Arts world mourns loss of writer-director Becher
August 19, 2008 Leading Perth theatre director Alan Becher has died just five weeks
before his pet project to mark the 25th anniversary of Australia’s
America’s Cup victory was due to hit the stage. Becher, the long-time
artistic director and co-founder of Perth Theatre Company, died from
brain cancer on Saturday morning. He was 61.
His death is a
big blow to the small company as it enters merger talks with Black Swan
Theatre Company ahead of the two companies’ 2010 move into the $91
million Heath Ledger Theatre being built in Northbridge.
Opera
August 18, 2008 YOU ALREADY KNOW MORE THAN YOU THINK
Anyone who watches
TV will be familiar with the famous operas
already, as their music is so
often used in advertising. The plots are often gripping, with plenty of sex and
violence. Thanks to ‘surtitles’ (opera for subtitles), the language barrier
isn’t a problem. It’s a living medium, with exciting new operas being invented
all the time (Damon Albarn’s Monkey: Journey to the West was a huge hit when it
premiered in Manchester last year).
SWOT UP
The more you know about the plot beforehand, the
less you’ll have to worry about understanding the words, and the richer your
experience will be. Before going to an opera, rent the DVD, or listen to the CD
(reading the sleeve notes). At the very least, look up the synopsis on
Wikipedia. Don’t worry about spoiling the ending. It’s safe to assume it won’t
end happily.
SING HIGH, MAKE MORE
Looks and age are
often what get actors typecast in films, but in opera the type of character you
play depends on how high or low you sing. Descending from the highest voice to
the lowest, the main types of opera singer are: soprano, mezzo-soprano
and
contralto (women), and tenor, baritone and bass (men). Sopranos and tenors
usually get to play the goodies, and earn
the most.
Tom Hanks hasn't forgotten Ohio theater troupe
August 18, 2008 Tom Hanks still feels a responsibility to the Ohio theater troupe that gave him an early break and will help with a major fundraising campaign.
Maybe that’s only fitting, since Hanks says the Great Lakes Theater Festival taught him an important lesson in responsibility as an actor. The 52-year-old Oscar winner says he learned that you have to show up prepared, knowing your lines and what the scene is about.
Hanks has signed on as the public face of an effort to raise the last $3.6 million needed to provide the Great Lakes with a new home. The historic Hanna Theatre at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square is being renovated into a state-of-the-art facility.
It will be a long way from Lakewood High School, where Hanks performed with the theater company in 1977.
Bronx Subway Station's Successful Public Art Work
August 13, 2008 
Faceted glass installation The El at the Freeman Street station by Daniel Hauben.
FBI posts photos of stolen art on Web site
August 13, 2008 The New York Post said dozens of works of questionable ownership were found in the apartment of late Manhattan art dealer Melvyn Kohn — who went by the name William Milliken Vanderbilt Kingsland.
Because Kohn didn’t leave a will and had no known living relatives when he died in 2006, art auctioneers were called in to sell off the many treasures crammed into his one-bedroom apartment.
However, several pieces the auctioneers attempted sell turned out to be stolen, sparking an FBI investigation, the Post said.
The agency has posted more than 100 items, including three works by Pablo Picasso and one by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, in hopes of returning them to their legal owners.
“Because of the overwhelming size of the collection, we decided the best and expeditious course of action was to publicize the art work to the general public,” FBI spokesman Jim Wynne told the newspaper. “Whether (Kohn) was a thief or a good-faith purchase(r,) we couldn’t come to a conclusion on that. All we know is he ended up with the stuff.”
Flying piece of art causes museum chaos in Switzerland
August 12, 2008 GENEVA (AFP) - A giant inflatable dog turd by American artist Paul McCarthy blew away from an
exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and
breaking a greenhouse window before it landed again, the museum said Monday.
The art work, titled “Complex S(expletive..)”, is the size of a house. The wind carried it 200 metres (yards) from the Paul Klee Centre in Berne before it fell back to Earth in the grounds of a children’s home, said museum director Juri Steiner.
The inflatable turd broke the window at the children’s home when it blew away on the night of July 31, Steiner said. The art work has a safety system which normally makes it deflate when there is a storm, but this did not work when it blew away.
