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Oosterpoort

Under Siege

Wednesday, November 22, 2017 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

It’s show time again, literally. I have two performances this week I’m attending. The first one was Under Siege by the Yang LiPing Contemporary Dance Company. It is part of the Explore Festival, wherein seven theaters in the Netherlands band together to program a few foreign shows for a small tour. The idea is to pick things form outside western society and to give us a glimpse of the (modern) art that is made there. And then specifically not in a way to exoticise it, but to break stereotypes and let us open our minds to other ways of thinking and seeing. And in that realising that within, were not that different.

On the whole I have two words for it: fucking magnificent.

The performance transcends just dance, it becomes dance theatre. Telling a coherent story in an uninterrupted hour and forty minutes adding in live music and narration. The dancers in the company come from all kinds of dance backgrounds. Some from the very traditional Beijing Opera, some from more martial arts inspired forms, some form classical ballet and some from modern contemporary dance. All these forms are used throughout the performance.

The story is that of war and conquest where one dynasty is about to be superseded by another in China two thousand years ago. There’s a group of dancers playing soldiers, two emperors, the chief advisor to one of them and the concubine of the other. Plus two musicians, the narrator and the paper cutting lady.

This lady sits at the edge of the stage during the entire show cutting things out of paper. Sometimes Chinese characters to serve as marker or narration, sometimes shapes. The narrator actually speaks. He tells us the story, in Chinese. Luckily there’s two screens to the sides that give basic translations of what he’s saying.

The flow of the story takes us from the beginnings of war all the way to end with the last man standing. We see meetings between the one emperor and his advisor, between the other emperor and the advisor, between the first emperor and his dark side. These are all striking duo dance performances, very physical towards each other.

Then there’s mass dances when battles are performed. These incorporate Kung Fu moves with a lot of jumps and kicks.

The concubine gets to do a solo piece. Taking their cue from the Beijng Operatic tradition, she is played by a man. The solo follows her from entering near naked through being dressed until fully dressed and dancing. This is a more stilted piece, but as such it has a commanding presence.

After the main battles and confrontations it is time for the climax. The stage is covered in red feathers to signify the final battlefield. A mass battle is ‘fought’ resulting in basically mass slaughter for the army of the one emperor. Knowing there is no way they’ll get out of it alive, he meets with his concubine one last time. In a moving, and haunting, performance, they say goodbye and then she kills herself. Grief stricken the emperor holds her before leaving to face his final battle.

And in that final battle, he succumbs to the other emperor, who then gets killed by his advisor. Leaving him the sole survivor and new emperor of a new dynasty.

In between all these dance pieces the narrator appears to inform us of what is going on in a flowing Chinese that varies from talking to shouting to a certain sing song quality.

The stage design was elaborate without being overbearing. On the ceiling were four large blocks holding thousands of (fake) scissors. These would move about during the show, and sometimes come down to stage level. Other than this, the background was basic. The soldiers and narrator were likewise basic. The emperors wore intricately decorated garments, but with a basic shape. The only other points of extravagance were the head pieces worn by the advisor and the other emperor, and the outfit of the other emperor during his solo.

I spent the entirety of the performance on the edge of my seat, wholly captivated by what I was seeing. I’ve been taken in by a performance before, but never in such a manner. In China, Yang LiPing is a celebrity with several theaters. This show there is done with a multitude of performers more. Maybe one day I’ll be able to see it like that.

Before the show I attended the introduction which told us a bit more about Yang LiPing and the company, about the story and about how the show came to be. Especially since they had to make a special travel version of it to be able to take it on tour.

Afterwards there was a small interview with two of the dancers. That being the concubine and her emperor. It was tricky as they only spoke Chinese, the interpreter spoke decent english but heavily accented so sometimes hard to follow, and the lady doing the interview wasn’t much better in english either. So I didn’t really get a lot out of it, but it was clear to see that the guy playing the emperor was really passionate about dance and the show.

I didn’t catch their names, but I understand both of them are award winning dancers in China. That I believe right away. The performances of all four main characters were fantastic, but the losing Emperor especially stood out. His control over his body is amazing.

