Theatre for children

Coming up very soon, on 15 and 16 February, are performances of the Simone de Jong Company at Southbank Centre’s Imagine Festival in London. Their show, Hermit, is aimed at young audiences and their parents. It’s a show about being alone and coming home. Book your tickets here.

Also coming up soon is the amazing Belfast Children’s Festival. On 10 and 11 March, Theater Artemis will be performing The Invisible Man, bringing wonderfully absurd theatre to young audiences (5 to 11-year-olds) in Northern Ireland’s capital. Later this year, from 28 May to 18 June, that same show will also be coming to the Unicorn Theatre in London.

Visual arts

There are always lots of exhibitions in the UK that include works by Dutch artists. Here we just want to highlight some that we think might be of special interest.

• At Royal Museums of Greenwich, in the Queen’s House, a year-long exhibition called ‘The Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea’ opens on 2 March. The Dutch painters father and son Willem van de Velde (the Elder and the Younger) arrived in London 350 years ago. King Charles II offered them a studio space at the Queen's House in Greenwich. Here they worked, creating royal commissions, magnificent paintings and tapestries, as well as thousands of detailed sketches, drawings and designs. Now, 350 years on from their first arrival in England, the Queen's House will once again become a home for the Van de Veldes.
• Other famous Dutch painters that will have major exhibitions dedicated to the in London this year are Piet Mondriaan (at Tate Modern) and Frans Hals (at National Gallery).
• But let’s not simply focus on the big blockbusters. The Dutch Embassy in the UK is also very proud to be supporting contemporary art galleries up and down the country that offer young artists from the Netherlands an opportunity to show their work in the UK. For instance, Ikon Gallery in Birmingham currently has a group exhibition that includes work by the Netherlands-based artist Ola Hassanain, work by Rosalie Wammes can now be seen at South London Gallery, and The Tetley in Leeds will host Afra Eisma’s first UK solo exhibition later on this year.

Dance

Various arts organisations in Leeds will be working with artists from the Netherlands this year. It’s the result of the Dutch Embassy’s efforts to connect with Leeds’ Year of Culture in 2023. One of the first activities on the cultural calendar is a collaboration between choreographer Jija Sohn from the Netherlands and the Leeds-based dance crew House of Flava. On Friday 10 February they will be giving a workshop together at Yorkshire Dance. It’s part an ongoing collaboration between Sohn and House of Flava that will result in more workshops and performances in Leeds this year.

Another event that dance-lovers should probably already jot down in their calendars is Nederlands Dans Theater taking the stage at Sadler’s Wells (19 to 22 April 2023).

Theatre

From 8 to 11 March, The Coronet Theatre in London is showing BLIND by Duda Paiva from the Netherlands. Duda Paiva, along with his dance partners – puppets carved from flexible foam – create unique, elusive, magical worlds. In BLIND, Paiva explores a childhood illness which left him temporarily blind.

Another theatre production that we are looking forward to is ‘A Little Life’ at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End. This play is directed by Ivo van Hove, the eminent director of International Theatre Amsterdam.

Fashion

In collaboration with the London College of Fashion and the Dutch Centre in London, the Dutch Embassy is providing a platform to fashion designers from the Netherlands and the UK that are using new technologies to produce fashion in a much more sustainable manner than is the norm in this industry. Interested? Sign up here for this free event that takes place on 21 February.

Music

Wigmore Hall is a good place to see and hear classically schooled Dutch musicians. The hall tends to programme at least half a dozen concerts by musicians from the Netherlands every year. Coming to Wigmore Hall soon are violinist Simone Lamsma (27 March) and pianist Aidan Mikdad (26 April).

Looking for a lovely jazz night out? The US-based Dutch drummer Philippe Lemm and his two band mates are coming to Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club on 23 February, playing music from their latest album ‘First Steps’.

Dutch Embassy support for cultural projects in the UK

Cultural organisations in the UK that want to provide a platform to artists from the Netherlands, thereby giving audiences in the UK access to Dutch culture, can apply for financial support from the Dutch Embassy in London.

Read more about culture funding from the Dutch Embassy in the UK on www.netherlandsandyou.nl/uk/culture.

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