British ballerina Darcey Bussell is retiring from ballet this Friday. She is the most popular ballet dancer in the UK, and her last performance will be transmitted live on BBC2. Don't miss it! Earlier this month, she also did several "Farewell" performances at Sadlers Wells theatre.


ETA is apparently ready to strike again. :-(

Cover art

The very good French mag Courrier International is presenting some of the best magazine covers from around the world on its website. Colourful!

My favourites:




Find more covers and info about the publications here.

The Queen's new portrait

This is a 1789 portrait of Queen Charlotte by Thomas Lawrence.
Photographer Annie Leibovitz updates this painting in her portrait of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, which was unveiled last week. This Guardian columnist loves it, and I like it too. I find it humane and touching. The light is so amazing (what you can do with filters ad photoshop these days!) Do you like it?

Israel Cachao Lopez - Barbican - review

A brilliant concert from the creator of mambo! Yes! The CREATOR of mambo! He is 88, and, in the 30s, introduced African rhythms to the Cuban danzon, creating a new sound, the mambo. Lopez still plays the double bass with aplomb and fun. I feel so lucky to have seen him play live.
His entire band was amazing, playing masterfully and being very entertaining, obviously enjoying being on stage all together.

Check out this video I took towards the end!

Luz Casal sings Negra Sombra

Pulitzer prize for Photography

Oded Balilty won a Pulitzer Prize yesterday for his photograph of a lone settler woman defying Israeli security forces.

Total Eclipse / The Rose Tattoo

Saw 2 plays last week, unfortunately, neither of them amazing.

Total Eclipse tells the story of the Rimbaud/Verlaine couple. The direction was very good, with the long stage in the middle of the room, with rows of chairs for the audience on both sides, allowing more freedom in the positioning of the actors. Daniel Evans was a very good Verlaine, caught under the spell of the younger poet. Jamie Doyle's Rimbaud was a bit one-toned (always sounding rebellious and condescending) but gave out a little sexual aura, despite the absence of even a little kiss between them in the play. All in all, a good night actually, thinking about it...

The Rose Tattoo was very disappointing to me. I loved reading the play a few years ago, it was all so crazy and dramatic. Apparently though, I misunderstood it totally because it is "a buoyantly comic celebration of life". What? the story of a superstitious woman overcome with grief, who finds solace in a man after 3 years of not getting out her house. Anyway. Sorry about that, Tenessee Williams, I misread you! I feel awful. Anyway, in my view, the high drama and camp would have come across much better than the jokes that were made. Plus some strong monologues got lost. When Seraphina says she is not a slut like other women, she repeats "I am happy just to remember! [what it was like to be in bed with my husband]", but we don't notice. When she says that, unlike other married women who send the double beds to the cellar, she was always happy to satisfy her husband: "it was like a religion". when I read the play, I found those bits quite moving, I mean, the despair of that woman... but here, people chuckled. Failing to really get into it, I thought it lasted ages, but finally, it ended, with Zoe Wanamaker running joyfully around. Seraphina is pregnant again, her life is back, mine too thank god!

Russella is Princess Die

Went to see this show by this drag artist I have met once, Russella, who is really funny. Her show is called Princess Die: "Once upon a time there was a little girl who dreamed of being a ballerina... Russella as Princess Die chronicles the life and death of the Peoples Princess through a montage of lip-synching, song and dance. This is no fairy story"

I had a really good time. There's an hilarious moment where Sarah Ferguson interviews Princess Die. Sarah asks her silly questions "What was your favourite slope on that ski trip?" and Princess Die gives mad answers (while spitting pieces of cake out of her mouth) "I can give love to anyone" or stuff like that.

My favourite bit was the video of Princess Die trying to order a taxi on the phone and giving her name "Diana... Princess Diana... Lady Spencer... Ms Windsor... Queen of hearts... People's Princess... Bulimic... Victim... ha you know who I am now" hehehe There's also the video of the Queen coming to stab Diana in the shower, a la Psycho. Or the song Russella sings "I could do worse than that", brilliant lyrics.

Anyway, if you'd like to see more of Russella, or some other good drag shows, don't hesitate to go to the great place that is Bistrotheque, in East London. Russella and her group The Lipsinkers are doing a show there every Saturday in March.

Janet Baker - Absence (nuits d'ete, Berlioz)

Ha, how I like YouTube... it makes posting so easy when I cant be bothered! I just need to find a video I want to share and hop!!