In the picture below, the black person in the middle is dark side of the winning emperor. On his left the advisor, the losing emperor, the concubine, the winning emperor and the narrator.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Art, Culture, Dance, Groningen, Language, Music, Oosterpoort, Photos, Review

I Want a Rolling Robot

Sunday, December 20, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20151216_092751Wednesday I had another check-up after my surgery earlier this year. I took the bus there, and as such got there early. I had breakfast at the cafe in the hospital. Bread with ham, pineapple, grilled cheesse and apple chutney. Very tasty 🙂 Then I headed for the clinic for the appointment. The scars look really nice, the nipple grafts look good. The left one is even responsive. The only thing that bugs me is that the end of the scar, under my arm, is pointing outwards. The doctor agreed and we decided to get that fixed. Luckily that’s a small job that can be done at the clinic with just some local anesthetic. Just have to wait a while for it to be scheduled.

I then went to work for a few hours after which I met up with Gert to go see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I really enjoyed the movie. I’ve seen the other Star Wars movies once, years ago. I can’t remember everything anymore but I know enough to be aware of the general story. Plus, with Star Wars being so ingrained in pop culture, it’s hard to miss.

The new movie introduces new main characters while leaving some room for golden oldies to return. I like Rey and Finn and I love the new robot. I’m definitely keeping the BB-8 plushie from last year’s Nerd Block 🙂 The sequences with the golden oldies, Leia, Hand, Chewie, were charming and I hope we do see more of them in the next movies. I’m less impressed with Kylo, he seems too wimpy. But maybe he’ll grow into his boots. Other than that it was a fairly straight forward story with fun action sequences and good visuals.

Then yesterday Ingrid and I went to the Oosterpoort for a concert show by The Kik. We’d been talking about going to this, and then Ingrid gave me the ticket for my birthday. I’d not heard of them before, but the description of what they do sounded fun. They’re a band that plays music from and inspired by the fifties, sixties and seventies. They write their own stuff, but also cover existing songs from that time. The show wasn’t just a concert but a way of walking through their inspirations.

The stage was dressed with a handful of doors in the back, and a cabinet with vinyls at the front. They would pick a record from the cabinet and tell something about the artist or the song and then play a song by that artist, or something of themselves inspired by. Occasionally a doorbell would ring and there’d be a cutout of an artist behind one of the doors as an introduction to another song or bit of talking. It was an energetic and fun show, and I got to hear a new side of Dutch music.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Food, Friends, Gert, Ingrid, Me, Medical, Movies, Music, Nerd Block, Oosterpoort, Photos, Review, Transgender, Transitioning

Luka Bloom

Monday, November 2, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20151101_225733One of the shows for this year’s theater season was a performance by Irish folk singer-songwriter Luka Bloom. I’d mostly heard of him, instead of music by him but when I saw he was doing a show here, I was interested. So was Mom, so we went together last night.

The support act was this Belgian group, or duo really, called Byron Bay. They played a short twenty minute or so set. I liked the songs, but the music was rather loud. I couldn’t really hear the lyrics very well, which was a shame.

20151102_202841After that, Luka came on stage. He played a full show with some older songs and some songs of his new album interspersed with anecdotes. I really enjoyed the whole thing. He’s of the same make as Boudewijn de Groot. His songs are melodious and the lyrics generally meaningful. The evening was a great success.

Tonight, Nienke and I built a fancy dinner with toast, meats, cheeses, pizza, deviled eggs and cola 😀

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Food, Friends, Mom, Music, Nienke, Oosterpoort, Photos

Movie Music

Thursday, October 29, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20151028_212437Yesterday was my Parent’s 44th anniversary. Yesterday was also the day Nienke and I had tickets to see the North Netherlands Orchestra perform movie music. To be able to celebrate the occasion and still go out with Nienke, we decided to order in food. We went with spare ribs and to make it easier on the delivery guy, I had it delivered at my place. When it came, Nienke and I went over to my Parent’s place to eat together. Then after dinner, Nienke and I went back home to get our things and head for the train.

The show was beautiful. They started with a medley of music from Frozen and I love that movie so much. I could see each scene in my head when they played the music and it gave me chills. The various pieces were introduced by Eric Corton, a radio DJ. He would tell us a bit about the movie, the music, the composer.

20151028_212424After Frozen, and before the break, they played some classical pieces from Beethoven and Chopin that were used in movies.

Then after the break they focused on well known composers Hans Zimmer and John Williams. I generally like Zimmer and Williams, and these pieces were no exception.

