Despite 15 years’ struggle with conservative clerics, nervous officials, small audiences (who sometimes boo) and an uncomprehending society, the Egyptian Modern Dance Theater Company and its school have firmly established themselves in Cairo’s arts scene.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Political Comedy Rules Late-Night TV
The intense interest in the 2008 presidential election – not to mention Tina Fey’s channeling of Sarah Palin – has brought younger viewers flocking to late-night comedy. “I think the gods smiled on us with the Palin thing,” says Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels. “Like if he’d chosen Romney, I think it would be completely different.”
No R-Rated Salome for Met’s HD Broadcast
As Karita Mattila finishes her Dance of the Seven Veils this Saturday afternoon, the Metropolitan Opera’s live simulcast into movie screens worldwide will not show what she calls her “slutty, two-second nude pose.” A spokesman pointed out that the company markets the broadcasts as “family-friendly events.” (He also observed that one can find the pose on YouTube.)
Oh, Forget the Nobel! It’s Not About Literature Anyway
“If we are shocked to discover that politics or some agenda external to mere aesthetics or ‘excellence’ impinges on the judgment of literary work in an international context, we haven’t been paying attention.”
Taking Product Placement All the Way
“Now there is a new form of the practice, put to use in a new Webisode series. Instead of inserting the brand into the production, these new series essentially insert the production into the brand.”
Anna Deavere Smith Launches New Solo Show
“The Arizona Project tells the stories of former Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, as well as those of more than 30 women with relationships to the American judicial system, including prison system employees, incarcerated women, lawyers, and activists.”
Rufus Wainwright’s Opera Ends Up at Manchester Int’l Festival
The folk-pop divo’s first stage project, originally commissioned by the Met and subsequently withdrawn, will premiere next July in a MIF co-production with Opera North. The director, conductor and four-person cast have been announced as well.
Hollywood Comes to the Banlieue
A new thriller starring John Travolta is shooting scenes in one of the impoverished Paris suburbs at the epicenter of the 2005 riots – thanks to a drive by filmmaker Luc Besson. But what happens when the film crews leave?
Fundraising Campaign Keeps Rubens Sketch in Britain
“A Rubens sketch for the Banqueting House ceiling in Whitehall, described as a ‘unique treasure in the history of British art’, is to remain in the UK after the Tate raised £5.7m by the final day of the deadline to buy it.”
Nobel Laureates Making Opera
Burial at Thebes, a treatment of the Antigone story directed by Derek Walcott and adapted from Seamus Heaney’s translation of Sophocles (with music by Dominique Le Gendre), premieres in London this weekend.