Minnesota Fringe Festival

The Minnesota Fringe Festival is a performing arts festival held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, every summer, usually during the first two weeks in August. The eleven-day event, which features performing artists of many genres and disciplines, is one of many Fringe Festivals in North America. Minnesota Fringe is the largest nonjuried festival in the United States and the third-largest Fringe festival in North America. In 2013, Minnesota Fringe ran August 1–11 and featured 176 shows with a total of 895 performances in multiple venues around the city and distributed 50,007 tickets over the eleven-day event. In 2007, attendance and box office revenue were adversely affected by the collapse of the I-35W bridge the day before the festival opened.
Fringe shows are 60 minutes or less and appear in an official venue supplied by the festival for five performances stretched out over the festival's eleven days. Venues vary widely, with capacities ranging from 55 to over 400, and available configurations include black-box, proscenium, thrust or arena stages. Past venues include Minneapolis Theatre Garage, HUGE Improv Theater, Mixed Blood Theatre mainstage, Theatre de la Jeune Lune's side stage and the four stages at the University of Minnesota's Rarig Center. Normally, eleven shows will share a venue.
Performing companies that participate in the Fringe split a share of the ticket revenues with the festival and pay an application fee. Currently, the artists' share is 65 percent of the box office revenue.
The 2020 festival, a virtual one, which runs from 30 July to 9 August, marks the 27th annual festival, the 4th under the leadership of executive director Dawn Bentley, who assumed this position on April 3, 2017, after former executive director Jeff D. Larson stepped down in October 2016.
Minnesota Fringe Festival is a founding member of United States Association of Fringe Festivals (USAFF).
History.
The Minnesota Fringe Festival was created as part of a trend of fringe festival establishments in the United States. The country's first fringe was the Seattle Fringe Festival, founded in 1991, followed by the Orlando International Fringe Theater Festival and the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 1992 and 1993, respectively. Founded by Bob McFadden and operating with a budget of around $35,000, the Minnesota Fringe Festival first ran from June 23–July 2, 1994, in several theaters around the West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis. In spite of the festival's name, the Minnesota Fringe did not serve as the fringe festival to any larger, more mainstream theater event. The first annual Fringe was described by Mark Pizzato as "quickly organized and underpublicized", with low attendance reported at its 53 shows, each of which cost six dollars or less and ran under 90 minutes. It drew 4,600 theatergoers and featured shows from companies hailing from three continents (North America, Asia, and Europe).
The festival's growth was modest in its first several years. In 1997, following the previous year's festival which had seen the lowest attendance of any Fringe to date, the event moved to the Loring Park neighborhood. That year marked an attendance of 4,300, after which point Dean Seal replaced McFadden as the festival's executive director. In 1998, the festival began offering patrons multi-show passes and attendance increased to 6,573. The following year, the festival's attendance more than doubled, owing, according to Fringe officials, to better marketing and the 68 shows at that years festival, an increase from previous years. In 2000, the Fringe won a $10,000 grant from the McKnight Foundation and once more expanded, to 80 shows. Festival operations, with a working budget of $260,000, were run out of an office space above the Acadia Cabaret Cafe in Minneapolis, and the festival had begun attracting a variety of sponsors. While in its earlier years, acts had been selected by invitation, by the new millennium the festival was operating on an unjuried first-come, first-served model. The 2001 festival marked the first year that Fringe organizers had to turn away applicants, with the number of shows capped at 120. The festival had also expanded into screening films and showcasing visual art as part of the Visual Fringe.
Seal, the only full-time Fringe employee, resigned as the festival's executive director in 2001 and was replaced by Leah Cooper, who had for the previous three years served as president of the organization's board. Early in her tenure, Cooper hired a full-time volunteer coordinator, a director for Visual Fringe, and a part-time office manager. The 2002 festival was the first in a number of years to employ venues outside of Loring Park, expanding the festival's footprint to the Uptown district. By this point, the Minnesota Fringe was the United States's largest fringe festival. In the following years, the festival's most popular shows saw increased attendance, including record numbers of sold-out houses, as well as reprises and remounts at other venues, while mean attendance decreased, indicating decreased attendance at smaller shows. Cooper in 2004 announced plans to exit the Fringe after the 2005 festival, but stayed on an additional year to help solve fundraising issues that arose. In 2006, the festival began using venues in the West Bank neighborhood again.
Robin Gillette replaced Cooper as executive director for the 2007 festival. On August 1 of that year, the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapsed. That year's iteration of the festival was scheduled to begin the next day and the bridge would have connected patrons to neighborhoods in which performances were to take place. As a result of the bridge's collapse, attendance to the festival was 17% lower than the year before, the lowest since 2002. The 2008 festival saw an increase in the number of dance shows presented as well as a partial recovery in the number of tickets sold and by 2009, the festival set an all-time attendance record of more than 46,000.
Jeff Larson, who first worked administratively with the Fringe as its technical director, then associate director, became executive director in 2013. He left the position in 2016.
In April 2020, the festival's executive director, Dawn Bentley, announced the cancellation of the 2020 edition of the festival due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The organization's four staffmembers were furloughed as it began to refund $40,000 in deposits from artists and projected an additional loss of $160,000 in festival income.
Features of the Minnesota Fringe.
Nonjuried entry.
Minnesota Fringe Festival is nonjuried; that is, the performers and shows are not vetted by a panel of judges ahead of time. Companies that wish to perform submit applications and are drawn by lottery, a practice that replaced the festival's former method of "first come, first served" in 2004.
Performance categories.
The festival is open to all performing artists. Show genres typically include comedy (scripted and improv), drama, dance (classical, modern and ethnic), puppetry, musical theater, opera and shows for/by children and teens, and storytelling. Minnesota Fringe, like many fringe festivals, has proven to be an excellent launching point for new work.
Accessibility.
Each venue is wheelchair-accessible and the festival offers ASL-interpreted shows for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, as well as audio-described shows for the blind.
"Bring Your Own Venue".
In the past, Minnesota Fringe has provided an option for companies to produce site-specific work outside the official venues. The Bring Your Own Venue (BYOV) option was only available for shows that could not normally fit into a traditional theater space. Past BYOV shows have been staged in places such as a clothing store dressing area, a swimming pool, an art gallery and a coffee shop. In 2006, 23 shows, a record number, performed in BYOV slots.
Website.
The Minnesota Fringe Festival Website operates year-round. All of the shows in the yearly festival are up for review by any audience member who registers on the site. Shows are rated on a scale of 0 to 5 stars along with a written review. Each show is assigned an overall star rating based on the average of all the reviews received. Minnesota Fringe also retains a staff of photographers who attend shows and return photographs for the festival's daily slide show. During the six-week 2013 festival period, the site received over a million pageviews.
Statistics.
Shows
2014: 169
2013: 176
2012: 163
2011: 167
2010: 169
2009: 162
2008: 156
Performances
2014: 878
2013: 895
2012: 829
2011: 865
2010: 876
2009: 843
2008: 808
Ticket Sales
2014: 50,265
2013: 50,007
2012: 46,284
2011: 48,432
2010: 50,256
2009: 46,217
2008: 40,926
Total Artist Payout
2014: $258,738
2013: $245,223
2012: $230,997
2011: $243,792
2010: $249,116
2009: $215,600
2008: $193,293


Arabella discography

This is a list of recordings of "Arabella", a three-act opera by Richard Strauss with a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater.


