The Arts - July 2012
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Dancing with SwansFrench choreographer Luc Petton and his company, Le Guetteur, recently debuted a new ballet, "Swan", in Paris - the latest in a series featuring live birds onstage with dancers.
This highly original work has been in development for a very long time - literally, since the birds hatched. Mr. Petton - an amateur ornithologist - used a natural process developed in the 1950s by the Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz called imprinting to establish a relationship between humans and the birds right from birth. |
Even Under Threat, Syrian Artists Paint in ProtestIn Syria, anyone who speaks out against the regime of President Bashar Assad risks harassment, detention and sometimes worse. One famous cartoonist who'd lampooned Assad was pulled out of his car last summer by pro-regime thugs and had his hands broken.
Despite the risk, Syrian artists are continuing to produce art - and critics and artists agree that Syrian art is some of the strongest is the region. But interest in Syrian art is also inspired by news of a protest movement that appears to be turning into an armed conflict. |
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Recycled Toy Sculptures by Psychologist Robert BradfordLondon-born psychologist Robert Bradford creates his life-size and larger-than-life sculptures of humans and animals from discarded plastic items, mainly toys but also other colorful plastic bits and pieces, such as combs and buttons, brushes and parts of clothes pegs.
Ten years ago, he started to consider the possibilities that his children’s forgotten toys could have as part of something bigger. Bradford says he likes the idea that the plastic pieces have a history, some unknown past, and that they also pass on a “cultural” history as each of the pieces represents a point in time. |