"In the Words of Duras" Marguerite Duras Festival

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Monday, 01 March 2010 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

In the Words of Duras: Marguerite Duras Festival is a celebration of the works of Marguerite Duras, France’s well-known author, playwright and film director, during a multidisciplinary festival in New York City from February 18 to March 18, 2010 at Anthology Film Archives, the Baryshnikov Arts Center and the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).  

Known for her evocative and experimental free-flowing style, Marguerite Duras revolutionized the form of the twentieth century novel, and her innovations also carried to the screen and stage.

At the initiative of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the festival showcases Duras’s wide range of talents, from her award-winning literary works to her ground-breaking movies and plays. A unique photo exhibit at the French Cultural Services also gives the public a rare glimpse of her personal life.

The festival includes performances based on Duras’s writings by several female directors.

The Baryshnikov Arts Center will stage Christine Letailleur’s theatrical version of Hiroshima mon amour, the celebrated New Wave movie by Alain Resnais, whose screenplay was written by Duras.

The French Institute Alliance Française will present two performances:

Diptych: The Lover and La Musica Deuxième, directed by Astrid Bas, a unique theatrical event pairing a staged and set-to-music adaptation of Duras’s prize-winning autobiographical novel The Lover (1984) with her play La Musica Deuxième (1985).

La Vie matérielle by Irina Brook is inspired by Duras’s collection of free-ranging essays La Vie matérielle and Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Taken together, they shed light on femininity and women’s roles in society.

Many readings and lectures are being presented during this tribute.

A month-long photography exhibit at the French Cultural Services’ Payne Whitney Mansion will reveal a more intimate side of Marguerite Duras. Photographer Hélène Bamberger, who works for such well-known publications as Time, Elle, Le Figaro, and Der Spiegel, chronicled her summers with Marguerite Duras in Trouville, Normandy, from 1980 to 1994. The pictures, depicting the author’s haunts, her worktable, her room, her lover Yann Andréa, and Marguerite Duras herself, offer a poignant glimpse into her private life.

The month-long festival concludes with a series at Anthology Film Archives, Marguerite Duras on Film (March 12-18). As well as having her work repeatedly adapted for the screen by others, Duras wrote original scripts for various filmmakers (most notably Alain Resnais and Georges Franju), before embarking on her own directorial career in 1967. Over the next seventeen years, she directed 14 feature films of her own (as well as numerous shorts), including masterpieces such as Nathalie Granger and India Song. Exploring the nature and limits of the medium with the same fiercely intelligent, radically experimental approach that made her writings so singular and important, Duras’s cinema is a crucial component of her life’s work.

For more information, go to www.fiaf.org.

In the Words of Duras: Marguerite Duras Festival
February 18-March 12, 2010

French Institute Alliance Française
22 East 60th Street, NYC
212-355-6100

Anthology Film Archives
32 2nd Avenue, NYC
212-505-5181

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street, Suite 501
New York City
646-731-3200

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Takes Its Last Dance at Bryant Park

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Wednesday, 10 February 2010 19:21

Written by T. Terry Maloney

From February 11-18, during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2010 (MBFW), thousands of fashion industry professionals will come together in Bryant Park's iconic Tents for one last time before MBFW relocates to Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center next September.
 
Retailers, reporters, editors, fashionistas, celebrities from the A to D lists and the occasional interloper will pack the lobby to see Collections from the world’s established and up-and-coming designers, and how the fashion community sets the tones and trends for what (they hope) the rich and famous will wear in Fall/Winter 2010 (or just to grab a free vodka tonic, frappuccino or the latest copy of WWD.)
 
"As we close a chapter in the history of our event, IMG is excited to be working with Lincoln Center, the CFDA and the City to create a new home for the fashion industry at Lincoln Center,” said Peter Levy, Senior VP and Managing Director of IMG Fashion Worldwide. “We are looking forward, with our partners, to rolling out our plans in the coming months."
 
"All of us at IMG Fashion are excited about the outstanding and stellar lineup which has come together from around the world to share in this historic Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week," said Fern Mallis, Senior VP of IMG Fashion. “This will be a significant season, as we reflect on 17 years, 31 seasons and close to 2,500 fashion shows in Bryant Park that have launched many careers....from Designers to Editors, Models, Producers, Celebrities, TV Commentators and Reality Shows. We all also look forward to the change - and September's move to Damrosch Park in Lincoln Center."
 
The two highlights of every recent February Fashion Week are non-traditional runway shows: the Heart Truth Red Dress Collection 2010, featuring A-list celebrities modeling red dresses created by top designers; and The Project Runway final runway show, featuring designs from the four finalists of the 2009-10 season. Needless to say these two shows are very hot tickets, although I did get invited to last year's Red Dress show and hope to be there again on February 11. (Alas, a Project Runway invitation is a very long shot.)
 
A runway show by the legendary Tommy Hilfiger will close Fashion Week at Bryant Park forever — or least the forseeable future — when his models start the final walk down the runway of The Tent at 8 p.m. on Thursday, February 18.
 