Spider diagram

In mathematics, a unitary spider diagram adds existential points to an Euler or a Venn diagram. The points indicate the existence of an attribute described by the intersection of contours in the Euler diagram. These points may be joined together forming a shape like a spider. Joined points represent an "or" condition, also known as a logical disjunction.
A spider diagram is a boolean expression involving unitary spider diagrams and the logical symbols formula_1. For example, it may consist of the conjunction of two spider diagrams, the disjunction of two spider diagrams, or the negation of a spider diagram.
Example.
In the image shown, the following conjunctions
In the universe of discourse defined by this Euler diagram, in addition to the conjunctions specified above, all possible sets from "A" through "B" and "D" through "G" are available separately. The set "C" is only available as a subset of "B". Often, in complicated diagrams, singleton sets and/or conjunctions may be obscured by other set combinations.
The two spiders in the example correspond to the following logical expressions:


Tablet weaving

Tablet Weaving (often card weaving in the United States) is a weaving technique where "tablets" or "cards" are used to create the shed through which the weft is passed. As the materials and tools are relatively cheap and easy to obtain, tablet weaving is popular with hobbyist weavers. Currently most tablet weavers produce narrow work such as belts, straps, or garment trims.
History.
Tablet weaving does go back at least to the eighth century BCE in early Iron Age Europe where it is found in areas employing the warp-weighted loom. Historically the technique served several purposes: to create starting and/or selvedge bands for larger textiles such as those produced on the warp-weighted loom; to weave decorative bands onto existing textiles; and to create freestanding narrow work.
Early examples have been found at Hochdorf, Germany, and Apremont, Haute-Saône, France, as well as in Italy, Greece, and Austria. Elaborate tablet-woven bands are found in many high status Iron Age and medieval graves of Europe as well as in the Roman period in the Near East. They are presumed to have been standard trim for garments among various European peoples, including the Vikings. Many museum examples exist of such bands used on ecclesiastical textiles or as the foundation for elaborate belts in the European Middle Ages. In the seventeenth century tablet weaving was also used to produce some monumental silk hangings in Ethiopia.
Tablet weaving is often erroneously believed to date back to pharaonic Egypt. This theory was advanced early in the twentieth century based on an elaborate woven belt of uncertain provenance often called the Girdle of Ramesses because it bore an inked cartouche of Ramesses III. Arnold van Gennep and G. Jéquier published a book in 1916, "Le tissage aux cartons et son utilisation décorative dans l'Égypte ancienne," predicated on the assumption that the ancient Egyptians were familiar with tablet weaving. Scholars argued spiritedly about the production method of the belt for decades. Many popular books on tablet weaving promoted the Egyptian origin theory until, in an appendix to his magisterial work on tablet weaving, Peter Collingwood proved by structural analysis that the linen belt couldn't have been woven on tablets.
Tools for tablet weaving.
The tablets used in weaving are typically shaped as regular polygons, with holes near each vertex and possibly at the center, as well. The number of holes in the tablets used is a limiting factor on the complexity of the pattern woven. The corners of the tablets are typically rounded to prevent catching as they are rotated during weaving.
In the past, weavers made tablets from bark, wood, bone, horn, stone, leather, metal or a variety of other materials. Modern cards are frequently made from cardboard. Some weavers even drill holes in a set of playing cards. This is an easy way to get customized tablets or large numbers of inexpensive tablets.
The tablets are usually marked with colors or stripes so that their facings and orientations can be easily noticed.
Procedure.
The fundamental principle is to turn the tablets to lift selected sets of threads in the warp. The tablets may be turned in one direction continually as a pack, turned individually to create patterns, or turned some number of times "forward" and the same number "back". Twisting the tablets in only one direction can create a ribbon that curls in the direction of the twist, though there are ways to thread the tablets that mitigate this issue.
Some weavers prefer the backstrap method of weaving, where one end of the warp was tucked into, or wrapped around the weaver's belt, and the other is looped over a toe, or tied to a pole or furniture. Some traditional weavers weave between two poles, similar to the Oseberg loom found in Norway dating from the 9th century, and wrap the weft around the poles. Commercial "tablet weaving looms" adapt this idea, and are convenient because they make it easy to put the work down. Other weavers prefer to use "Inkle" looms, which are a more modern invention, but acts as both loom and warping board for the project.
Some patterns require weavers thread each card individually, while others allow "continuous warping". This threading method puts the threads through the holes of an entire deck. The four threads in the deck of cards are wrapped around two stationary objects, dropping one card each time around the fixed points. Cards are threaded in either S or Z directions, which alters the pattern created by turning the cards.
A shuttle about 5" to 8" long is placed in the shed to beat the previous weft, then carry the next weft into the shed. Shuttles made for tablet weaving have tapered edges to beat down the weft. Simple flat wooden or plastic shuttles work well for weaving any kind yarn from wool to cotton to silk.
Patterns are made by placing different-colored yarns in different holes, then turning individual cards until the desired colors of the weft are on top. After that, a simple pattern, like a stripe, small diamond or check, can be repeated just by turning the deck of tablets.
Tablet weaving is especially freeing, because any pattern can be created by turning individual tablets. This is in contrast to normal looms, in which the complexity of the pattern is limited by the number of shafts available to lift threads, and the threading of the heddles.
Tablet weaving can also be used to weave tubes or double weave. The tablets are made to have four levels in the warp, and then two sheds are beat and wefted, one in the top pair of warps, and the other in the bottom pair, before turning the deck. Since groups of tablets can be turned separately, the length, width and joining of the tubes can be controlled by the weaver.
References.


