June 26, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: No Comment Yet
Michael Jackson was ‘the king of pop’, an informal title he acquired through the relentless echo chamber of American celebrity. He won this title by topping the charts from a young age, by having the “it” quality, by innovative body motions that changed dance, like the “moonwalk”, by way of record music sales, by way of conquering the video medium, by staging a massive global drive to fund food aid to Africa, by being odd enough to garner endless headlines, or because none of us really understand what it takes to rise to the top of the popular culture that elevated him and defamed him, or what it’s like to be there. So he was “king”, the way any royalty lives a life incomprehensible —for its opulence, its complications, its stresses— to the rest of society.
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June 1, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This Playing for Change song brings together musicians who played together on “Stand by Me”, and for the first time, shows all the musicians playing together in the same place. The piece is a live recording of Grandpa Elliot and Clarence Bekker, singing with this band from around the world, in New Orleans. An audience of thousands was able to witness this inspired performance.
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May 15, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
As we made our way around the world we encountered love, hate, rich and poor, black and white, and many different religious groups and ideologies. It became very clear that as a human race we need to transcend from the darkness to the light and music is our weapon of the future. This song around the world features musicians who have seen and overcome conflict and hatred with love and perseverance.
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May 9, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
This “song around the world” recording of Bob Marley’s “One Love” is an expression of the Playing for Change team’s approach to using the creative process to reach the point where the message of human creativity and expression illuminates a basic common humanity. It is, like any effective rendition of the song, a hymn to love and understanding, but it is also a lesson about the little ways any given person might contribute texture and emotion to a shared undertaking, a strong example of the Playing for Change project.
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May 7, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Playing for Change producers’ aim was to “break down boundaries and overcome distances between people”, recognizing that “music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race.” This video brings together musicians from around the world, but also shows many of them playing in the performance-intense streets at the heart of Barcelona’s old city or Casc Antic.
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May 6, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Playing for Change: “The idea for this project arose from a common belief that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people. No matter whether people come from different geographic, political, economic, spiritual or ideological backgrounds, music has the universal power to transcend and unite us as one human race.”
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April 22, 2009 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Redford notes that it is young people who will inherit the world we are making and their views, their concern about whether it will be stable and livable in their prime, is vital for planning now in a conscious and ethical way.
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April 5, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The lush, emotional fabric of Nadine Labaki’s Caramel consistently hints at how our common humanity is nested in the strains and particulars of the everyday. Seen by some as not culturally expansive enough, not ‘Arabic’ enough, for not dealing directly with traditional cultural motifs or broader political problems, the film’s intimate approach to the humanity of its characters is itself a vital comment on the nature of the human experience.
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February 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
The thing about ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ is that it is not specifically about life in the slums or about millionaires, nor is it about India or gameshows or making Bollywood into a new western movie genre. It’s about something much deeper, more universal, something that transcends class, caste or culture, and has everything to do with what weight one’s basic humanity has in this massified, globalized world of glitz and information.
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August 17, 2008 :: AlexS :: One Comment
THE LAST YAK, PANGOLIN’S TEATIME, PLEASANCE DOME
****
Pangolin’s Teatime are a young Edinburgh-based puppet theatre company, who in 2007 picked up a clutch of awards at the National Student Drama Festival for their previous work Haozkla. This year they return to the Fringe with a new original production, and have created a thoughtful, mature fairy tale about power, reality and the magic of belief. With lovingly handcrafted masks and puppets, some rod, some glove, and a flair for storytelling, this is a beautifully thought-through work that should appeal to adult and child alike.
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August 17, 2008 :: AlexS :: Comments Off
TALKING HEADS PLUS, GEMS OF MAZAL, THE MEADOWS
***
Alan Bennett is much admired and much performed, but his characters are currently being given voice in a more unusual setting than he is probably used to. Stop by the Sainsbury’s Local on the Meadows this Fringe at around 6pm, and you’re likely to be greeted by a group of twentysomethings milling about, a skateboard doing the rounds, chirpily singing songs, before one of them begins narrating an excerpt of what sounds like Roald Dahl in a heightened voice. As he starts his speech, the company sets off down Middle Meadow Walk into the greenery, trailing an audience behind them. This is Talking Heads Plus, combining Bennett’s much-loved pieces with works by other authors, and claiming to bring the monologue form to life as you’ve never seen before.
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August 14, 2008 :: AlexS :: Comments Off
SCARAMOUCHE JONES, GUY MASTERSON TTI, ASSEMBLY SUPPER ROOM
*****
Justin Butcher is a man of many talents. Not content with penning a sumptuous script, full of wonder, lyricism, evocative imagery and beautifully crafted turns of phrase, as a performer he also keeps the audience wrapped in his spell for an hour and a half, never slackening or flagging. It’s an extraordinary achievement, and Scaramouche Jones is as delightful, funny, moving and thoughtful a Fringe show as could be hoped for.
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August 14, 2008 :: AlexS :: Comments Off
TITUS ANDRONICUS, ACTION TO THE WORD, C VENUE
***
Fringe productions of Shakespeare are usually best approached with caution. Everyone wants to have a go and show their mettle, and the temptation to add their own mark to the works by offering a “reinterpretation” often begs for disaster – Hamlet in space, perhaps, or The Tempest re-enacted as a Marxist parable of the evils of modern society. Occasionally it’s a spectacular success, as with the Midsummer-Night’s-Dream-in-a-roller-disco of The Donkey Show, a recent Edinburgh Fringe smash hit that went on to a run in London’s West End and from there to New York. The list of equally spectacular failures stretches on into the middle distance. Cambridge University-born company Action to the Word’s version of Titus Andronicus falls squarely between these two stools, passing the test with, if not a distinction, then enough merit to be shared round the sizeable cast, without ever really breaking any new ground.
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