Jungle in Northern Laos
Royal Ballet of Flanders
Flemish choreographer Marc Bogaerts has created this ballet especially for the Royal Ballet of Flanders, the flagship company of classical dance in Belgium. Based on Charles V, King of Spain and ruler of a huge empire, ‘El Sueño del emperador’ (The Emperor’s Dream) presents the conceptions of a visionary and his unflinching obsessions with the apocalypse and the change of millennium. This spectacle features Ayesem Sunai as the leading dancer and music ranging from Arvo Pärt to the Master Drummers of Korea.
A Gardener’s Diary
Last summer, the New York City-based artist Joan Bankemper was the ‘artist in residence’ at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The fruits of her work are now on display at museum itself, with the opening of her exhibition ‘A Gardener’s Diary’. Containing an installation of drawings and ceramic works, the exhibition is inspired by the flora and fauna of the museum’s courtyard greenhouses. An insightful look at the relationship between inspiration and art.
Celeste Holm
Academy Award-winning actress Celeste Holm visits the Miniature Theater of Chester for an evening of Irish poetry and conversation to help raise money for the Theatre. Holm who began her career on Broadway in William Saroyan’s ‘The Time of Your Life’, and became a star playing Ado Annie in the original production of ‘Oklahoma!’, won an Oscar for her portrayal of Anne Dettrey in ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’. She will read Irish poetry and discuss her career at this event.
Cildo Meireles
Among the foremost Brazilian artists of his generation, Cildo Meireles has been a leading light of the ‘neo-concretist’ movement that emerged among Latin American artists in the 1970s, when the continent was pretty much wall-to-wall dictatorships. The experience of making art in conditions of repression is communicated in the most visceral, yet formally nuanced terms throughout this retrospective. A claustrophobic chamber consisting of a dense maze counstructed by some 6,000 rulers hangs from the ceiling to the floor, as 1,000 clocks tick menacingly all around and the some half a million plastic numbers are scattered on the floor crunch underfoot. Look out for the room covered in talc (which requires the visitor to don booties) and a living room in which every single object of furniture is painted a different shade of red. Cildo Meireles addresses your senses directly with eloquent, yet wordless testimony on life under Brazil’s military dictatorship.
Fantasia 2000
Disney fans looking for a fix on New Year’s Eve should head for the suburban town of Pasadena, where the long-awaited reworking of the classic animation movie ‘Fantasia’ sees its world première, with a live accompaniment by the 120-piece Philharmonic Orchestra of London conducted by Derrick Inouye. Music includes pieces by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Elgar, Gershwin and Stravinsky. This sumptuous black-tie affair, which begins with a feast cooked up by top chef Joachim Splichal, will set you back an eyewatering $2000 per person (part of the proceeds from ticket sales goes to the California Institute of the Arts). After the screening there’ll be music and dancing, including live performances by ’70s supergroup Chicago and swing sensation Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. The evening will be rounded off by a midnight countdown, firework display and orgy of confetti throwing. The following day, ‘Fantasia 2000? will make its debut in IMAX cinemas around the globe.