Nettie Jane Kennedy

Nettie Jane Kennedy (1916–2002) was an American artist associated with the Gee's Bend group of quilters.
Early life.
Nette Jane was the youngest of Indiana and Patrick Bendolph's 16 children. Being the youngest, she had no interest in or capabilities to farm alongside her older siblings. Her family primarily grew cotton, corn, peas, pinders (a local term for peanuts), millet for syrup, and raised cows and hogs.
At 20 years old, she married Hargrove Kennedy, who was named after Hargrove Van de Graaff, the owner of the Gee's Bend estate. Hargrove and Nettie Jane worked for the estate and sharecropped off of their land. They were married for more than 65 years.
Work.
Kennedy learned to quilt from her mother and sister, both named Indiana. She initially learned to quilt on scrap cloth, which her father brought home, and repurposed work clothes. Her work is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.


Bhoomika Theatre Group

Bhoomika is an Indian Theatre group based in Hyderabad. It was founded in 1989 by Udaya Bhanu Garikipati. The group began its first production in 1989 with Kaki Bangaram , an adaption of Vijay Tendulkar's Pahije Jathiche. It later produced various original plays as well as adaptations in Telugu, Hindi and Deccani.
The Plays Kissa ek Ajnabhi Lash Ka, Jor Laga ke Haissa, Puthra Kameshti, Yamraj Bole Sou Saal Jiyo, Chawanny, Subbarao Ki Shahadat, a Hindi adaptation of Slavomir Mrozek’s Martyrdom Of Peter Ohey, Bharathendu Harischandra’s Andheri Nagari are some of the plays that were staged very successfully in Hyderabad, Gorakhpur, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, New Delhi etc. Some of these plays have won appreciation from critics like Kavitha Nagpal, Jayadev Taneja.
G Udaya Bhanu, The president of Bhoomika was granted a Senior Fellowship in 1999 by Ministry of Human Resource Development for working on some of the folk forms of the region like Oggu Katha, Gollasuddulu, Baindla Katha, Chidathala Ramayanam, Jamukula Katha. This research work is aimed at further enriching the group with more and more folk inputs.
History.
Bhoomika Theatre Group (since 1989) started producing realistic plays, and then switched over to non realistic plays. Kaki Bangaram , Vijay Tendulkar’s PAHIJE JATHICHE, was the first step in that direction. Later in 1990 Mareechika , directed by G Udaya Bhanu, produced under Assistance To Young Theatre Workers scheme of Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, was the first of the group’s attempt to exploit the potential of the folk music . The play was a success, mainly because of the folk tunes that were used to enrich the production. Senior theatre persons like Sri BV Karanth appreciated the attempt. Another notable production of the group was Emo Gurram Eguravachu, an adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar’s realistic play Manus Navanche Bet.
Habib Tanveer’s Charandas Chor has used Bhojpuri folk tunes extensively and very successfully and is one of the major successes of the group. It got rave reviews in places like New Delhi, Varanasi.
Since 1989 the group has produced more than 12 plays in Hindi. Out of these plays very few were originally written in Hindi. Some of the classics and popular plays of Telugu were translated into Hindi, and were brought to the notice of non-Telugu speaking audience. Similarly, plays from different Indian languages were translated into Telugu.
Girish Karnad’s Nagamandala, Bertolt Brecht’s Insaan Ho Tho Leek Se Hato (Exception and The Rule), Manoj Mithra’s Raj Darshan and Badal Sircar’s Hattamla ke Us paar, Bertolt Brecht’s Insaan Ho Tho Leek Se Hato, a Hindi Adaptation of “ Exception and the Rule” are some of the important Hindi productions of the group.
Tella Sunna, Telugu adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle, is another noteworthy production of the group. This play used the folk music of North Telangana, which made it easier for the audience to understand Brecht. The adaptation, the use of local folk music and some of the folk narrative and performative elements of folk forms like Chindu Bhagavatham has transformed the German play as an original Telugu play In Brechtian style. The play won both popular and critical applause.
Hart&Kauffman’s The Man Who Came to Dinner, an American comedy, was adapted into Telugu as O Cine Bhasmasura, is one of the very successful plays of the group. The play is a critique on the people, who are crazy about films and film personalities.
Charanadasu, a Telugu adaptation of Habib Tanveer’s Charanadas Chor, an adaptation of a classical Rajasthani folktale by Vijaydan Detha. It was produced in 1996 retaining the same Bhojpuri tunes, that were used in the version. The play won Nandi Awards for Second best play, Best Direction, Best music. The Government of Andhra Pradesh institutes these awards, These are considered to be the highest awards in the state.
“Droupadi” is a play drawn from the famous Kuppam Veedhinatakam Folk tradition and the play was produced by the group, with the help of Sri Ramachandra Rao, a veteran of the tradition. He trained the actors of Bhoomika and the play was performed for the urban audience of Hyderabad.
“Nagamandala “ a play by Sri Girish Karnad, Jnanapeeth Awardee was also produced by the group along with the youth of the Railway Degree College, Secunderabad as a part of a theatre work shop for the students of the college.
Maryada Ramanna, Memu atavikulam, Udutha Ramayanam, Azeer, Anjigadu, (an adaptation of Mahaswetha Devi’ s play), Moodo Kannu, Bullipetta Boochadu, Raachakoodu are some of the plays that were produced during the year 2004 – 2010.
In the year 2010 Bhoomika has taken up an important project with Surabhi, a family theater group with 150 years of history. The group started working with the youth of the Surabhi family (who are drifting away from theater due to various reasons) and in the course of a workshop produced Charanadasu in the month of March 2010. The group is making serious efforts to evolve the youth into a professional theatre group to cater to the needs of the modern audience.
Gopatrudu is a celebrated novel written by KNY Patanjali in 1994. It is a satirical take on the present-day society, institutions, leaders and values. It was dramatized and directed by Udaya Bhanu Garikipati, and was staged in Tatiparti, East Godavari district in 2009. The play was revived by Bhoomika in 2011 and 2018.
Mungitlo Natakam.
Mungitlo Natakam or "Theatre at your doorstep" is an initiative by Bhoomika theatre group. The initiative gives an opportunity to the colonies and gated communities to invite the group to their space and perform for free.
The main goal of this initiative is to show the taste of live theatre to the next generation of audience.
It was first started by the group in 2004. Over a two-year period, the theatre team went to different localities in Hyderabad and performed plays in residential areas. The group performed more than 25 shows and it was a huge success. It was disbanded due to logistical reasons. It was revived again in 2019.
Theatre for young Audience.
Bhoomika is very passionate about doing theatre for children...
Bhoomika is associated with ASSITEJ. As part of that, Assitej India has organised International Theatre Festival for Children and Young audience since 2014. TIFLI Hyderabad is organised in association with Bhoomika to engage and enlighten children and spread the awareness about Theatre for Young Audience (TYA). Bhoomika has organised TIFLI 4 times from 2014 to 2017. There were performances of mime, magic, music, dance, puppets, storytelling, and stand up comedy along with theatre plays for children. Here the adults performed for children and young adults. This kind of theatre, developed by adults for children, helps to get closer to them and address some of their issues. This was taken up by Bhoomika to spread information about theatre for young audiences among schools and theatre practitioners in Hyderabad.
Training.
In addition to producing plays, the group also conducts theatre workshops for children and youth. These workshops are held in schools, colleges and also slums. They are mainly aimed at improving the communicative skills, sensibilities and thereby understanding their own selves and also the society around them. Theatre games and techniques are used as a tool to improve the personalities than to train them as performers. As a follow up to these workshops, for those who are interested in theatre, weekly theatre classes are held every Sunday.
In 2011, Bhoomika in collaboration with National School of Drama, organised a theatre workshop for the younger generation of Surabhi theatre group to encourage them to stick with theatre as a mainstream profession. The workshop introduced the modern techniques of theatre to its participants.
Apart from this, Bhoomika also offers a three month actor's training program. After which the trained actors perform in various venues across the twin cities.


