Physical Dramaturgy: Ein (neuer) Trend?

Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen. more more

GoetheInstitute

07/02/2012

Magazine Roundup

Magazine Roundup, which appears every Tuesday at 12 p.m., is originally published by Perlentaucher.

Polityka 03.02.2012 (Poland)

After thousands of people took to the streets in Poland last week to protest against Acta, Poland's premier Donald Tusk announced his decision not to ratify the agreement. In Polityka Edwin Bendyk explains (in German) that the protests were a reaction to the increasing control of the public sphere in Poland - from football fields to pubs. "The internet, according to demographic study on 'Young People and the Media' has become a social space where internet users - who in Poland are by definition young - can make decisions about their lives independently of and out of the sight of grown ups, teacher, police and politicians. They are participating in culture, communicating, solving problems together, coordinating real life activities." And Acta was seen as a threat to this. More information on Acta over at Wikipedia.


Himal 07.02.2012 (Nepal)
Filmmaker Hira Nabi explains how hard it is for for gays and lesbians in Pakistan. "It is not just that the penal code criminalises homosexuality, however. Certain tenants of Islam as practiced in Pakistan also condemn it. On the ground, this is more effective than the inherited colonial law, as the fear of committing a 'sin' tends to carry far more relevance for most than the fear of being charged under Article 377. Southasian history is steeped in evidence of fluid sexual practice, but in modern-day Pakistan there has been significant re-writing of history. Classical poetry carries references to homoeroticism; monuments and legends bear witness to queer love affairs and homosexual devotion; love is celebrated regardless of orientation. This past, however, is not easily reclaimed. Polyamorous love – having multiple sexual partners at any given time – has also been written out of the region's many histories, and has largely disappeared from the public imagination."



Caffe Europa
  02.02.2012 (Italy)

"The rule of the sign" is the title Daniele Greco gave to his series of photographs taken on a trip to Japan. They can be seen online at Geonvainedita, Tina Cosmai's personal window on cultural life in Genoa. Japan is perfect for the street photographer Greco, Cosmai writes. "Japan's big cities are the ideal places for taking photographs', he says. 'The Japanese are normally very orderly, but the mass of objects and symbols lend the scenery a seductive disorder, in which I love to work. I am attracted by the mix, the piling up of contradictory elements, the imperfection, the simple ideas that stem from excessive situations and yes, the chaos. The Japanese city has all this in overabundance. Beyond horizontal perception these places develop a deeper dimension where things play out under the surface. Places like the huge markets are full of entrance ways, eversions and impressions. Spaces of redistribution where both fixed and fluid elements reflect light and colour and become carriers of meaning."


Outlook India  13.02.2012 (India)

Sony Pictures caused some confusion in India by announcing last week that it will not be releasing David Fincher's new screen adaptation of Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" in India. After all, the Indian censorship board  announced back in December that some alterations would be necessary, explains Namrata Joshi, and Sony has not objected to film scenes being pixellated in other countries. "All this comes as a blow at a time when the Central Board of Film Certification has been trying to take a step forward towards becoming less restrictive. Last year saw a clutch of mainstream Hindi films given 'A' certificates without cuts. A long, gay kiss was allowed in 'I Am' and 'Delhi Belly' got away with foul language and references to oral sex. (...) What would go a long way is a sound rating scheme rather than censoring or bans."


Le Monde  06.02.2012 (France)

He has never felt more  awake, explains Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah in conversation about his film "Apres la Bataille" which he is currently putting the finishing touches to in Paris. It will be one of the first fictional films about the events on Tahir Square a year ago: a female demonstrator falls in love with one of the horse riders who is hired to attack the demonstrators. It is all about the ambivalent nature of this character: "I saw that these riders were completely unarmed and that they were the ones who were beaten most severely by the crowd. I was interested in their background and it became very clear that they were not stooges of the men in power, but poor devils who were thoroughly instrumentalised…."

There is also a report on the film festival in Rotterdam whose focus this year is the Arab Spring.

Eurozine 01.02.2012 (Austria in English)

"Will Serbs be forced to 'eat grass'?," asks Slavenka Drakulic in reference to a statement by the former Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, who ordered his people to eat grass rather than cooperate with the Russians. Serbia is certainly headed this way, she fears, because president Boris Tadic is sounding increasingly nationalistic in the Kosovo debate in order to weaken more rightwing (or leftwing?) populists, among other things. And EU membership is slipping ever further away. "Will this mean that Serbia remains isolated in Europe, like Albania once was? Not quite. It would be different were Serbia dependent solely on the EU for 'grain' and other goodies. But as communist Albania once connected herself with distant China, so Serbia is already well plugged-in with not-so-distant Russia. If the EU were to place too harsh demands on Belgrade – well, there are always the 'fellow Slavs' who can ease Serbia's suffering and add potatoes and even a little meat to their diet of grass."


Stories from the US and UK:

The Economist also looks at the repression of homosexuality in the Muslim world. Wired profiles the Parisian underground movement Urban eXperiment. William Boyd tells the Guardian about his Proustian shudder in Vienna and his new book "Waiting for Sunrise". In Open Democracy Nicu Popescu explains how, in Russia, nationalists can be left-wing, right-wing and even liberal. In the NYRB, Tim Parks feels for cowardly Italians.