When the show ended and the orchestra had left the stage for the first time they came back for an encore. They played, in honour of the release of Spectre, the James Bond theme.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Food, Friends, Music, Nienke, Oosterpoort, Parents, Review

Spinning the Wheel

Friday, September 25, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

The first cake for my birthday party tomorrow is in the oven. As good a time as any to put up a new blog post 🙂

20150924_223637Yesterday I went to the Oosterpoort for my birthday present to myself. I saw, well, listened really, to the Sinfonia Rotterdam and the Laurens Cantorij performing the Requiem of Fauré.

I’ve heard the Requiem performed before by a local amateur choir and I really liked it then. However, that time the accoustics weren’t great, and the musical accompaniment was a solo piano. When I saw this performance on the list with a full symphonic orchestra and a professional choir, I knew I wanted to go.

Before the show I attended the introduction. There, the choir conductor told us about some key pieces of the Requiem. He had brought along a part of the choir. They performed small sections, a few lines at most, to show what the conductor meant when he discussed the pieces.
When the actual concert began, they started with the Ouverture from Cosi fan tutte by Mozart. This was followed by the Suite from Midsummernightsdream by Mendelssohn. After the break it was the Requiem’s turn.

20150924_212310As I had hoped, it was spectacularly beautiful. The accoustics in the Oosterpoort are very well suited to classical music.

Earlier this week, I also bought myself another early birthday present. I’d been thrift store shopping a few weeks ago and spotted there a spinning wheel. I looked at it, but decided to leave it. I was tempted, especially considering I want to do more traditional crafting, and more re-enactment. But it wasn’t priced and that usually means expensive and I just wasn’t sure.

T20150923_150145hen Elfia happened. There, watching Margreet work her spinning wheel, I realised I really did want it. So Wednesday I went back to the thrift store and got lucky, it was still there. I got one of the sales associates to price it. She barely knew what it was, had to ask me if it was complete.

I don’t know much about spinning wheels either, but as far as I could tell, it was complete. I said so, and she priced it at € 12,50. I immediately agreed, cause that was a steal. The wood is in great condition, and once I figure out how all the loose bits attach, I’m sure it will be a working machine.

 

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Birthday, Crafting, Culture, Music, Oosterpoort, Photos, Shopping, Thrift Store

Minions and Music

Sunday, July 5, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

Minions snack pack

Bananaaaaaaaaaa! Thursday I went to see the Minions movie with Ingrid and Nienke. I love Minions 🙂 And to keep in the spirit of things I had a kid’s snack pack to go with it. Tiny packet of popcorn, tiny packet of candy, a capri sun and a tiny toy.

Friday, Gert and I went to the Oosterpoort. A little while ago Gert showed me an announcement for a free concert at the Oosterpoort. It was a graduation performance for the National Master Orchestra Conducting. The two people graduating each conducted two classical pieces played by the North Netherlands Orchestra.

NNO Master ConductingThe first candidate was Huba Hollóköi and he conducted Bela Bartok’s first violin concerto and Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet fantasy overture. Then, after the break, Konradin Herzog conducted Dutilleux’s Sur le même accord for solo violin and orchestra and Schumann’s Symphony no. 4.

The pieces were really good, but I preferred the works chosen by Herzog.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Friends, Gert, Ingrid, Movies, Music, Nienke, Oosterpoort, Pathé, Photos

Tickets

Wednesday, July 1, 2015 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

PSX_20150701_170251Yay, my Oosterpoort & Schouwburg theatre tickets for the coming season have arrived! I have eight shows in the Oosterpoort and the Schouwburg to go to, and then there’s also two shows in MartiniPlaza this year.

In September, Sinfonia Rotterdam is playing the Requiem of Fauré.

In October, Nienke and I will attend the North Netherlands Orchestra playing various movie scores.

In November, my Mom and I are going to hear Luka Bloom sing.

Then, also in November, Mom and I are going to see Jochem Myjer play his cabaret show at MartiniPlaza.

December has The Kilkenny’s performing in MartiniPlaza.

And a few days after Toneelhuis is doing the play Caligula by Camus.

Black Grace is up in February, they are a dance group from New Zealand performing various bits from earlier shows.

In April I’ll be going to see Diederik van Vleuten do a cabaret conference kinda thing.

And then May has a new show by Daniel Lohues filled with songs and anecdotes.

La Bohème is the final show of the season, performed by Opera Zuid in June.

Posted in: General Tagged: Cabaret, Culture, Dance, MartiniPlaza, Music, Oosterpoort, Schouwburg, Theater

Waylon

Sunday, November 30, 2014 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

20141129_175019

I went to see Waylon perform at the Oosterpoort yesterday with Kim and Ingrid.