Value presentation

The term value presentation denotes the purposive and recipient specific conveyance of information or data by means of modern, multimedia-based demonstration techniques (Argote & Ingram 2000: pp. 11). To achieve this goal multimedia-supported lecture ("PowerPointPresentation") as well as short animations, real videoclips ("training course clips") or a series of charts may be utilized. Knowledge transmission via value presentations is equally applied in business or economical and commercial or marketing domains (Tufte 2006: pp. 5).


Edward Gardner (conductor)

Edward Gardner (born 22 November 1974) is an English conductor.
Biography.
Gardner was born in Gloucester, and sang as a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral. As a youth, he played piano, clarinet and organ. He attended the King's School, Gloucester and Eton College. At the University of Cambridge, he continued as a music student, and was a choral scholar in King's College Choir. He had begun choral conducting at Eton, and continued conducting at Cambridge. He also studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where his teachers included Colin Metters. He graduated from the RAM in 2000.
From 1997 until 2002, Gardner was Musical Director of Wokingham Choral Society, a post previously held by Graeme Jenkins, Paul Daniel, and Stephen Layton. In 1999, whilst still a student at the Royal Academy of Music, Gardner became a repetiteur at the Salzburg Festival at the invitation of Michael Gielen, when another repetiteur had become ill. Gardner subsequently served as an assistant conductor to Mark Elder at The Hallé Orchestra for 3 years. In 2003, Gardner was named music director of Glyndebourne on Tour, and held the post from 2004 to 2007.
In 2005, Gardner was a winner of the Young Artist prize of the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS). In March 2006, he was appointed music director of English National Opera. He formally took up the post in May 2007, with an initial contract of 3 years. Although there had not been any formal press announcements of Gardner extending his ENO contract, he publicly stated in 2011 his plans to work with ENO until at least 2015. In January 2014, ENO announced the scheduled conclusion of Gardner's tenure as music director in 2015.
In September 2010, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra announced the appointment of Gardner as its next principal guest conductor, effective September 2011, with an initial contract of 3 years, for 3–4 weeks of concerts per season. He concluded his tenure as CBSO principal guest conductor in July 2016. Outside the UK, in February 2013, Gardner was simultaneously named the next principal guest conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, effective August 2013, and the orchestra's next principal conductor effective with the 2015–2016 season. His initial contract as principal conductor was for 3 years. In January 2017, the orchestra announced the extension of Gardner's contract in Bergen through 2021. In September 2019, the orchestra further extended Gardner's Bergen contract through 2023.
Gardner had made his guest-conducting debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) in 2003. In July 2019, the LPO announced the appointment of Gardner as its next principal conductor, effective with the 2021-2022 season, with an initial contract of 5 years.
Gardner has conducted several recordings for EMI Classics, including collaborations with Alison Balsom and Kate Royal. He has also signed a recording contract with Chandos Records, which has included recordings of music by Witold Lutosławski and Benjamin Britten.
Honours.
In 2008, the RPS named Gardner its Conductor of the Year. Gardner was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to music.
Personal life.
Gardner has a son, Charlie, born in March 2010, from his past relationship with Alison Balsom.


Philip Ng

Philip Ng Wan-lung () is a Hong Kong-born American actor, martial artist and action choreographer. He is currently based in Hong Kong.
Early life.
In 1977, Ng was born in Hong Kong. Ng's father is Sam Ng. Ng's mother is Frances Ng. Ng immigrated to United States with his family at the age of seven. Ng spent the majority of his youth in Chicago, Illinois before returning to Hong Kong to pursue a career in acting and martial arts choreography in film and television.
Career.
Martial arts.
Upon arriving in the United States Ng began his study of the martial arts with Hung Gar, taught by his uncle and Choy Lay Fut, taught by his father. At the age of 13, Philip Ng began his study of Wing Chun Gung Fu with his uncle, Alan Ang, and Taekwondo with Master Woon S. Shim. To further his education in the field of Wing Chun Gung Fu, Ng traveled to Hong Kong during the summers and became the student of the Sifu Wong Shun Leung, with whom he trained until Wong's passing early in 1997. Before his death, Sifu Wong Shun Leung encouraged Ng to begin instructing students in America to become training partners.
Ng founded the Illini Wing Chun Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ng spent five years presiding over the association as both the head instructor and club president. Time spent at the University had not only awarded Philip a master's degree in education, but training and sparring with other martial stylists gained him the knowledge and applicable skill in the arts of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Western Boxing, Muay Thai and Eskrima. Ng holds a bachelor's degree in Graphic design and a master's degree in Education.
Acting and choreography.
In addition to acting, Ng is also an accomplished fight choreographer and action director. He taught school for a year and decided to fulfill his dream of performing in a martial arts film. He quit his job and headed to Hong Kong to try to enter the business. He was introduced to Chin Kar Lok, an action director who needed someone with Ng's background to train the actors and became the assistant martial arts choreographer on a film. Ng worked his way up as a stuntman and featured actor until he achieved his goal of starring in a 2014 martial arts film, "Once Upon a Time in Shanghai". He was selected to play Bruce Lee in the 2016 biographical film "Birth of the Dragon", which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on September 13, 2016.
Filmography.
Film
Television
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director:


