JEAN-GUY LECAT ON BUILDING THEATRE TODAY: “The difference between a true space and one that is not lies in the criteria that favours or disfavours life. That which favours this concentration is thus legitimate while that which shies away from it is not. Continue reading »
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CULTURE KLATCH | Trans Europe Halles grapples with art for social change in Europe and the Arab world
Twenty-five artists and cultural operators from Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey will be guests at Trans Europe Halles Meeting 76. They will offer inspiration and examples of how they work in independent culture under harsh conditions and to share their stories of how culture actions can lead to social change and a more open society. Continue reading »
ON FOREIGN-FILM DIPLOMACY | Why this year’s Golden Globe Awards are so Eurocentric
Have you noticed that the French and the Scandinavians dominate this year’s Golden Globe nominees for best foreign language films? To a disproportionate degree. So what exactly happened that only the French and the Scandinavians grabbed most of the Golden Globes booty? Are the best of the best among this year’s foreign language films really so Eurocentric? Continue reading »
FILM-FLAM DIPLOMACY | Will you accept a post of culture minister in Siberia if you were Gérard Depardieu?
The Siberian region is notorious for its Stalin-era gulag prison camps. It is also the same area where one of the members of the punk band Pussy Riot is presently serving a two-year sentence for reciting an anti-Putin prayer in a Russian orthodox church in February 2012. Continue reading »
Dramatic photographs of North Korea, Greece, Afghanistan exhibited at France’s international festival of photojournalism
This festival is a unique event for those who share a love and passion for photography. For one week each year, the Palais des Congrès in Perpignan becomes the centre of the photojournalism community. The Festival exhibits the greatest photojournalist work from around the world in exhibitions across the city. Continue reading »
Performance review | Is “Pâquerette” penetrating, or merely a dance with penetrating elements?
Pâquerette is a duet between a man and a woman who re-discover their childlike innocence through the intensities of penetration. Continue reading »
Not a performance review | French choreographer David Wampach spoofs John Waters film, dances with shaving foam
“Auto + Batterie” matches up two enticing signature works, in which French choreographer David Wampach conspicuously foregrounds the theatrical relationship between dance and music. Continue reading »
Because it Cannes: Agence France Presse wraps French city with glamorous photos of movie stars
The selected photos in Cannes have a lot of pointing and waving in them: Alfred Hitchcock fingering the viewer directly, Michael Douglas waving in the air, Tony Curtis also pointing a finger, Quentin Tarantino with two palms up in the air, and Sophia Loren also with her arms up Continue reading »
Colloque international sur l’enseignement de la scénographie: “Qu’est ce que la scénographie ?” 21 et 22 octobre 2011
An international symposium on the teaching of design, entitled “What is Scenography?”, takes place Oct. 21 and 22 at the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (EnsAD) in Paris. These two days of reflection and debate will not only lead to a review of the status of the profession but also lay down its future prospects. Continue reading »
Essay on the state of U.S. theater in “World of Theatre” published in Bangladesh and Paris, with book launch in China
XIAMEN, CHINA and PARIS, FRANCE: The International Theatre Institute (ITI) – the world’s largest organization for the performing arts – is holding its 33rd world congress at the Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Centre in Xiamen, China, from Sept. 19 to 24, 2011. Held under the auspices of UNESCO, the congress will have a strong … Continue reading »
Theater Review: Peter Brook’s Slimmed-Down “Magic Flute”
NEW YORK CITY: At a July morning news conference in New York City, the 86-year-old and hugely influential British director Peter Brook and his collaborators — librettist Marie-Hélène Estienne and composer Franck Krawczyk — confessed, with a laugh, that if they had their druthers, their lovely A Magic Flute would be performed entirely in English. “We … Continue reading »
When Spectacle kisses the lips of Intimacy — Intersection hits the European road after Prague
PRAGUE: In Intersection, pairs of distant lovers could be spotted giving each other tight embraces inside a structure of 30 white boxes. Theater hooked up with Visual Arts. Scenography cuddled with Installation. Architecture submitted to the caprices and desires of Public Space. Spectacle kissed Intimacy’s lips. During the 11 days of the Prague Quadrennial for Performance … Continue reading »
Théâtre et cité: Cycle de conférences 2010-2011 à l’Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture de Nantes
Comme dans tous ses spectacles, avec Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir, le Soleil propose au spectateur un voyage dans l’espace et le temps. Un bateau, un naufrage, une île déserte, des émigrants en quête d’un nouveau monde… vu à travers le tournage mouvementé d’un film muet dans une Guinguette nommée Le Fol Espoir, tournage … Continue reading »