We met up at Mr. Mofongo’s to have dinner first. I had this awesome beef tenderloin with roasted vegetables (red onion, paprika) and chorizo, on a bed of seasonal vegetables (haricots, parsnip, yellow beet, red beet puree, pumpkin and roasted chestnut) with baked potatoes and orange mayonnaise. It was absolutely delicious!

Dessert was a crème brûlée with red berries and raspberries and a glass of amaretto.

20141129_202703We then headed for the Oosterpoort and, once there, found ourselves some good seats. Most people were seating themselves near the stage or standing in front, but we went for a little further away and up. Since he was playing the small room, this was still close enough to see everything, and by sitting a bit higher up, we could see over the rest.

The concert itself started a little after eight and for the next three! hours, no break, Waylon sang, and talked, and it was fantastic. He played songs from his newest album, songs from his previous album and even a Common Linnets song. I was a bit disappointed, though, with that one specifically. It is an emotional song, and one of my personal favourites. He did most of the song very well but decided to mess up the last few lines, in an attempt to be funny, which so didn’t work for me. Besides this minor thing, I loved the rest. I definitely recommend going to see him if you can.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: Eating Out, Food, Friends, Ingrid, Kim, Mr. Mofongo, Music, Oosterpoort, Review, Theater

All-Night Vigil

Friday, September 26, 2014 by Tse Moana Leave a Comment

St. Petersburg Chamber ChoirThe concert last night was fantastic!

The St. Petersburg Chamber Choir was founded in 1997 by Nikolai Kornev who is still its main conductor. The repertoire is wide, ranging from renaissance to more contemporary; and the singers, 20 men and 20 women, are trained at top musical institutions in Russia. They have won many prizes, even a Grammy, and made a number of albums.

The programme for the night was to sing a number of parts of the All-Night Vigil, which is a part of the Vespers of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). They started off, however, with some other pieces that offered context for Rachmaninoff and his work.

The first were four pieces of A Russian Requiem, by Alexander Dmitriyevich Kastalsky (1856-1926). Kastalsky, who studied under Tchaikovsky, was a prolific composer, writing at least 130 choral pieces between 1896 and 1917 and as such greatly influenced, among others, Rachmaninoff. Then came six pieces of the Liturgy of St. John Crystostomus by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). His work in composing these pieces allowed others to also write new music to known hymns. People such as his student Kastalsky, and Rachmaninoff. Combined,  Tchaikovsky greatly influenced Russian sacred music, and Kastalsky influenced, and advised, Rachmaninoff. Together, this brings us the masterpiece that is the Vespers.

The Vespers are a complicated work, with melody lines and dynamics that go all over the place, from serene to exuberant. It hearkens back to older church traditions, even though Rachmaninoff was fairly ambivalent towards the church, by using older melodies and an occasional more recitative style. Vocally, the Vespers ask a lot from the singers, with extreme highs and lows, and complicated techniques.

Now, I’m not well-versed, or versed at all, in classical singing so I have no words to describe what they did and how they did it. I just know I loved it. And based on the standing ovation, so did the rest of the audience.

The only shame was that there were so many empty spots in the room. The performance was in the great hall of the Oosterpoort, and it can seat a great many people, but that great many people weren’t there. It almost felt a little disrespectful 🙁 Although I can imagine that the accoustics of the great hall are better for a work like this.

Programme:

Alexander Dmitriyevich Kastalsky: A Russian Requiem

  • Requiem aeternam
  • Ingemisco
  • Confutatis
  • Hostias

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Liturgy of St. John Crystostomus

  • Symbol of belief
  • After the symbol of belief
  • After the exclamation “Thine from Thine”
  • After the words “Especially for our most Holy”
  • The Lord’s Prayer
  • Communion hymn

Intermission

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Vespers op. 37 “All-Night Vigil”

  • 1. O come, let us worship
  • 2. Bless the Lord, o my soul
  • 3. Blessed is the man
  • 4. O Jesus Christ
  • 5. Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
  • 6. Virgin, Mother of God
  • 7. Glory to God in the highest
  • 8. Praise ye the name of the Lord
  • 9. Blessed art thou, o Lord
  • 10. Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ
  • 11. My soul doth magnify the Lord
  • 12. Glory to God in the highest
  • 13. Today is salvation come
  • 14. Rising from the tomb
  • 15. To thee, o Mother of God

If you want to listen to the Vespers yourself, the album they  made of it a few years ago is available on Spotify.