Jaskier


Liverpool Shakespeare Festival

The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival is an annual celebration of the works of William Shakespeare produced by the Lodestar Theatre Company. Originally centered on Liverpool Cathedral, each summer sees different plays performed in various exciting venues - some by the festival's organisers and others by visiting companies.
Festival history.
2007.
The festival's first production, "Macbeth", played from the 16 August to the 8 September 2007. The first half was staged inside Liverpool Catholic Cathedral, the second half in St James Cemetery. The production was very well received, the cast and direction lauded by most critics, although the production received some criticism as a result of the Cathedral's disadvantageous acoustics).
2008.
To coincide with Liverpool's year as European Capital of Culture, 2008's festival is broader than previously. On their first visit to Liverpool, "Shakespeare's Globe Theatre's" perform "The Winter's Tale" in Liverpool Cathedral and St James Cemetery in August. The festival also includes open air cinema nights and of course, the main event: Lodestar's production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", performed from 13 August to 7 September entirely within St. James' Cemetery.
The production received excellent reviews: 'Wonderful. . .outstanding . . .faultless!' (Liverpool Confidential) "a group that has seemed to gel incredibly well to produce a fantastic ensemble piece".
2009.
In 2009, Lodestar presented a double bill: "Hamlet" at St George's Hall, Liverpool, and "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead" by Tom Stoppard at Novas Contemporary Urban Centre. Both plays were, for the first time in U.K., performed by the same company of actors and the festival won a "Liverpool Daily Post" Arts award.
2010.
The 2010 festival was postponed due to a lack of confirmed funding. But returned in 2011 with the planned production of "Romeo & Juliet" at St George's Hall.
2011.
The Liverpool Shakespeare Festival returns! In 2011, events will include a new production of "Romeo & Juliet", Three community-led pieces created by 150 local residents with professional artists, and a theatrical experiment: 'Come and have a go if you think you're BARD enough' in which 100 actors will do battle in a unique production of 'Richard 3'.
Performances take place in the concert rooms at St George's Hall, Liverpool between 25 August - 11 September.


Vocal hiccup

Vocal hiccup is a "hiccuping" singing technique which was notably used by Buddy Holly and Michael Jackson.
Buddy Holly.
Buddy Holly used the "vocal hiccup" in many of his songs. It is described as "a clipped ‘uh’ sound used to emphasize certain words", for example, "We-UH-ell, the little things you say and do, make me want to be with you-UH-ou..." in his record of the song "Rave On" (1958).
Edward Comentale asserts that Holly's hiccup technique comes from the southern tradition of "eefing". He describes it as follows: "he [Buddy Holly] cuts off the sound at the back of the throat, blocking the flow of sound so that it pops out again with greater intensity - hic-a! A sharp break or silence is immediately followed by a loud burp, ann extra 'supplemental' syllable."
Scott "Buddy" Cameron, known for his impersonation of Buddy Holly, in particular in the 2005-2009 production of "Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story" musical, among other "trademark" features of Buddy Holly, uses "lilting vocal hiccup".
Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson started using the "vocal hiccup" in 1973, in the song "It's Too Late to Change the Time" on the "" album. The next time he used this technique several years later, in his 1979 solo album "Off the Wall". Jackson's hiccup technique is described as "somewhat like a gulping for air or gasping".
Diana Ross claimed on "The Today Show" that Michael Jackson took the vocal hiccup technique from her.


The Bartered Bride discography

This list is a discography of "The Bartered Bride" (; German: Die verkaufte Braut) by Bedřich Smetana. The opera was first performed, in its original two-act format, at the Provisional Theatre, Prague, on 30 May 1866. After substantial revisions it was premiered in its extended three-act form at the Provisional Theatre on 25 September 1870.
The first complete recording of the opera was issued in 1933. Numerous recordings have since been made, in the original Czech language, in German and in English. The list includes both studio recordings and live performances, but not excerpts or highlights. "Year" refers to the year of the original recording; in the case of reissues, the Label and Catalogue No. generally relate to the most recent CD version. Unless stated otherwise, the language is Czech.


Olympic gold medal


Cougar Marching Band

Cougar Marching Band may refer to multiple university marching bands including:


Poor Butterfly

"Poor Butterfly" is a popular song. It was inspired by Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly" and contains a brief musical quote from the Act two duet "Tutti i fior" in the verse.
The music was written by Raymond Hubbell, the lyrics by John L. Golden. The song was published in 1916. It was introduced in the Broadway show "The Big Show", which opened in August 1916 at the New York Hippodrome, and was sung in the show by Sophie Bernard.
The song has become a jazz standard, recorded by many artists.
Recorded versions.
Biggest hit versions in 1917.
The two biggest hit versions in 1917 were recorded by Elsie Baker (using the pseudonym Edna Brown) and by the Victor Military Band.
Baker's recording was made on December 15, 1916 and released on Victor as catalog number 18211, with the flip side being a recording of "Alice in Wonderland" by Howard & McDonough.
The Victor Military Band recording was recorded on November 29, 1916 and issued by Victor as catalog number 35605, with the flip side “Katinka".
Another version which received a significant amount of popularity was by Grace Kerns recording under the name Catherine (or Katherine) Clark. This version was recorded in November 1916 and released by Columbia Records as catalog number A-2167, with the flip side “Century Girl”.
Somewhat less popular, but still noted at the time, were a recording by Elizabeth Spencer, released by Thomas Edison's recording company as a disk, catalog number 50386, and an Amberol cylinder, catalog number 3039, and a recording by Prince's Orchestra (or Prince's Band), recorded December 1916 and released by Columbia Records as catalog number A-5930, with the flip side “You and I”.
An arrangement for violin and orchestra was recorded by Fritz Kreisler on March 1, 1917, and issued on Victor as catalog number 64555.
1954 revival.
The song was revived in the 1950s by The Hilltoppers for a top-20 chart hit. Their recording was released by Dot Records as catalog number 15156, with the flip side "Wrapped up in a Dream". It first reached the Billboard magazine Best Seller chart on April 14, 1954 and lasted 5 weeks on the chart, peaking at #15. (Other sources give the first date on the chart as April 24 and the highest position as #12.) The same recording was released in Canada by Quality Records
as catalog number K1235, with the same flip side.