Steiner said McCarthy had not yet been contacted and the museum was not sure if the piece would be put back on display.
A Second Arrest in Art Theft in Brazil
August 8, 2008 A second suspect has been arrested in Brazil in connection with a major art theft that took place in June at a museum in São Paulo, The Associated Press reported. Two prints by Picasso, as well as works by Brazilian artists, were stolen from the Pinacoteca Museum. The police recovered two stolen Brazilian pieces when they arrested Edmilson Silva do Nascimento, 29, at this home on Wednesday night. A print titled “Couple,” by Lasar Segall and the painting “Women in a Window,” left, by Emiliano Di Cavalcanti were found under Mr. Nascimento’s bed. The paintings are worth approximately $633,000. The police recovered Picasso’s “The Painter and the Model” last month when they arrested their first suspect. One suspect remains and is believed to be in possession of Picasso’s “Minotaur, Drinker and Women.”
Remains of Shakespeare's theatre found
August 7, 2008 The remains of a London theatre where William Shakespeare’s early plays including Romeo And Juliet were first performed have been discovered by archaeologists, a museum says.
Shakespeare appeared at The Theatre in Shoreditch, east London, as an actor with a troupe called The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which also performed his efforts as a playwright there.
Woody Allen to tackle opera
August 6, 2008 
China's acrobatic Swan Lake conquers audience at Royal Opera House by Ma Guihua
August 6, 2008 ONDON, Aug. 6 (Xinhua) — An innovative acrobatic rendition of Swan Lake from China won the hearts of the critical elite on Tuesday night at the pretigeous Royal Opera House at London’s Covent Garden, with a full house plus audiences bravoing, whistling and applauding for its spectacular first night appearance.
“Incredible” and “wonderful” were general comments from audiences who felt reluctant to leave after the breathtakingly entertaining Swan Lake makeover which combines classical ballet with traditional acrobatics, turning ballet on its head.
In the fresh adaptation of Swan Lake performed by the Guangdong Acrobatic Company, a European prince falls in love with swan in his dream. He then searches far and wide, from Egypt to Thailand, before finally finds her in China. In the course of his adventurous pursuit accompanied by male clowns that at one time dressed as little swans, the prince encounters marvelous acrobatic talents such as pole balancing, ball walking, hat and ball juggling and jujitsu and magic.
Nicola Rescigno, a Lyric Opera of Chicago founder, dies at 92
August 6, 2008 The co-founder of the Lyric, known as the Lyric Theater in its first two seasons, and later a co-founder of the Dallas Opera where he was artistic director for more than 30 years, Mr. Rescigno, 92, died of complications from a fall on Monday, Aug. 4, in a hospital in Viterbo, Italy, said his nephew, Joseph Rescigno. He had lived near Rome for many years.
Trained as a musician in Italy and at New York’s Juilliard School, Mr. Rescigno started the Lyric with Carol Fox, a singer, and businessman Lawrence Kelly. A number of opera companies had sprouted in the city over the years, but none had stuck. The Lyric’s “calling card” production of “Don Giovanni” at the Civic Opera House on Feb. 5, 1954, gave notice that this operation might have legs.
“A word for the Lyric Theater,” wrote the sometimes acidic critic Claudia Cassidy, who lauded Mr. Rescigno in her adulatory review in the Chicago Tribune, “in fact two words: ‘come again.’ “
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Brazil pop star steps down as minister
July 31, 2008 Brazilian pop star Gilberto Gil has resigned from his post as the country’s culture minister, saying he wants to concentrate on his music again.
Inter-gallery art shows gain ground
July 30, 2008 KOLKATA: Inter-gallery art shows are growing in numbers. While
this phenomenon was around earlier also, the incidence of galleries joining
hands to put up exhibits has now gone up. A team effort helps galleries to reach
into their competencies and stitch together cross-country shows in a more
effective manner.
“No doubt, there have been more inter-gallery shows
than 7-10 years back. This scenario has followed a trend where the overall
volume of shows has ballooned. Collaborations are unfolding even more where one
gallery is keen on staging a show of an artist or group of artists who is
attached to other gallery. After all, every gallery sports a portfolio of
artists. Thus, when there is a crosscity tie-up , a gallery normally comes up
with a catalogue of artists,” an art market source told ET.