The Bryant Park Tents’ three venues include:
the Salon (the smallest)
the Promenade (the one with two runways)
the Tent (the biggie)


Over the course of eight days, the runway venues, lobby and backstage sponsor-lounges will be bustling from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., when approximately 100,000 people come to attend shows, meet and greet the media, retailers and fashion professionals.
 
Title sponsor Mercedes-Benz is joined by DHL, American Express, Maybelline New York, W Hotels Worldwide, TRESemmé, The Heart Truth Campaign, Starbucks Frappuccino Coffee Drink, Peroni, Chambord, Martini Gold Mixers and O.N.E. (One Natural Experience) as well as the media outlets The New York Times, Vevant, Women's Wear Daily and Getty Images.

Other shows on the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week's schedule are:
BCBGMAXAZRIA
Richard Chai
Duckie Brown
Toni Maticevski
Ports 1961
Anne Bowen
 La Perla
 Farah Angsana
 Cynthia Steffe
 Yigal Azrouёl
 Michael Angel
 Christian Siriano
 Nicole Miller
 Charlotte Ronson
 Venexiana
 Lacoste
 Georges Chakra
 Andy & Debb
 Adam
 Academy of Art University
 Prabal Gurung
 ARISE Magazine African Collective - III
 Lela Rose
 Luca Luca
 Malandrino
 DKNY
 Rebecca Taylor
 Calvin Klein Men’s Collection
 Hervé Léger by Max Azria
 Diane Von Furstenberg
 TonyCohen
 Y-3
 Tuleh
 Custo Barcelona
 Vassilios Kostetsos
 Carolina Herrera
 Carlos Miele
 Jill Stuart
 Donna Karan Collection
 Tracy Reese
 Monique Lhuillier
 Yeohlee
 Tadashi Shoji
 Ecco Domani Fashion Foundation
 Perry Ellis
 Elie Tahari
 Badgley Mischka
 Vera Wang
 Pamella Roland
 Max Azria
 Dennis Basso
 Diesel Black Gold
 Thuy
 Tibi
 Narciso Rodriguez
 Toni Francesc
 Tory Burch
 Michael Kors
 Nanette Lepore
 3.1 Phillip Lim
 Milly by Michelle Smith
 Alexandre Herchcovitch
 Anna Sui
 Brian Reyes
 Ralph Lauren
 Isaac Mizrahi
 Trias
 Calvin Klein Women’s Collection
 Naeem Khan and J. Mendel

For more information: http://www.mbfashionweek.com/newyork

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Fall/Winter 2010
February 11-18
Bryant Park
(between 6th Av and 5th at 42nd St)

Get Your Patter On: G&S Fest 2010

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Theater

Published on Monday, 04 January 2010 08:23

Written by Lynne Shannon

The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players (NYGASP), America’s preeminent professional G&S repertory company, launches its G&S Fest 2010, presenting four classic shows between January 8 and 17, 2010. The fest plays at New York City Center - Main Stage, West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, New York, New York 10019.

This year’s Fest presents what are arguably the three most popular and widely-performed shows—including by schools—that instantly say “Gilbert & Sullivan”: The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Pirates of Penzance. Also included is the less-frequently performed Ruddigore.

The Fest begins with the ever-popular (and much-spoofed) Mikado, which Gilbert, a former lawyer, had swathed in Japanese decor to disguise his swipes at British realpolitik.

The duo’s first production together was H.M.S. Pinafore, which took the stage when England was thick with class consciousness. But Pinafore presented the revolutionary notion that when True Love strikes, class distinctions are moot. (Or are they?)

The second G&S collaboration, The Pirates of Penzance, is jolly fun, but with two morsels of food for thought: that a) accident of birth can be a bummer; and b) pirates are really all "noblemen who have gone wrong."

In 1869, Gilbert had written a short play, Ages Ago, for an intimate theatre presentation. For the famed British theatre had hit a nadir in the early mid-Victorian period, and playgoing was shunned by respectable folk. To indulge thespian thirsts, however, plays were allowed to be performed only at private gatherings. The productions were at first mounted very simply, often in parlors of private homes, and in order to avoid censure by calling them “plays”, were known as “Illustrations.” By 1875 theatregoing was respectable again, and Ages Ago later became the basis for the G&S collaboration that was Ruddigore.

This year, NYGASP presents an all-new production of Ruddigore, eagerly awaited by G&S fans everywhere.

Performance Schedule:

The Mikado
Fri, Jan 8 @ 8:00pm | Sat, Jan 9 @ 8:00pm | Sat, Jan 16 @ 2:00pm

The Pirates of Penzance
Sat, Jan 9 @ 2:00pm | Fri, Jan 15 @ 8:00pm

H.M.S. Pinafore
Sun, Jan 10 @ 3:00pm | Tue, Jan 12 @ 7:00pm: FREE Kids Night

Ruddigore
Thu, Jan 14 @ 8:00pm | Sat, Jan 16 @ 8:00pm | Sun, Jan 17 @ 3:00pm

"So give three cheers and one cheer more for the" three Great Classics and old Ruddigore!

More information can be found at http://nygasp.org.

G&S Fest 2010
January 8-17, 2010
New York City Center - Main Stage
West 55th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues
New York, New York 10019