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Deep beneath London, onetime bomb shelters will become a tourist attraction
LONDON.- There’s a locked door on the eastbound platform of the Chancery Lane station of the London Underground. The door is unassuming, sturdy and white. Behind it is a wide set of stairs leading to a roughly mile-long maze of tunnels built in the 1940s that were first intended to serve as a World War II shelter and later used for espionage, the storage of 400 tons of government documents and telecom services. Welcome to the Kingsway Exchange tunnels, set roughly 100 feet below street level in the center of London, sprawling beneath the Underground’s Central Line. Soon they could enter a new chapter: Angus Murray, the owner of the complex, who bought the tunnels last summer, has applied for planning permission to local authorities together with architecture firm WilkinsonEyre to turn the tunnels into a tourist destination ... More

Colin Jost and Scarlett Johansson lead 'D.C.-Palooza'
WASHINGTON, DC.- The early arrivals at a party thrown by the Hollywood powerhouse Creative Artists Agency on Friday night seemed to be weighing the same question: Just how much could they expect to let loose during this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner weekend? Their game of chicken did not go on long. By 8 p.m., guests at the talent agency’s event, held at La Grande Boucherie in Washington, were applying temporary tattoos to one another’s necks and trying to prevent their drinks from sloshing onto a baby grand piano. The weekend’s main event, known as “nerd prom,” is a Saturday night banquet at the Washington Hilton Hotel. There, Colin Jost of “Saturday Night Live” plans to gently roast President Joe Biden, who is expected to take the dais and attempt some zingers of his own. In addition to the annual dinner, the i ... More

From a heavy metal band in Hijabs, a message of girl power
JAKARTA.- The drummer crashed her cymbals. The bass player clawed at her guitar. The crowd raised index and pinkie fingers in approval. The lead singer and guitarist stepped up to the mic and screamed, “Our body is not public property!” And dozens of fans threw themselves into a frenzy for the hijab-wearing heavy metal trio. “We have no place for the sexist mind,” the lead singer, Firda Kurnia, shrieked into the mic, singing the chorus of one of the band’s hit songs, “(Not) Public Property,” during a December performance in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital. Nearly a decade after first emerging, Voice of Baceprot (pronounced bachey-PROT, meaning “noise” in Sundanese, one of the main languages spoken in Indonesia) has earned a large domestic following with songs that focus on progressive themes like female empowerment, pacifism and ... More

A novelist who finds inspiration in Germany's tortured history
BERLIN.- She became a writer because her country vanished overnight. Jenny Erpenbeck, now 57, was 22 in 1989, when the Berlin Wall cracked by accident, then collapsed. She was having a “girls’ evening out,” she said, so she had no idea what had happened until the next morning. When a professor discussed it in class, she said, it became real to her. The country she knew, the German Democratic Republic, or East Germany, remains a crucial setting for most of her striking, precise fiction. Her work, which has grown in acuity and emotional power, combines the complications of German and Soviet history with the lives of her characters, including those of her own family members, whose experiences echo with the past like contrapuntal music. Her latest novel to be translated into English, “Kairos,” has been a breakthrough. It is ... More

Noche Flamenca, raising the dead with Goya
NEW YORK, NY.- As models for choreography, even the greatest painters are of limited use. Dance, for all of its concern with stage compositions, is an art of motion; painting, even when it implies action, is static. But painters can provide choreographers with an angle of vision, a way of looking at the world. Each section of “Searching for Goya,” the program that Noche Flamenca is performing at the Joyce Theater this week, takes its title from a work by Spanish artist Francisco Goya. Most sections start — or start and finish — with a tableaulike staging of the image in question. The dancing doesn’t exactly bring it to life. It’s more that the image is a frame for the flamenco. “Searching for Goya” is in many ways a typical Noche Flamenca program. It has the company’s signature virtues: excellent musicians (especially the core singers, ... More

Retrospective of Niki de Saint Phalle opens at Nelson-Atkins
KANSAS CITY, MO.- The first full-career U.S. retrospective of French American avant-garde artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002) opened April 27 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. Saint Phalle’s highly accessible works in two- and three-dimensions resonate with visitors of all ages and sophistication levels. Most of the pieces that are on view have never been seen before in the U.S. Niki de Saint Phalle: Rebellion and Joy closes July 21, 2024. “Saint Phalle is one of the late twentieth century’s great creative personalities who was ahead of her time,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Director & CEO of the Nelson-Atkins. “This exhibition presents the arc of her career from societal rage to communal joy and celebration.” Saint Phalle’s magic is the multiplicity of her work and her ability to discuss serious issues ... More

