This year’s EIF “will feature the National Ballet of China performing the classic Chinese love story The Peony Pavilion, combining western ballet forms and Chinese traditional music. Shakespeare will also loom large, with Seoul’s Mokhwa Repertory Company weaving The Tempest into fifth-century Korean chronicles” and a Peking Opera Hamlet. And Tim Supple will stage a new version of The Thousand and One Nights with an all-Arab cast.
Tag: 03.23.11
Is The Edinburgh Festival Descending Into Cultural Tourism?
“What is the difference between a festival that is about exoticism and one that is guilty of exoticism? ‘The degree of naivety,’ answered [EIF director Jonathan] Mills … ‘There are certain things that are about the notion of the exotic that Europeans need to deal with and we are juxtaposing that with the reality of Asia’.”
Elizabeth Taylor, 79
“[Her] life offered a mesmerizing series of sagas to rival any movie plot, and they were chronicled by the media since her boost to fame as the enchanting 12-year-old star of National Velvet (1944). By her mid-20s, she had been a screen goddess, teenage bride, mother, divorcee and widow.”
In Praise Of Elizabeth Taylor, ‘The Most Fleshly Of Actresses’
Dana Stevens: “Not fleshy – though there were periods when her gloriously abundant, ever-changing body qualified for that adjective, too – but fleshly, vibrantly incarnate. Unlike many great onscreen beauties, … [she] reveled in her pulchritude” – and in her formidable appetites.
The Politics Of Art Authentication
“As is the case with most catalogues raisonnés, the authors decline to give reasons to their decisions. It’s standard.” Foundations might fear litigation, or risk tipping off forgers on what their evaluators are looking for, if they were more forthcoming in their deliberations. Yet such silence also gives artist foundations complete authority with little accountability.
Amazon Blocks E-Book Sharing Site
“Publishers have long been wary of letting people share digital content. Indeed, they demanded the right to disable sharing for any book in the Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook stores. Publishers haven’t been shy to take advantage of that right.”
Dance Star Benjamin Millepied After “Black Swan”
“Often compared to Baryshnikov — another dancer rakish enough in a pair of white tights to gain cineplex appeal — Millepied the dance maker has been punished of late by the New York press. Initially the critics embraced the elegance and velocity of his work, yet recently there’s rankling about his ratio of charm to substance and questions of whether he’s delivering on his promise.”
Will The NYT Paywall Catapult Amazon Into The Lead?
“The rapidity in which Amazon buys content websites and blogs in order to bring in talent and an established reader base will surprise industry watchers. The shift from paying for advertising to investing in quality editorial content will seem like a predestined change in hindsight, but during the time of this shift it will feel like a novel and risky tactic.”
Is Online Privacy Now Just An Illusion?
“When Ashkan Soltani, an online privacy research and consultant, analyzed “third-party tracking beacons” on 50 of the most-visited sites, they dumped an average 64 tracking technologies (i.e. cookies and web bugs) onto users’ computers.”
Social TV – I Want Company While I Watch
“A new generation of viewers is watching what has been dubbed social TV – a synthesis between TV and social networking. A recent study from marketing agency Digital Clarity found that 80% of under-25s used a second screen to communicate with friends while watching TV and 72% used Twitter, Facebook or a mobile app to comment on shows.”