Here, the magistral Janet Baker sings the fourth song from the cycle Nuits d'Ete (summer nights) by Berlioz (1840)

Done!

Isabel Bayon - Sadlers' Wells - review

Went to see my second, and last, show of the Flamenco Festival, which goes on until next Saturday. It was called "La puerta abierta", the open door, and starred dancer Isabel Bayon and catalan singer Miguel Poveda.

La puerta abierta opened at the Seville Bienal de Flamenco where it won the prize for Best show. For 1 hour and 15 minutes, Isabel Bayon stays on stage, getting changed between number in front of the audience, in a room at the back of the stage, with a door as the focal point. She starts moving to the sound of a recorded martinete (sung by a classic singer apparently) and the Goldberg Variations (think piano, think Bach) Daring, but it works. The singer Miguel Poveda and the band then come onstage, and we can hear a solea, a great milonga and some alegrias.

Poveda is a catalan singer, but you wouldnt know, I mean, he is just great and might as well be from Cadiz. Bayon dances lightly on her feet, I found her very refreshing and enchanting to look at, quite wonderful really.

A paso doble is then sung, and Poveda and Bayon start dancing together, holding each other, ballroom style. This great show then ends, too early really, with a great buleria.

Eva Yerbabuena - Sadlers' Wells - review

Eva Yerbabuena, one of the best flamenco dancer in the world, opened the Flamenco festival this week end, with an interesting show, if a bit weird at times. She won the Flamenco Today prize three years in a row and the Spanish national dance prize too.

Yerbabuena is at her best when she is alone, dancing away, filling the stage of her great presence. Her footwork is amazing, so quick, so precise. The last scene, a solo of over 10 minutes, was brilliant.

There was a recurring scene of this contemporary ballet dancer, with a big white dress, dancing about to the singing of a solea. I failed to get the point, and it was the same in Eva's duet with guest choreographer Patrick de Bana. It was quite contemporary, a lot of arms, and stretching, and leaning but worked well. In a sense, that duet wasn't long enough, and I felt that he was underused. The same with one of her lead male dancers, who got a solo of about 2 minutes, wowed us, and then nothing else.

Oh I am sounding very negative, but these are really little remarks. Overall, a very good show!

Gute Nacht

From Schubert's cycle of songs Winterreise.
why did we never study such things when I was taking music lessons?

Claire Danes dancing

Claire Danes is my favourite actress, I've loved her since My so-called life. I knew she had studied ballet before taking acting, but I didn't know she has recently been performing dance in New York.

She seems to be into contemporary ballet. A family friend of hers is the choreographer Tamar Rogoff (no clue who she was until now) who created a barefoot solo for Danes last year, and now put together this duo for the actress and her friend Ariel Rogoff Flavin (the daughter of Tamar!)

The piece was actually choreographed 17 years ago by their teacher, Tamar Rogoff (Ariel's mother), and has been adapted into a work called Edith and Jenny, in which the two friends interact with each other and with old images of themselves on screens, acting in their first-ever film roles.

It all sounds very post modern, I'll let you read a full review here. I am just happy my favourite actress has passion and character and is able to do exactly what she likes. There's an interview of her here.

The blind woman who discovered the sea

Sweet feature in El Pais today about Maria Basilia, the mother of the Ecuatorian Carlos Alonso Palate, one of the 2 victims of ETA's bombing of the 30th of December (30-D).

It's been quite a month for her: her son died in a terrorist attack, then she had surgery to her eyes, and, after 30 years thinking she was blind, her cataract was sorted ad she could see again. She flew for the first time, to Spain, to be reunited with her 3 other children. She took an escalator for the first time. She took a train for the first time. And, in Valencia, she saw the sea for the first time.

The sea! The sea! What a feeling it must be to see the sea for the first time at the age of 60!

"Where does all this water go?" she wondered. She also pointed that "the water smells weird". :-) and, the most beautiful of all: "My husband had told me the sea was very sad".

A nice piece, if a bit cheesy sometimes, but nice. I am moved.

La Fille du Regiment

I never thought I'd have so much fun at the Opera!

