Maandelijks archief: mei 2015

Puppet Cabinet “Jan Klaassen” back on the DAM!

Geplaatst op door

For centuries the Puppetshow of ‘Jan Klaassen and his wife Katrijn’ were a huge succes. This old tradition stopped from 2008 and is restored this year!

Historically the main puppets are ‘ Jan Klaassen and his wife Katrijn’. Jan Klaassen traditionally has a big red nose (he drinks a lot). He is a little dumb but has a good heart. The play is done by handpuppets in a Puppet Cabinet. The main figures were inhabitants of the famous Amsterdam Jordaan district. In 1686 they got married in the New Church. Katrijn was lazy and drank a lot. Jan Klaassen started with a puppetshow about his personal life, to entertain people.

[English: ‘Punch and Judy’. French: ‘Polichinelle’. German ‘Kasperl’].

From 10 May – 4 Oktober 2015 there will be a Puppet Show on the Dam every Sunday! The public (children!) are allways envolved a lot in the play. The show runs for 30 minutes at 1, 2, 3 and 4 PM. In front of the Royal Palace on the Dam square.

Puppet show on the Dam Foundation aims to keep the maintenance of the Puppet show on the Dam in Amsterdam as important intangible heritage and make training puppeteers for the Puppet show on the Dam.

JanKlaassenPoppenkast

Record number visited the KEUKENHOF springflowergardens in 2015!

Geplaatst op door

With 1.18 million visitors the flower exhibition Keukenhof in Lisse has set a new record number of visitors in 2015.The park is only open for 8 weeks a year (last day was May 17).

It is the second consecutive season that the attraction draws more than a million visitors. In total, the flowers were in bloom eight weeks.This year’s theme: ‘Vincent van Gogh’ got a lot of publicity and attracted many people. The Keukenhof worked with the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum. 2015 marks the 125th anniversary of the painter’s death.Over 70 % of the visitors are foreigners. The Keukenhof is most popular with Americans, Germans, Chinese and Southeast Asians. More and more Duch families start to visit the park and also the average age was lower than in previous years. More Dutch families visited the park.Next year the theme will be ‘The Golden Age’.
The parc will be open from 24 March to 16 May 2016.

RIJKSMUSEUM – European Museum of the Year 2015!

Geplaatst op door

Yesterday the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was elected European Museum of the Year 2015 in Glasgow by the European Museum Forum.

The European award is intended for museums that contribute to the local community.

Wim Pijbes, director of the Rijksmuseum is very pleased, happy and proud that ‘his’ museum has won this prestigious prize.
The Riujksmuseum was closed from 2003-2013 for renovation. It was brought back in it’s original style of architect Cuypers, looking more glorious as ever before….

This year there were 42 nominees. Nominated next to the Rijksmuseum were the National Archives in The Hague, the Resistance Museum in Amsterdam and the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam.