festivals
theartsdesk in Dublin: St Patrick's Day Festival 2011Sunday, 20 March 2011
“What’s the story?” It’s a question you’ll hear again and again in the streets and pubs of Dublin. You can tell a lot about a nation from their greeting; the traditional salutation of northern China, born of decades of famine and physical hardship,... Read more... |
Is Sundance really welcome in London?Wednesday, 16 March 2011The Sundance Film Festival: you have to pack moonboots, parka and thermals. The showcase for independent films, whose public face since its inception in 1978 has been Robert Redford, takes place each January in Utah. In April of next year it is... Read more... |
Rodelinda, Britten Theatre, Royal College of MusicMonday, 14 March 2011
A highlight of the London Handel Festival’s annual season is the opera, generally chosen from one of the dustier, more spidery corners of the composer’s repertoire. What a surprise then to see Rodelinda taking its turn this year. An undisputed... Read more... |
WOW – Women of the World, Southbank CentreMonday, 14 March 2011
Feminism is a dirty word. Ask anybody. Do they want to be tarred with the label? Do they, hell. The word still carries connotations of man-haters. Even today’s young women fighting against harassment in tube carriages, horrified by the easy... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Oslo: by:Larm Festival 2011 and the Nordic Music PrizeSunday, 27 February 2011
Oslo’s annual by:Larm festival celebrates Nordic music. Over the three days, just under 180 acts play Norway's capital: 142 are Norwegian, 15 are Swedish, with single figures each for Iceland, Denmark, Finland and even Greenland. Time presses, and... Read more... |
Celebrating Grainger, Kings PlaceFriday, 18 February 2011
Too many column inches have been devoted to Percy Grainger’s sado-masochistic sexplay and celebration of blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon supremacy, but it’s his music I love. And have done ever since they celestially sounded the wineglasses for Tribute to... Read more... |
Chichester Festival 2011Thursday, 17 February 2011
Chichester Festival has unveiled its 2011 season running from May to November, and priority booking opened yesterday. Terence Rattigan's centenary is celebrated in style, including two famous and fine plays, The Deep Blue Sea and The Browning... Read more... |
Estrella Morente, Sadler's Wells Flamenco FestivalTuesday, 08 February 2011
Every February the Sadler’s Wells flamenco festival summons the illusion of Spanish sun onto our chilled, grateful backs - this year singers are getting almost as much prominence as dancers. But what sun, I ask, at Estrella Morente’s dark, often... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Madrid: Nuevo Flamenco Comes of AgeSunday, 06 February 2011
I am far from the first - and in very good company - to worry about the over-commercialisation of flamenco. As far back as in 1922 Manuel de Falla and Federico Garcia Lorca, respectively Spain’s greatest composer and poet of the time, decided to... Read more... |
Les Antliaclastes, Institute of Contemporary Arts/ A Guide to PuppetryMonday, 24 January 2011
The puppets appearing in LIMF this year are by no means all child-friendly - after the mild kiddy-horror of Teatro Corsario and their hand-manipulated Bunraku creatures, the return of the much more disturbing imagination of Patrick Sims, founder and... Read more... |
LIMF: La Maldición De Poe, Purcell Room/ Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl, Barbican PitThursday, 20 January 2011
The up - which I’m sorry not to have reported on before it ended last night - was the Spanish puppetry troupe Teatro Corsario, who made their hour’s strut and fret upon the stage in the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room a pleasingly diverting wee... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Rennes: 32nd Trans Musicales FestivalSunday, 19 December 2010
The Breton capital Rennes is an attractive city. Move north from the train station, pass through a covered market with tripe and saucisse sellers, cross a canal and there's a series of Italianate squares and arcades. Further along is the quaint... Read more... |
