By Eden van der Moere After 12 weeks of rehearsing, practicing, working and studying lines, THEATRA is ready to present its newest masterpiece. In this long-awaited Spring Play, two worlds collide. Based on a piece by Ellen McLaughlin, the play is a mixture of Sophocles classic tragedy Ajax and the modern-day war in Iraq. Set…
Media Literacy Alphabet – Part I
by Salem Saberhagen and Hamster A – Anonymous Can anyone on the Internet be anonymous? We can try, by making our accounts private and shielding our accounts – but how anonymous are you really? And how effective is this shield really? Google your own name, for instance, and find out how anonymous you actually are….
The “Adam Zkt. Eva” Phenomenon
by Hilde van den Berg If you are Dutch, you may have heard of a show on the channel RTL5 called Adam Zkt. Eva [Adam seeks Eve]. It is similar to a show in the US, called Naked and Afraid, where participants (one male, one female) are sent to a rough natural area and have…
The Zeeuws Museum: More than Meets the Eye.
By Aimah Moiz and Anton Moggré As you may have been notified in your recent newsletters, the local museum, the Zeeuws Museum, has been nominated for the annual BankGiroLotterij Museum Prize. Every year, this prize is given to one of three nominated museums. The criteria for the nomination of a museum this year was that…
Mr. Darcy on Steroids: a review of Kingsman: The Secret Service
By Lisanne Cheizoo (Editor-in-chief) Every year, dozens and dozens of movies are being released in theatres, and, as a viewer, you are constantly challenged to make a selection: to see the new Avengers movie, or to watch Birdman? To see one of the many dramas, or rather an action-comedy movie? 2015 seems to hold a…
The National and Their Slow Show
By Merlijn Veltman This is the first article of many in a series describing the roots, origins, influences and the growth of bands that have taken the alternative music scene by storm. The first band discussed will be The National, known for its enigmatic singer, dreamy, but robust guitar sound and its perplexing blend of…
HANDWERK: a Knowledge Transfer of Traditional Zeeuwse Crafts
By Anne van Tatenhove On rare occasions you can still spot them around the city: people wearing the traditional Zeeuwse costumes. Women wearing long skirts, white caps and striking jewelry, and men more sober costumes. Now that these occurrences are happening less and less, the traditional costumes and products are under threat of real extinction,…
Fifty Shades of Grey
By Eden van der Moere Disclaimer: This review evaluates one aspect of the film and does not make any concrete value judgments about the highly disputed content. We encourage people to watch the film for themselves and read more related articles and reviews to form their own opinions. © 2014 – Universal Pictures On Valentine’s Day…
Putting the Brains Back into the Zombie-Genre
by Zoë Goldsborough Zombie apocalypses seem to be the most exhausted topic of the past decade. After titles such as The Walking Dead, World War Z, I Am Legend and 28 Days Later, thinking out apocalypse scenarios—especially those involving zombies—seems to be common practice for authors and screenwriters. In the wake of this flood of…
ISIS: Erasing the Past, Controlling the Future
By Merlijn Veltman The ancient city of Nimrud was once the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, one of the great civilizations that once occupied part of the land of Mesopotamia, or modern day Iraq. For countless years the wealth and prestige of the Neo-Assyrian Empire were enormous, and it was, together with Egypt one of…
An Afternoon at the Stedelijk Museum
By Anne van Tatenhove A free afternoon in the sunny capital—is there a better reason to explore the city of Amsterdam by a visit to one of its most renowned museums? Walking through Amsterdam on a sunny workday afternoon gives a good sense of its tremendous energy. The city is buzzing with life; cars, trams…
Interview with the Artist Bob van Persie: A round of questions with the father of one of Europe’s most famous strikers
By Corstiaan Van Pelt During the winter break, while walking through the Boijmans museum, I decided I wanted to interview local artists. I had always known that the father of Robin van Persie (the striker of Manchester United) was an artist. I decided to interview him because of the thought behind his art: he gives…
NSO visits Middelburg—what an Enlightenment!
By Anne van Tatenhove It was a strange experience when the average student population in Middelburg on a Sunday morning suddenly doubled—last Sunday, about 90 students from all over the Netherlands came to our small town. The reason for their visit? To enlighten us! While the sun did its best to give us an early…
Of Epic Proportions – Film review of Michiel De Ruyter
By Lisanne Cheizoo (Editor-in-Chief) Last summer, some of Middelburg’s streets were suddenly off-limits, and if you looked closely you could see people walking around like they had come straight out of a Rembrandt painting. In the end, all of this turned out to be for the upcoming Dutch movie/biopic Michiel De Ruyter, which was filmed…
Album Review: Oscar and the Wolf – Entity
By Eden van der Moere With the rooftops still covered in snow and the cold biting our noses, we almost desperately wish for summer: the dazzling heat, the bright greens of the grass and leaves and, of course, amazing summer plans. These past few weeks, many plans have been made as music festivals all across…
Winter Break Culture Shock – When Your Own Culture is the Shocker
By Agate Rublovska As an international student who goes home during the winter and summer breaks I sometimes feel that I have two distinct lives that are hard, even impossible, to reconcile: here at UCR, I speak academic English (or try to) and read about exciting things I never knew existed. Here, switching perspectives…
The 10 best albums of 2014
By Eden van der Moere 2014 was a very diverse year, musically speaking. It was the year of amazing debuts, from artists such as Hozier and Royal Blood. It was the year Ed Sheeran released his second album and succeeded in establishing himself at the top of the contemporary music scene, but also the year…
“Anacondas and Blank Spaces”—on women in the music business
By Lisanne Cheizoo (Editor in Chief) In September and October, something unique happened in the Billboard top 100: for the first time in the 56 year history of the Billboard chart, the top 5 slots of the world famous chart were dominated by women, and women alone. In the week of October 17th, the chart…
Of Goethe and Poems – Gems of the German Culture
By Agate Rublovska The one to share some of the ‘hidden’ aspects of her culture this time is Clara Spohrer, a third semester Philosophy, Music and Literature student from Germany, Frankfurt. When deciding on what example to give of a traditional, defining aspect of her culture, Clara said that she sought something that “every German…
A rough diamond – Album review: Ben Howard – I Forget Where We Were
By Eden van der Moere The second album is the trickiest record in every musician’s repertoire. It can either make or break the artist. In Ben Howard’s case, it neither makes nor breaks his career. I Forget Where We Were, which was released only last October, is a rough diamond—both beautiful and haunting. Back in 2011,…