Bachelor Boy

"Bachelor Boy" is a song by Cliff Richard and the Shadows. It became a hit when it was released as the B-side of Richard's single "The Next Time". Both sides of the single were regarded as having chart potential so both sides were promoted and in many markets "Bachelor Boy" became the bigger hit. The single spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in January 1963 and was a major hit internationally, excluding the US. Both sides of the single were included on the accompanying soundtrack album "Summer Holiday". "Bachelor Boy" was written by Bruce Welch (from the Shadows) and Cliff Richard.
In the UK, the single was the first of three number 1 hit singles from Richard's musical film, "Summer Holiday", the other two being "Summer Holiday" and "Foot Tapper". The film was the most successful box-office attraction of the year.
The single was followed at number one by the Shadows' own single "Dance On!"
The song is about some advice a father passes to his son, to "remain a bachelor boy until (his) dying day". Richard later commented when he wrote this song he "never expected it to be prophetic". While Richard has himself never married, the song itself does not rule out marriage, with the final verse stating "I'll get married, have a wife and a child... but until then I'll be a bachelor boy...".
Chart performance.
The below table only includes countries where "Bachelor Boy" was listed separately on the chart, or where it was listed first when both were listed together on the chart. For a more complete list of countries where the single made the singles chart, refer to the article for "The Next Time".
Notes:


Closer to Heaven (original cast recording)

Closer to Heaven is an album of songs from the Pet Shop Boys 2001 stage musical "Closer to Heaven". The songs feature the original London production cast and production credits go to Pet Shop Boys and Stephen Hague.
Personnel.
Guest musicians


Annemarie Buchmann-Gerber

Annemarie Buchmann-Gerber (September 21, 1947 – December 23, 2015) was a Canadian artist known for her work with textiles and fiber materials. The subject matter of her work is based in feminism and contemporary issues.
Education.
Annemarie Buchnmann-Gerber had a five-year teaching certificate from Bern. Buchmann-Gerber took drawing and painting classes with George Glenn in Prince Albert. Afterward she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Saskatchewan.
Career.
Annemarie Buchmann-Gerber began her art career after meeting Margaret VanWalsem at the annual Winter Festival Exhibition in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan and George Glenn, who was the artist in residence in Prince Albert at the time. Buchmann-Gerber cited that George Glen was influential in her development. Buchmann-Garber's early work focused specifically on textiles and in particular on weaving and stitching to create tapestries. Buchmann-Gerber was one of the founding members of The Saskatchewan Craft Council. She was a board member for The Mendel Art Gallery and The Saskatchewan Craft Council.
Buchmann-Gerber died in Saskatoon and her ashes returned for burial in Oberburg, Switzerland.


Oh Promise Me

Oh Promise Me is a song with music by Reginald De Koven and lyrics by Clement Scott. The song was written in 1887 and first published in 1889 by G. Schirmer, Inc. as an art song. De Koven may have based the melody partly on a song composed by Stanislao Gastaldon, "Musica Proibita". In 1890, De Koven wrote his most successful comic opera, "Robin Hood". After opening night, the contralto playing Alan-a-Dale, Jessie Bartlett Davis, demanded a song to better show off her voice, threatening to walk out of the production. De Koven inserted "Oh Promise Me" into the score for her.
The sheet music sold over a million copies in 1890 and continued to gain popularity for several decades, being performed by many artists. The song remains popular as a wedding song both in America and in the UK.
Lyrics.
<poem>
Oh, promise me that someday you and I
Will take our love together to some sky
Where we can be alone and faith renew,
And find the hollows where those flowers grew,
Those first sweet violets of early spring,
Which come in whispers, thrill us both, and sing
Of love unspeakable that is to be;
Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!
Oh, promise me that you will take my hand,
The most unworthy in this lonely land,
And let me sit beside you in your eyes,
Seeing the vision of our paradise,
Hearing God's message while the organ rolls
Its mighty music to our very souls,
No love less perfect than a life with thee;
Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!
</poem>
Use in film and television.
The song has made many appearances in films and on television shows where weddings or funerals are taking place - Eunice sings it at a family wedding in season one of "Mama's Family", and it is performed at Diana's wedding in "".
Julie Andrews performs the song in the black comedy film, "S.O.B." (1981) directed by Blake Edwards.


Tsuboya ware

 is a type of Ryukyuan pottery traditionally from Tsuboya, presently a part of Naha, in the former Ryukyu Kingdom.


Punch and Judy (film)

Punch and Judy () was a 1906 French silent comedy film directed by Georges Méliès.
Plot.
A group of children are watching a puppet show in an outdoor booth (identified as Guignol in the French release and Punch and Judy in the English one). The puppets are engaging in knockabout farce, battling with sticks, when in their excitement they jump off the puppet stage and become miniature people fighting on the ground. The puppet master, rushing out of the booth, tries frantically to herd the puppets back to the stage, but they grow to human size and get him entangled in their brawl. The puppets finally escape for good, and the delighted children rush upon the puppet master and bury him in a shower of confetti.
Release.
The film was released by Méliès's Star Film Company and is numbered 871–873 in its catalogues. The complete film is currently presumed lost, though a brief fragment was relocated in time for a 2008 DVD release.


The Devil to Pay (opera)

The Devil to Pay is a 1731 ballad opera by the Irish writer Charles Coffey and British writer John Mottley. Also known by the longer title The Devil to Pay: Or, The Wives Metamorphos'd, it was part of a group of ballad operas produced in the wake of the success of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera". The work is inspired by Thomas Jevon's 1686 play "The Devil of a Wife".
The original Drury Lane cast included Theophilus Cibber as Gaffer Dunfork, John Harper as Hobson, Richard Charke as Ananias, James Oates as Doctor, Edward Berry as Butler, Thomas Wright as Footman, Theodosia Mills as Lady Loverule and Kitty Clive as Nell.


Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life

Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life is a 2010 Canadian live-action/animated short film directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, collectively known as Clyde Henry Productions, and features the voices of Meryl Streep, Forest Whitaker and Spike Jonze. Jonze also served as producer along with Vincent Landay and Marcy Page. "Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life" was produced by the National Film Board of Canada in association with Warner Home Video.
It is based on the 1967 children's book of the same name written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak about the fictional adventures of his pet dog Jennie.
Plot.
A Sealyham Terrier named Jennie leaves a comfortable life and embarks on a journey for new experiences and stardom.
Production.
An associate of Jonze had been impressed by Lavis and Szczerbowski's previous work, the animated short "Madame Tutli-Putli" and suggested to the director that they would be suitable to create a short companion piece for the Blu-ray release of "Where the Wild Things Are". Jonze contacted the animators while he was in France promoting "Synecdoche, New York" and the two met after, with Jonze proposing that they create a film based on some other short story by Sendak. Unfamiliar with Sendak's work, the filmmakers researched his work and settled on "Higglety Pigglety Pop!" as their choice to adapt.
The film is set in 17 different locations, with a total of 25 scenes. With just 10 months to create the entire film, the filmmakers could not use stop-motion or any of their traditional animation techniques. They decided instead to primarily make use of puppetry, combined with some stop-motion.
Meryl Streep, who voiced Jennie, was not yet cast when shooting had begun. Sendak provided Lavis and Szczerbowski with an old recording of Streep reading the book, doing all the voices, and the filmmakers were impressed. They approached her with the part and she agreed.
Lavis and Szczerbowski's previous work "Madame Tutli-Putli" had received the Genie Award for Best Animated Short and been nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short.
Release.
"Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life" had its world premiere at the Montreal Children's International Film Festival on February 28, 2010. It was then released along with the Blu-ray edition of Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are", released on March 2, 2010.
The film received two Golden Sheaf Awards, for Best Director (Fiction) and Best Children's and Youth Production, at the 2011 Yorkton Film Festival.


Tristan und Isolde discography

This is an audio and video discography of Tristan und Isolde, an opera by Richard Wagner which was first performed on 10 June 1865 in Munich.
Recording history.
"Tristan und Isolde" has a long recorded history. In the years before World War II, Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior were considered to be the prime interpreters of the lead roles, and mono recordings exist of this pair in a number of live performances led by conductors such as Thomas Beecham, Fritz Reiner, Artur Bodanzky and Erich Leinsdorf. Flagstad recorded the part commercially only near the end of her career in 1952, under Wilhelm Furtwängler for EMI, producing a set which is considered a classic recording. Following the war, the performances at Bayreuth with Martha Mödl and Ramon Vinay under Herbert von Karajan (1952) were highly regarded, and these performances are now available as a live recording. In the 1960s, the soprano Birgit Nilsson was considered the major Isolde interpreter, and she was often partnered with the Tristan of Wolfgang Windgassen. Their performance at Bayreuth in 1966 under the baton of Karl Böhm was captured by Deutsche Grammophon—a performance often hailed as one of the best "Tristan" recordings. Some collectors prefer the pairing of Nilsson with the Canadian tenor Jon Vickers, available in "unofficial" recordings from performances in Vienna or Orange.
There are several DVD productions of the opera including Götz Friedrich's production at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin featuring the seasoned Wagnerians René Kollo and Dame Gwyneth Jones in the title roles. Deutsche Grammophon released a DVD of a Metropolitan Opera performance featuring Jane Eaglen and Ben Heppner, conducted by James Levine, in a production staged by Jürgen Rose, and a DVD of the 1995 Bayreuth Festival production with conductor Daniel Barenboim and featuring Waltraud Meier as Isolde and Siegfried Jerusalem as Tristan, staged by Heiner Mueller.


Robert Chambers (English judge)

Sir Robert Chambers (14 January 1737 – 9 May 1803) was an English jurist, Vinerian Professor of English Law, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal.
Biography.
Born in January 1737 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Chambers was the son of Robert Chambers, an attorney. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle and awarded an exhibition at Lincoln College, Oxford, in May 1754. Chambers was admitted to the Middle Temple in the same year, and was called to the bar in 1761. In that year, he was also appointed to a fellowship at University College, Oxford. On 7 May 1766 he was appointed Vinerian Professor of English Law at the University of Oxford, in succession to William Blackstone. He was also appointed Principal of New Inn Hall in 1766, a post which he held until his death, despite continued absence from it.
A contemporary and friend of Samuel Johnson from at least 1754 and up to Johnson's death in 1784, Chambers was provided references by Johnson in his pursuit of the Vinerian scholarship. Whether Johnson also assisted Chambers in composing his lectures, as was sometimes rumoured, is not known.
By 1773, the East India Regulating Act 1773 had been passed, establishing a supreme council (consisting of a governor-general, the first of whom was Warren Hastings, and four councillors) and judicature (consisting of a chief justice and three puisne judges) of Bengal. Chambers was appointed second judge under Sir Elijah Impey as chief justice, with a promise from the Lord Chancellor that if the Chief Justice's post became vacant, it would be offered to him. The judges departed for Calcutta in May 1774, although Chambers persuaded the Oxford authorities to allow him to retain his professorship for a further three years, in case he did not adapt to the Indian climate. His successor was therefore not appointed until 1777, when he was knighted (on 7 June).
Although Chambers was one of the judges in the notorious case of Maharaja Nandakumar, he escaped criticism, in part through his reputation for integrity. Impey, however, was eventually recalled to the United Kingdom in 1783, leaving Chambers as acting chief justice, but did not resign until 1787, and Chambers was not confirmed in the post until 1791. He served for eight years, returning to England in 1799. Despite frequent efforts to gain preferment, he appears to have acted with integrity despite the controversial administration of which he was part – and to have had a clear understanding that the laws of Georgian England were not always appropriate in the different culture and history of India.
As a result of his time in India, Chambers' health deteriorated, and in 1802 he left England again, this time for the kinder climate of the south of France. Whilst travelling, he fell ill at Paris, where he died in May 1803. He was buried in the Temple Church in London, where his monument was destroyed in 1941 during the Blitz.
In 1774, Chambers married Frances Wilton, daughter of the sculptor Joseph Wilton, who was a founder member of the Royal Academy. She survived him, along with four of their seven children.
Chambers left no publications, though he did consolidate a valuable collection of Sanskrit manuscripts while in India. Later biographers characterise him as a perfectionist, excessively conscientious and scrupulous, to the point where considerations of detail prevented him from completing much. In his legal career, his attempts to act conscientiously often had the appearance of indecisiveness and lack of conviction.
Chambers was a contributor to Hyde's Notebooks during his term on the bench of the Supreme Court of Judicature. The notebooks are a valuable primary source of information for life in late 18th century Bengal and are the only remaining source for the proceedings of the Supreme Court. Chambers continued the notebooks after Hyde's death in 1796.


