprove conversation/professional purpose/studies/NT2. Also online.

Min individual rate €15/hr. Adults & children. Also intensive courses.Minintensive:15hrs=€215,55.

Mon till Sun. 10.00-21.00. http://home.tiscali.nl/stylusphant/ indexdutch.html,excellentdutch@ hotmail.comorcall0636122870.

IMPROVE YOUR DUTCH!Link Taal Studio, a professional way to learn Dutch, private lesssons, small groups, intensive course, etc. starting every week, Vijzelgracht 53. Contact linktaalstudio@gmail.comor0641339323.

MUSICIANS SINGING LESSONS On Prinsengracht, beautiful atmosphere. Classical voice training, breathing techniques, vocal-

STEM IN BEWEGING Voor wie: Iedereen die nieuwsgierig is naar de mogelijkheden van stem, zang & beweging en die op zoek is naar diepgang in het werken met de stem. Contact info@steminbeweging.nl. Aanmelden. Voor meer informatie kijk op www.steminbeweging.nl of bel 419 8389.

SINGING COURSE WANTE Am looking for singing lessons from experienced teacher for reasonableprice.Itcanalsobeinexchange forGermanlanguagelessons.Am anativespeaker.Ifinterestedplease write to piatsch.s@web.de.

VOCAL COACHINGSinger/songwriter offers vocal coaching/confidence and song writing skills sessions. Call 06 5210 1547 or visit www.dvoradavis.com.

PERSONALS SEEKING A COOL CREW Having justmovedtoA’dam,keentomeet cool people in town. I’m one who feels after-work beers is mandatory. Also want to get fit & def likes clubbing/gigs. Like rock/indie bands but also into house/trance scene. Be cool to meet up w/ anyonewhowantstomaketheeffort. nick_saisanas@hotmail.com.

ANNOUNCEMENTS CREATIVES! Open invitation for international creatives in A’dam to BSUR OPEN 2007. Mix ‘n’ min-

gle/informal drinks/inspirational meet and greet/short movie Brand Iconics (10 min). Thur 8 March from 17.00-19.00. RSVP to beasyouare@bsur.com.

Return on branding.

WALLPAPERLeftover wallpaper wanted for art project, no matter in what state or shape! Email mandrauw@hotmail.com.

NINE INCH NAILS TICKETS Am looking for1 or 2 spare Nine Inch Nails tickets for Paradiso on 21 or 22 Mar. I cannot miss it!

Kudos. Contact 06 5024 1837 or bresych@hotmail.com.

FRIDAY CURRY CLUBMonthly Fri night event for avid curry lovers in A’dam center. Taste fresh regional cuisine from India, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Come along, have a beer, meet some people, enjoy the curries and have a great night out. Visit www.abfabdining.com or call 06 4322 3338.

AIR CONCERT TICKETSDoes anybody have tickets for Air that they want to sell? They will be playing live at Melkweg on the 27 March and tickets have already sold out. Would highly appreciate it if 2 tickets are spared. If so, please contact me ASAP on 06 4307 3703. Dotty IMAGES Looking for newspapers, magazines or photos. Anything with images printed on paper. Need big quantity for art project. If you know where to find some or if you have some, I will pick them up for €. Email comeonmyaddress@yahoo.ca or call 061532 0120.