Posted in: General, Photos Tagged: History, Music, Oosterpoort, Photos, Theater

Off to the Theater: C3

Friday, April 20, 2012 by Tse Moana 1 Comment

A few weeks ago Mom saw a review in the paper of a show by C3, called ‘Wil je in ons groepje?’ (Do you wanna be in our group). She mentioned it to me and indicated she’d like to see it. They were doing one show near here, and that was exactly on her birthday. So I asked her, for confirmation, if she wanted to go, and got us tickets.

Since I did have to work before hand, and the show didn’t start until 20:15, we decided to go out to eat as well. For ease, we decided upon the restaurant at the theater.

So, last night was the night. Mom picked me up at work, and we drove the short distance to the Oosterpoort theater. After parking we headed inside. We were a bit early for our reservation, but we could get seated early. After getting drinks served, the waiter discussed the menu with us. Because Cristina Branco was also performing at the Oosterpoort yesterday, they were having a Portuguese menu and were there any dietary things we needed. We both let him know that the starter, a fish soup, was not something we would like. Fortunately, the vegetarian option sounded great so we opted for that.

Shortly after, the starter was served, a truly delicious courgette soup with cheese and cream.  The main course was a skewer with chicken, beef and pork served with roasted veggies, skin-baked potato and salad (nom nom nom!). While we were eating, I decided to check our tickets to see which of the halls we had to be. That’s when I realised something. We were in the wrong theater…

Instead of the show being at the Oosterpoort, it was at the Stadschouwburg, the theater they’re connected with. We had a good laugh about it, what else can you do. I’d had the tickets for a few weeks already but never really bothered to read them properly, and we’d only seen mentions of Oosterpoort near the review so we totally missed it.

Fortunately our dessert (melon slices with orange flavoured ice cream and a vanilla pastry with cream) arrived shortly so that, combined with our arriving early to begin with, gave  us enough time to walk to the Stadschouwburg. We arrived there with about twenty minutes to spare. Had we been on time for dinner, we’d have been late for the show 😀

The show itself was quite good. C3  is a a cabaret/comedy group consisting of Mike Boddé, Onno Innemee and, this theater season, Jelka van Houten. They sang songs, some more comedic in nature, some more serious. It started off with Jelka singing a love song about New York. Not because New York is that great, but because the person she loves comes from New York. Onno sang a great comedic ‘cuntry’ song about being a cowboy. Halfway through the song it became clear through the lyrics that instead of being a real cowboy singing, it was a boy singing about playing cowboy and the patrons of the local cafe getting quite sick of his repeated Hyippi-ya-yays.

Mike played the piano throughout the evening (he is absolutely great at that) to accompany the songs. At some point Jelka sang a lovely song about not being able to sleep and begging Mr. Goldberg to help her. This led to Mike explaining to her the story behind it, and how it had led to this beautiful piece of music, the Goldberg Variations. In short: there was this count who had trouble sleeping so he went to Johann Sebastian Bach and asked him to compose him some music that he could have played by his court harpsichord (klavecimbel) player, Mr. Goldberg.

Mike then elaborated that the Goldberg Variations are basically the hardest thing to play for a pianist, and that he could not play it all. However, he knew the basic chord structure, so he could make his own Variations. Which he then did: Goldberg à la blues, Goldberg à la Mozart, Goldberg à la Chopin… It was very awesome.

He also dit a dramatic reading about a nice smelling man in a language built of archaic words, screwed around current words and screwed around translations of english words. The way in which he read this (as if he were preaching) and the speed with which he could speak all those out of the ordinary words is a total turn-on for me (I looooove words and language).

Too bad there’s no videos of this, or his Goldberg Variations online, even to just show a hint. Mike Boddé is brilliant with a piano and words.

There were also sketches. This was for me a much more mixed bag. I did not much care for most of them. I just found them unfunny and I had trouble finding the through line of the show and I do like me a through line. Random assortments of things without a discernible connection throw me off, especially when a show’s description makes me believe there is supposed to be a through line.

After the show, we quickly headed back to the car and went home for today was an early start. We had a great night.

 

Posted in: General Tagged: Birthday, Eating Out, Food, Language, Mom, Music, Muze, Oosterpoort, Parents, Review, Schouwburg, Theater

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