Following up on its CCTV headquarters in Beijing, OMA (Rem Koolhaas’s firm) has designed a new stock exchange building for the city of Shenzhen. Nicknamed “the Miniskirt”, it’s a collage of two Mies van der Rohe buildings.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Trying To Preserve Hong Kong’s One Real Homegrown High Art Form
Cantonese opera – distinct from its Beijing and Kunqu counterparts – is hanging on, but only just.
National Dance Company Wales Suspends Co-Founder
“The organisation says Roy Campbell-Moore has been suspended from his post as artistic associate following a complaint by other members of staff.” The nature of the complaint has not yet been made public.
Opera And Theatre Cinecasts, Sure – But Stand-Up Comedy?
“Comedy Store: Raw & Uncut sounds like a galaxy far, far away from anything you’d normally see at the movies – and not especially alluring. But that’s what they said before Met Live, National Theatre Live and their numerous imitators trounced the doubters.”
Bette Midler Has Stage Fright?? Yes, Of A Sort
“She has been approached about returning to Broadway before, including for a revival of the musical Mame, but she said she had been afraid of the rigors of the spotlight – eight performances a week, as a character, required real technique, stamina and confidence in the face of audience assumptions about her abilities.”
A Simpsons Writers Reunion (This We Wanna See)
“For the latest episode of his Web series Serious Jibber-Jabber, [Conan] O’Brien reunited with four of the original writers of the show – Al Jean, Jeff Martin, Jay Kogen, and Mike Reiss – to reminisce and to discuss the evolution of the beloved family from Springfield.”
Canada, Sci-Fi Hotbed
“Bisexual omnivores. Echoes of Occupy. Time-travelling terrorists. Plus razor-sharp plots and wildly blurred boundaries. A Canadian industry once known for staffing geek-pleasing U.S. productions is redefining the genre with home-grown mashups that are garnering outsize audiences and out-of-this-world buzz.”
Okay, Canada, Accept Your Creative Brain Drain
“Arts reporter John Barber discusses with Madeleine White why an artistic brain drain is inevitable in Canada and why Canadians shouldn’t be bothered by it.”
When Camp Transcends Mere Good And Bad
“To Barthes, the neutral is ‘everything that baffles the paradigm,’ the paradigm being the conflict-based ideologies and associated choices that culture forces on us, uninvited and unannounced, on a daily basis. Here are some big ones: masculine/feminine, gay/straight, conservative/liberal.” Can camp really baffle the paradigm? Well, take Rob Lowe and Snow White at the 1989 Oscars …
Should Alan Cumming Be Afraid Of The Macbeth Curse?
He’s playing virtually all of the script’s roles on Broadway, and he says he’s not scared. His producers, though, don’t want to take chances.