African art becomes popular in Beijing
July 30, 2008 BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) — Among his handicraft collection, Xiao Lin likes a giraffe sculpture most. The sculpture, some 20cm high and made from ebony, came from one of his friends in Africa.
The twenty-something man is one of the Beijingers who have become interested in African art since the city hosted the 2006 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
On Tuesday night, he and thousands of other citizens went to the Great Hall of the People in the Tian’anmen Square for a show by African artists.
Art center serves cocktails and clay
July 24, 2008 Cocktails and Clay at the Hyde Park Art
Center on the second Friday of each month is a night of viewing art exhibits,
checking out the class and studio spaces, socializing, dancing and, of course,
creating with clay and having cocktails.
C&C has all the basics for
the Friday night party routine, but wrapped in a fun, alternative package.
Playing with clay
Art Center instructors welcome guests to the ceramic studio and encourage them to get creative and messy, beginning with the basics: the pinch, plug and roll of sculpting with clay.Dave Trost led our class and did a great job demonstrating how you go from a piece of pinched-off clay, indent it with your thumb (plug) and round it out into a sculpted object. It took him what seemed like only five minutes to make a rhinoceros, and it looked so simple. Then he unleashed us, giving us mounds of clay to use at will and a theme: “animals.” Maybe we should have paid more attention to the instruction and less to our libations, because most of us looked a little puzzled about how to begin. After a delayed light bulb went off simultaneously (we watched what someone who was paying attention started doing), the class began to sculpt their masterpiece fish, chicken, rabbit and prehistoric animal creatures.
'Art of the Olympians' exhibit shows athletes' other side
July 24, 2008 ORT MYERS, Fla. — Al Oerter was an abstract artist, who also happened to be pretty good at the discus. So good, in fact, that he won gold medals in four straight Olympics to become one of track and field’s biggest stars in the 1950s and 1960s.
Oerter died in 2007, but his final Olympic effort will be headed to the Beijing Games next month.
“Art of the Olympians,” an exhibit comprised of work from some of the world’s greatest athletes, is expected to open in China on Aug. 8. About 30 copies of the art were transported from the show’s home in Fort Myers, where Oerter’s family plans to open a permanent gallery for the works next year.
“It’s going to be amazing,” Oerter’s wife, Cathy, said shortly before the exhibit temporarily closed in Fort Myers in June. “We’re going to get wrestlers and rowers. That’s going to be what’s interesting - trying to get every sport, every country.”
“And different forms of art,” Oerter’s daughter, Gabrielle, said. “I would love to have musicians. We have one poet already.”
Atlanta's National Black Arts Festival turns 20
July 19, 2008 ATLANTA (AP) — Stephanie Hughley’s 12th floor office at the new headquarters of the National Black Arts Festival has a stunning view of Atlanta, including the city’s cultural standard: the High Museum of Art. The vantage point reminds Hughley that she has arrived, and that the festival can claim the title of artistic institution after two decades of focusing on the music, film, dance, theatre, literature and humanities of people of African descent. “People have always thought that it was important,” said Hughley, who came back to the festival as executive producer in 1999 after a seven-year hiatus. “I think that now many more people think that it’s significant as a part of the cultural landscape and an international voice.”This year marks the 20th anniversary of the National Black Arts Festival, which begins Friday and ends July 27, with events around the city. More than five million people have attended the festival since it began in 1988.
The sun shines bright on Ann Arbor arts
July 19, 2008 As thousands of people do what they can at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs to battle the sun and humidity, siblings Wes Schacht, 23, and Katelyn Schacht, 20, play peacefully under the shade of a large white tent. They twist an orange pipe cleaner, arranging it beneath a toy dog. They position a red barn etched with an angry face. They slide a pink girl, drawn by a friend, into the scene. A few feet away, large canvases sell for thousands of dollars. But they are making a movie. For free. They have discovered a portion of the art fair passed over by those who are there merely there to stroll and shop — sections that allow the brother and sister to transition from appreciators of art to makers of art.
“This is fun,” says Katelyn. “It’s nice to be able to interact with the art fair.”