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Tuesday 27 March, 2012

The Republicans are waging a war against women, the New York Magazine declares. Perhaps it's because women are so unabashed about reading porn in public - that's according to publisher Beatriz de Moura in El Pais Semanal, at least. Polityka remembers Operation Reinhard. Tensions are growing between Poland and Hungary as Victor Orban spreads his influence, prompting ruminations on East European absurdity from both Elet es Irodalom and salon.eu.sk. Wired is keeping its eyes peeled on the only unassuming sounding Utah Data Center.
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Tuesday 20 March, 2012

In Telerama, Benjamin Stora grabs hold of the Algerian boomerang. In Eurozine, Slavenka Drakulic tells the Venetians that they should be very scared of Chinese money. Bela Tarr tells the Frankfurter Rundschau and the Berliner Zeitung that his "Turin Horse", which ends in total darkness was not intended to depress. In die Welt, historian Dan Diner cannot agree with Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands": National Socialism was not like Communism - because of Auschwitz.
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Tuesday 13 March, 2012

In Perfil author Martin Kohn explains why Argentina would be less Argentinian if it won back the Falklands. In Il sole 24 ore, Armando Massarenti describes the Italians as a pack of illiterates sitting atop a treasure trove. Polityka introduces the Polish bestseller of the season: Danuta Walesa's autobiography. L'Express looks into the state of Japanese literature one year after Fukushima.
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Tuesday 6 March, 2012

In Merkur, Stephan Wackwitz muses on poetry and absurdity in Tiflis. Outlook India happens on the 1980s Indian answer to "The Artist". Bloomberg Businessweek climbs into the cuckoo's nest with the German Samwar brothers. Salon.eu.sk learns how to line the pockets of a Slovenian politician. In the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Navid Kermani reports back impressed from the Karachi Literature Festival.
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Tuesday 28 February, 2012

In La Vie des idees, historian Anastassios Anastassiadis explains why we should go easy on Greece. Author Aleksandar Hemon describes in Guernica how ethnic identity is indoctrinated in the classroom in Bosnia and Herzogovina. In Eurozine, Klaus-Michael Bogdal examines how Europe invented the Gypsies. Elet es Irodalon praises the hygiene obsession of German journalists. And Polityka pinpoints Polish schizophrenia.

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Tuesday 21 February, 2012

The New Republic sees a war being waged in the USA against women's rights. For Rue89, people who put naked women on the front page of a newspaper should not be surprised if they go to jail. In Elet es Irodalom, historian Mirta Nunez Daaz-Balart explains why the wounds of the Franco regime never healed. In Eurozine, Stephen Holmes and Ivan Krastev see little in common between the protests in Russia and those in the Arab world.
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Tuesday 14 February, 2012

In Letras Libras Enrique Krauze and Javier Sicilia fight over anarchy levels. In Elet es Irodalom Balint Kadar wants Budapest to jump on the Berlin bandwagon. In Le Monde Imre Kertesz has given up practically all hope for a democratic Hungary. Polityka ponders poetic inspiration and Wislawa Szymborska's "I don't know". In Espressso, Umberto Eco gets eschatological.
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Tuesday 31 January, 2012

In the French Huffington Post, philosopher Catherine Clement explains why the griot Youssou N'Dour had next to no chance of becoming Senegal's president. Peter Sloterdijk (in Le Monde) and Umberto Eco (in Espresso) share their thoughts about forgetting. Al Ahram examines the post-electoral depression of Egypt's young revolutionaries. And in Eurozine, Kenan Malik defends freedom of opinion against those who want the world to go to sleep.
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Tuesday 24 January, 2012

TeaserPicIl Sole Ore weeps at the death of a laughing Vincenzo Consolo. In Babelia, Javier Goma Lanzon cries: Praise me, please! Osteuropa asks: Hungaria, quo vadis? The newborn French Huffington Post heralds the birth of the individual in the wake of the Arab Spring. Outlook India is infuriated by the cowardliness of Indian politicians in the face of religious fanatics.
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Tuesday 17 January, 2012

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Tuesday 10 January, 2012

Are books about to become a sort of author-translator wiki, asks Il Sole 24 Ore. Rue 89 reports on the "Tango Wars" in downtown Buenos Aires. Elet es Irodalom posits a future for political poetry. In Merkur, Mikhail Shishkin encounters Russian pain in Switzerland. Die Welt discovers the terror of the new inside the collapse of the old in Andrea Breth's staging of Isaak Babel's "Maria". And Poetry Foundation waits for refugees in Lampedusa.
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Wednesday 4 January, 2012

TeaserPicTechnology Review sees Apple as the next Big Brother. In Eurozine, Per Wirten still fears the demons of the European project. Al Ahram Weekly features Youssef Rakha's sarcastic "The honourable citizen manifesto". Revista Piaui profiles Iraqi-Norwegian geologist Farouk Al-Kasim. Slate.fr comments on the free e-book versions of Celine's work. And Die Welt celebrates the return of Palais Schaumburg.
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Tuesday 13 December, 2011

TeaserPicAndre Glucksman in Tagesspiegel looks at the impact of the Putinist plague on Russia and Europe. In Letras Libras Martin Caparros celebrates the Kindle as book. György Dalos has little hope that Hungary's intellectuals can help get their country out of the doldrums. Le Monde finds Cioran with his head up the skirt of a young German woman. The NYT celebrates the spread of N'Ko, the West African text messaging alphabet.
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Tuesday 6 December, 2011

TeaserPicMicroMega cheers recent landmark Mafia convictions in Milan. Volltext champions Hermann Broch. Elet es Irodalom calls the Orban government’s attack on cultural heritage "Talibanisation". Magyar Narancs is ambiguous about new negotiations with the IMF. Telerama recommends the icon of anti-colonialism Frantz Fanon. Salon.eu.sk quips about the dubious election results in Russia, and voices in the German press mark the passing of Christa Wolf. And in the Anglophone press Wired profiles Jeff Bezos, while the Columbia Journalism Review polemicises the future of internet journalism.
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