This "opera comique" was very "comique" indeed, and I was really happy to see something light hearted, witty, and full of slapstick fun too. There is nothing bad to say about it at all, and the singers were so amazing! Juan Diego Florez, obviously, hitting the high Cs effortlessly, and Natalie Dessay, just brilliant actress as well as singer. She put so much effort into making it funny, she is great! The Independent says: "Never has a woman of forty looked more like a Quentin Blake cartoon. Dessay pings her braces, pets her battalion of adoptive fathers, and "Bouf!"s and "Merde!"s her way through the mountains of military laundry, channelling the great comic heroines of children's literature, and making scintillating sense of Marie's idealism, her terrier loyalty, her despair, her wit and her music."

Loved the decor as well, made of giant map that rise and crumple towards the back to take the shape of mountainous slopes.

Salut à la France! A ses beaux jours!
A l'espérance! A nos amours!
Salut à la gloire! Salut à la France!

hehehehe

Almodovar talks about the future

Very interesting interview of Almodovar in El Pais today.

On his absence at the Goyas (the spanish cinema awards): "I've been travelling more than my body can handle and I am psychologically saturating with award ceremonies. (...) The simple thought of seeing me sat down with a camera on my side broadcasting all my reactions was very uncomfortable to me. For once, I thought about myself, because, also, the film wasn't left alone, my brother [Agustin, producer] was there"

On Volver not being nominated at the Academy awards in the foreign film category "It was like a cold shower"

On his next film: "[Penelope Cruz] will be the character in La piel que habito, a film about vengeance. But I am also writing a movie full of intrigue about the movie world, about the manipulation of images. (...) For the first time in my life I feel tempted to do something about the spanish civil war or the post-war. I am doing research"

On working: "After 3 years of isolation, I am in a cycle of openness, both as a person and a writer. For the first time, I have spoken with someone - I keep the name to myself - about sharing my universe and my writing with him/her"

Spanish speakers, the full interview here

Volver wins plenty of Goyas

The Academy of Spanish cinema awarded Pedro Almodovar yesterday evening. His movie Volver won the best director, best soundtrack and best movie prize. Penelope Cruz won best actress, and Carmen Maura best actress in a supporting role.
Almodovar has always had a tempestuous relationship with the Academy, but, the night they love him, he isnt there! Oh well...

Pan's Labyrinth won most prizes though, and is up for more Oscar nominations, it must be said.

Save the Blue Rigi!

The Blue Rigi, JMW Turner, 1842

Do you have a lot of money lying around? OK... do you have at least £5? Please help the Art Fund and the Tate museums to buy Turner's masterpiece The Blue Rigi, a view of the Rigi mountain from the Swiss city of Lucerne, at dawn.
I would be very grateful if you would help, because the Blue Rigi has been bought by a private foreign collector at auction last year, but the government has given the Art Fund until the 20th of March to raise the money to match the offer. Otherwise, they will grant the painting an export license, allowing the buyer to acquire the watercolour, and say "fuck off!" to the thousands (millions) of us who would have liked to see it on display in a big (and free!) museum.
Two other Rigi watercolours (the Red Rigi and the Dark Rigi) are already on display at the Tate Britain museum. A special exhibition with the three paintings together (for the very first time!) is on at the moment: do not miss it! and help us raise some cash to make this exhibition permanent by keeping the Blue Rigi in the UK!

The Red Rigi, JMW Turner, 1842

The Dark Rigi, JMW Turner, 1842

Cloudspotting

Oaxaca, Mexico, January 07
(via Riccardo)

Ryszard Kapuściński dies

The polish journalist and writer Ryszard Kapuscinski died yesterday, at the age of 74.
He had quite an impressive life, witnessing many conflicts around the globe, especially in the Third World.

I really enjoy his writing so would like to take this opportunity to advise you to read The Shadow of the Sun, a collection of several dispatches and stories from Africa (his account and explanation of the 1994 Rwandan genocide is very good). Another book is about the regime of the Shah of Iran, which has been in my reading list for ages because I dont know anything about it. I might get round to it today...

Of his writing style, the NY Times says:

"He spent his working days gathering information for the terse dispatches he sent to PAP [The Polish news agency he worked for 20 years], often from places like Ougadougou or Zanzibar.

At night, he worked on longer, descriptive essays with phantasmagoric touches that went far beyond the details of the day’s events, using allegory and metaphors to convey what was happening.

“It’s not that the story is not getting expressed” in ordinary news reports, he said in an interview. “It’s what surrounds the story. The climate, the atmosphere of the street, the feeling of the people, the gossip of the town; the smell; the thousands and thousands of elements that are part of the events you read about in 600 words of your morning paper.”