Introduction to the court case (1)

Stichting Anderson Carvalho Dance & Choreography (ACDC) is an independent Dutch cultural foundation founded by choreographer Anderson Carvalho. Although established in the Netherlands, ACDC's principal artistic activities take place in South Africa, where it conceived, founded and produces ACDC’s Dance Intersect, an international contemporary dance platform.

https://www.andersoncarvalho.info/

For many years, ACDC understood that Dutch public funding was not available for its activities in South Africa. According to ACDC, that understanding was reinforced on multiple occasions by its then board member, Hildegard Draaijer, who advised that funding for South African activities could not be obtained in the Netherlands. As a result, ACDC continued to organize and develop ACDC Dance Intersect using its own resources, supplemented by support received directly from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa.

In 2025, ACDC was contacted by an anonymous source who suggested that ACDC should examine Stichting DOX's Kunstenplan 2025–2028 application, and DOX’s Annual report over 2023 and 2024, available in the public domain.

Reviewing those documents marked the beginning of ACDC's investigation.

The Kunstenplan and Annual reports contained references to ACDC Dance Intersect, ACDC and the relationship between ACDC and DOX that ACDC had not previously been aware of. Among other things, ACDC identified documents in which DOX described itself as a co-producer of ACDC Dance Intersect and referred to ACDC's activities in the context of applications for Dutch public funding.

As ACDC expanded its investigation, it compared those public documents with contemporaneous correspondence, agreements, reports, governance documents and its own records. During the subsequent legal proceedings, ACDC also noted that Ms Draaijer's statement filed with the Dutch court acknowledged that DOX had applied for, and received, Dutch public funding relating to activities involving ACDC and Dance Intersect. ACDC considers that statement to be materially different from the advice it says it had received over a period of years concerning the availability of Dutch funding for its South African activities.

Those discoveries led ACDC to undertake a comprehensive reconstruction of the documentary history. This archive is the result of that investigation.

It presents the documentary record in chronological order and links, wherever possible, each factual statement to the contemporaneous documents on which it is based. The archive also includes the court filings submitted by all parties, enabling readers to examine both the historical documents and the legal positions advanced during the proceedings.

The purpose of this archive is to preserve the documentary record and make it accessible. It is not intended to replace the legal process. Rather, it provides readers—including journalists, researchers, policymakers, artists and members of the public—with direct access to the primary source material so that they may examine the evidence themselves and draw their own informed conclusions.

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© 2026 Stichting Anderson Carvalho Dance & Choreography (ACDC). All original text, analyses, chronologies and original materials are protected by copyright. Third-party materials are reproduced solely where necessary to document, analyse or contextualise the matters discussed. Copyright in third-party materials remains with their respective owners.