From an illicit Pixies gig to a Mesopotamian ziggurat, Guardian critics recall their biggest moment of inspiration in their respective fields
How to enter this year's competition
Pop: Alexis Petridis
Can any gig you see as a critic ever match the ones you saw as a teenager? Bizarrely, going to a gig when I was 17 was harder work than writing reviews has ever been. It involved not merely getting to London, but lying to my parents about where I was going, lying to my friend's parents about where my parents thought I was going, bunking off school, and then convincing somebody who looked 18 to go to the bar on my behalf.
But none of that mattered the night I saw the Pixies supported by My Bloody Valentine, in September 1988. It's not every night you see arguably the two most important guitar bands of the era on the same stage at...
How to enter this year's competition
Pop: Alexis Petridis
Can any gig you see as a critic ever match the ones you saw as a teenager? Bizarrely, going to a gig when I was 17 was harder work than writing reviews has ever been. It involved not merely getting to London, but lying to my parents about where I was going, lying to my friend's parents about where my parents thought I was going, bunking off school, and then convincing somebody who looked 18 to go to the bar on my behalf.
But none of that mattered the night I saw the Pixies supported by My Bloody Valentine, in September 1988. It's not every night you see arguably the two most important guitar bands of the era on the same stage at...
- 6/20/2011
- by Alexis Petridis, Adrian Searle, Erica Jeal, Jonathan Glancey, Peter Bradshaw, Michael Billington, Judith Mackrell, Sam Wollaston
- The Guardian - Film News
Ica, London
Akhe Engineering Theatre defies categorisation. Presented under the banner of the 2011 London International Mime festival, its latest piece, Gobo. Digital Glossary, offers an exploration of humanity's powerlessness in the face of the chaos of existence. At the centre of the performance is the elusive notion of Gobo, a concept definable only by its absence. Ironic references to heroism and the hero suggest that Gobo might be some kind of ordering principle, perhaps based on antique notions of virtue. A self-deluding dream that a Beckett character might cling to.
Or not, because this event resists all efforts at interpretation. The hour-long performance is almost entirely mute, except for the occasional brusque Russian imprecation, but there are cryptic references to "Judith from Catford" and "Susan from West Ham". Lasers zip across a stage littered with detritus, reflecting off spoons and illuminating a fish tank in which a Big Ears puppet is ritually drowned.
Akhe Engineering Theatre defies categorisation. Presented under the banner of the 2011 London International Mime festival, its latest piece, Gobo. Digital Glossary, offers an exploration of humanity's powerlessness in the face of the chaos of existence. At the centre of the performance is the elusive notion of Gobo, a concept definable only by its absence. Ironic references to heroism and the hero suggest that Gobo might be some kind of ordering principle, perhaps based on antique notions of virtue. A self-deluding dream that a Beckett character might cling to.
Or not, because this event resists all efforts at interpretation. The hour-long performance is almost entirely mute, except for the occasional brusque Russian imprecation, but there are cryptic references to "Judith from Catford" and "Susan from West Ham". Lasers zip across a stage littered with detritus, reflecting off spoons and illuminating a fish tank in which a Big Ears puppet is ritually drowned.
- 1/23/2011
- by Luke Jennings
- The Guardian - Film News
From ballet to contemporary, dance is enjoying a real upsurge. But for poise, power and poignancy, who has the best moves?
Vaslav Nijinsky
Born in 1890, Nijinsky trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, where his amazing virtuosity swiftly became apparent. As the star of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes,his intense characterisations in new-wave ballets like Scheherazade, Carnaval and Petrouchka won him a huge European following. "Nijinsky never once touched the ground, but laughed at our sorrows and passions in mid-air," wrote one spectator. His reputation grew with the choreography of several modernist works, but by his mid-20s he was displaying signs of the schizophrenia which, with brutal prematurity, would end his career.
Josephine Baker
Three-quarters of a century before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" of the Folies Bergères. Born into poverty in 1906, Baker became a chorus dancer in the jazzy vaudeville shows of the Harlem Renaissance before,...
Vaslav Nijinsky
Born in 1890, Nijinsky trained at the Imperial Ballet School in St Petersburg, where his amazing virtuosity swiftly became apparent. As the star of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes,his intense characterisations in new-wave ballets like Scheherazade, Carnaval and Petrouchka won him a huge European following. "Nijinsky never once touched the ground, but laughed at our sorrows and passions in mid-air," wrote one spectator. His reputation grew with the choreography of several modernist works, but by his mid-20s he was displaying signs of the schizophrenia which, with brutal prematurity, would end his career.
Josephine Baker
Three-quarters of a century before Beyoncé, there was Josephine Baker, the "Black Pearl" of the Folies Bergères. Born into poverty in 1906, Baker became a chorus dancer in the jazzy vaudeville shows of the Harlem Renaissance before,...
- 7/31/2010
- by Luke Jennings
- The Guardian - Film News
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