'Forbidden Broadway' scraps summer Broadway run, citing crowded season
NEW YORK, NY.- In a sign that there are not enough investors and ticket buyers to sustain all of the Broadway shows now onstage and in the works, the producers of “Forbidden Broadway” said Friday that they were canceling a planned summer run. The scrapped production, “Forbidden Broadway on Broadway: Merrily We Stole a Song,” was announced in February and was to be the first Broadway venture for the satirical revue, which has been performed periodically since 1982, mostly off-Broadway but also on tour. The show, consisting of comedic sketches that parody Broadway hits (and misses), has been frequently rewritten to remain reasonably timely and topical; the Broadway run was to feature a number of Stephen Sondheim spoofs, reflecting the heightened interest in his work since his death. In a statement, the producers, Ryan ... More

A wanderer, Ravel and Suzanne Farrell: Life is good at City Ballet
NEW YORK, NY.- With certain dancers, there is an interior drama, an intimate dialogue between movement and music that manages to quiet the air around them, pulling them into greater focus. Mira Nadon, the young New York City Ballet principal, is growing into that place of spellbinding luminosity. We’ve seen her unflappable elegance, her cool sensuality and her creamy elasticity. But dancing in “Errante,” on the opening program of the company’s spring season that began Tuesday, she displayed a new kind of dancing courage. The ballet, originally known as “Tzigane” after its score by Maurice Ravel, was revived this season with a staging by Suzanne Farrell and a new name, “Errante,” or wandering. Created for the company’s 1975 Ravel Festival, it was the first ballet George Balanchine choreographed for Farrell upon ... More

PEN America cancels World Voices Festival amid Israel-Gaza criticism
NEW YORK, NY.- The free expression organization PEN America has canceled its annual World Voices Festival after a wave of participants withdrew, spurred by a boycott campaign led by writers who say the group’s response to the war in the Gaza Strip has been insufficiently critical of Israel. The festival, which was supposed to begin May 8, was canceled Friday, days after PEN America canceled the prize ceremony for its literary awards after nearly half of the nominees withdrew in protest. The festival, held in New York and Los Angeles, was to have included writers from around the world and dozens of panels, readings and events. In a news release, PEN America said it made the decision because a growing number of writers had pulled out, some because of differences with the group as well as some who said they had felt pressured to do so and felt “genuine fear.” ... More

Anthony Roth Costanzo, star countertenor, to lead Opera Philadelphia
NEW YORK, NY.- Anthony Roth Costanzo, the celebrated American countertenor who is one of opera’s biggest stars, will lead Opera Philadelphia as its next general director and president, the company announced Thursday. Costanzo, 41, whose tenure starts in June, will be a rare figure in the classical music industry: an artist in his prime who is also working as an administrator. He said he would continue to perform widely even as he works to reshape Opera Philadelphia, which has struggled to recover from the disruption of the pandemic. “I’m really interested in how I can have the most impact,” Costanzo said in an interview. “And there’s only so much you can do as an individual artist.” Stephen K. Klasko, the chair of Opera Philadelphia’s board of directors, said Costanzo rose to the top of a list of 40 candidates because of his eagerness ... More

Richard Gordon's 18K Gold Omega Speedmaster sells for $138,908 at auction
BOSTON, MASS.- RR Auction, a Boston-based auction house, is thrilled to announce the sale of Richard Gordon's 18K gold Omega Speedmaster Professional for $138,908. This exquisite timepiece is part of Omega's limited 'Tribute to Astronauts' series, which consists of only 26 watches. Each is uniquely numbered and features special engravings that reflect the astronaut's significant contributions to space missions. Marked as "No. 20," Gordon's watch includes an engraving that reads, "Astronaut Richard R. Gordon, Gemini 11 - Apollo 12," along with a quote celebrating humanity's space achievements: "To mark man's conquest of space with time, through time, on time." The design features a burgundy-red aluminum inlay on the gold bezel, onyx hour markers, and a Lemania-based copper-colored chronograph ... More