“Great cities throughout history have held an attraction for outsiders drawn by both the urges to make something of their lives and the freedom to lose themselves in the crowd, and it is from these restless, marginal groups that many of the social, economic and cultural breakthroughs that shape our life have emerged. But how much do cities themselves know and understand of this phenomenon?”
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Erin Go Dance
“The main reason for Ireland’s historical disregard for dance is that this is a country where literature, poetry and theatre maintain an absolute hegemony at the expense of non-verbal art forms. But equally to blame is Catholicism, which led to dance being regarded as immoral, sinful and degenerate… The final impediment was Irish folk dance, enshrined as the only public form permissible by the Dance Halls Act of 1935.” But choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan is finally introducing Ireland to modern dance, almost single-handedly defying decades of disinterest and forging a dance movement that is simultaneously classic, anarchic, and distinctly Irish.
There’s A Little Shakespeare In All Of Us
Who is Shakespeare? With Bard fascination having become a cottage industry, and new theories concerning his life and work springing up as fast as their proponents can score book deals, it’s a question worth asking. Interestingly, many of the scholars, actors, and directors who know the playwright’s work best respond to the question the way many people would respond to the question, “Who is God?” Case in point: “As every age has re-invented him, so I have cast him in my own private image. As I am a gay man brought up in a Catholic family in Lancashire, so Shakespeare for me is a gay Catholic who spent some time in Lancashire.”
The Art Of Twiddling Your Thumbs
Video games are not what most parents would consider an art form, no matter how many hours their children might choose to spend in front of them. But according to the Art Gallery of South Australia, many games have reached an artistic level of creative achievement, and a new exhibition, held in conjunction with the Adelaide Film Festival, is highlighting some of the best in the field.
The New Generation Of Teen Lit
Author Francesca Lia Block “writes in a style that she says is influenced by Greek myth, the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and the modernist poetry of T. S. Eliot and H. D. Her stories abound with sudden transformations, fairies, genies and ghosts.” But her novels, aimed at a young adult audience, also contain plenty of frank discussion of drugs, sex, and the other temptations confronted by teens and college students. As might be expected, not everyone is happy with Block’s subject matter, but her books are flying off the shelves, and winning awards on their way to the cash register.
While The Gates Wave, Colorado Waits
“The Gates” might have New Yorkers all abuzz, but you might excuse the state of Colorado for wondering what happened to their Christo/Jeanne-Claude project. “In the “artworks in progress” section of the artists’ Web site, the only project listed besides ‘The Gates’ is ‘Over the River,’ a plan to suspend several miles of shimmering fabric panels above a stretch of the Arkansas River in Colorado during a summer.” But ever since The Gates hit the front burner, Colorado hasn’t heard a thing from the pair.
Caravaggio The Budding Cinematographer
Caravaggio’s paintings are hot in the UK right now, thanks largely to a genuine blockbuster exhibition featuring 16 of the master’s surviving works, and even today’s masters of light and perspective are impressed. In fact, a generation of filmmakers counts Caravaggio as a major influence in their work, specifically in the area of light and its effect on a scene.
Are Crowds And Dullards Killing The Museum Experience?
There is no shortage of blockbuster exhibitions being mounted in London this season, but between the long lines, the timed ticket entries, the crush of tourists, and the packs of gawkers with audioguide headphones plastered to their heads, is anyone really getting a chance to experience the paintings anymore?
Russia Enjoys A KGB Renaissance
“The intrepid Russian spy, saving the Motherland if not the world, has come in from the cold. Not since his heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, when espionage novels and movies grabbed the imagination of a teenaged Vladimir Putin, has the Russian secret agent enjoyed such a celebrated place in popular culture. Blockbuster movies, TV series, best-selling novels and even theme restaurants are restoring luster to the FSB, the Russian intelligence service, and its predecessor, the KGB, as the country mines the contemporary fight against terrorism and the Soviet past in a search for incorruptible heroes.”
The Thompson Legacy: Pessimism As A Muse
To anyone familiar with his writing, Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide probably wasn’t a big shock, but his drug-addled, gloom-filled prose was some of the best writing done in America in the last hundred years. “He was also what you get when you combine Murphy’s Law and some hillbilly Calvinist preaching the doctrine of innate depravity. He believed every man had it in him to do wrong… He spoke in bursts of words that later in his life became so unintelligible that a documentary about him provided subtitles. He had a sharp eye for the right people and he hung out with them. He had charisma. Being around him gave you the charmed but unsettled feeling of having joined an entourage.”