Dancing in the Dark (Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz song)

"Dancing in the Dark" is a popular American song, with music by Arthur Schwartz and lyrics by Howard Dietz, that was first introduced by John Barker with Tilly Losch dancing in the 1931 revue "The Band Wagon". The song was first recorded by Bing Crosby on August 19, 1931 with Studio Orchestra directed by Victor Young, staying on the pop charts for six weeks, peaking at #3, and helping to make it a lasting standard.
The 1941 recording by Artie Shaw and His Orchestra earned Shaw one of his eight gold records at the height of the Big Band era of the 1930s and 1940s.
It was subsequently featured in the classic 1953 MGM musical "The Band Wagon" and has since come to be considered part of the Great American Songbook. In the film it is orchestrally performed to a ballet dance by Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse set in Central Park. The song is given a 'sensual and dramatic' orchestration by Conrad Salinger, with the dance choreographed by Michael Kidd and performed by Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.
In popular culture.
Steve Martin was the host for the final episode of season 14 of "Saturday Night Live". In the opening monologue, he visibly struggled to hold back tears as he paid tribute to Gilda Radner, who had died of cancer on the afternoon before the broadcast. Martin and Radner's "Dancing in the Dark" sketch, originally shown in episode 64 in 1978, was also offered in tribute.


Pagliacci discography

This is a partial discography of "Pagliacci", an opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo which premiered at the Teatro Dal Verme in Milan on May 21, 1892 conducted by Arturo Toscanini.


Jean Duceppe

Jean Hotte-Duceppe, CQ (; October 25, 1923 – December 7, 1990) was a stage and television actor from Montreal, Quebec.
Born to a family of local shopkeepers in working-class Montréal, Jean Duceppe came to the theatre with no formal training and was completely self-taught. He was popular from the late 1940s until his death at the age of 67 in 1990. His career debut was at the Arcade, performing seven days a week. Between 1941 and 1947, he performed in 34 different plays. He appeared in more than 160 plays on radio, television and in films. In 1971, he won an Etrog from the Canadian Film Awards for best performance by lead actor for his role in the film "Mon oncle Antoine".
He hosted radio shows and collaborated on numerous radio and TV series, including the first one broadcast on August 3, 1952 on SRC, "Le Seigneur de Brinqueville". Some of his greatest successes were his portrayals of Willy Loman in "La Mort d'un commis-voyageur" ("Death of a Salesman") and Premier Maurice Duplessis in "Charbonneau et le chef" ("Charbonneau and the Chief"). He founded the "Compagnie de théâtre Jean Duceppe" in 1973. Actor Michel Dumont and Louise Duceppe, one of his daughters, now direct his theatre company.
He supported the Yes option in the first Québec sovereignty referendum in 1980. One of his sons is the Canadian politician and sovereigntist Gilles Duceppe, a supporter of the independence of Quebec from Canada and a former leader of the Bloc Québécois.
In 1979, the Government of Quebec awarded Jean Duceppe the Prix Denise-Pelletier. In 1985, he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.


Grace Henderson Nez

Grace Henderson Nez (May 10, 1913 – July 14, 2006) was a Navajo weaver, known for her traditional designs. Her main styles were old designs from the 19th century and Ganado style. Some of her work was demonstrated at the Hubbell Trading Post, which is home to an archive of works from various Navajo weavers. Before her death in 2006, she was able to win two lifetime achievement awards for her work, including a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Biography.
Grace Henderson Nez was born in 1913 in Ganado, Arizona and died in 2006 in Flagstaff, Arizona. Henderson Nez, her daughter Mary Lee Begay and granddaughters Gloria Begay and Lenah Begay are known for their achievements and quality in Navajo weaving. Henderson Nez was born into the Coyote Pass People Clan for the start of the Red Streaked People Clan on the Navajo Reservation in Ganado, Arizona. On the reservation, she lived in a hogan, which can be in various shapes made out of timber, stone, dirt, and bark. The rising sun brings wealth and good fortune, therefore the doors would face east to better capture it. Navajo families owned sheep as this was their main food source and served many other purposes. The women were tasked with raising the sheep, then at the appropriate time they would use various methods to turn the wool into yarns for weaving.
Henderson Nez's mother and grandmother taught her how to weave at about the age of 5. In her lifetime, Henderson Nez made several rugs. When she was done with one she would sell it and move on to the next rug. Weaving is considered a woman's art form; the income from the sale of a rug would help make the woman in the tribe more independent. Though she followed many of the traditional ways of living, like living in a hogan on the reservation, the modern world was not lost on Henderson Nez. She encouraged her children and grandchildren to attend college in order to attain a higher level of education.
In 1941, Henderson Nez gave birth to her daughter Mary Lee Begay on the Navajo Reservation in Ganado, Arizona. The women carry the tradition of weaving through their generations. They see this as a way to strengthen their relationships and bond over a common art form. Henderson Nez taught her daughter how to weave at about the age of 8, and as Begay got older her mother encouraged her to develop her own style of weaving. Since all women in the family can weave, they will often work on projects together as a family, as another way to bond. Henderson Nez and Begay choose to alter this to help build their identities as separate artists. Another reason they did not collaborate on projects was based on Henderson Nez's desire to keep the peace in her family.
Navajo weaving.
Navajo weavings became popular among Euro-Americans in the late 19th century and early 20th century. In many homes the Navajo rugs were the focal point of the room, the colors and design of the rug helped to establish the color scheme of the room and allow for other decorations to be introduced. For the consumers having a Navajo rug showed their spiritual understanding, for the Navajo women it showed that they could be a part of the white culture. Since the rugs were bought by Euro-Americans, the weavers began to change the styles and colors to better accommodate their preferences.
When you learn how to weave, you also improve many other skills, like self-control, patience, tenacity, making decisions and develop your thinking. One important aspect of Navajo weaving is called the spirit line. This spirit line connects the inside of the rug to the outside enabling the weaver to spiritually move on to the next weaving.
Career.
Her artistic style combined the traditional elements with the more spiritual aspects of life. Her technique was shown in the way she choose the materials and colors going into her rug. Henderson Nez believed that when one had a design in mind and everything was planned, they knew exactly what they wanted to use. She also believed when one was dedicated, independent and hardworking is when they can be great at weaving. Henderson Nez was also a basket weaver, from this her preference for stepped designs developed. She became a part of a small group of women who wove ceremonial baskets. One of the old-style weaving designs she did that was inspired by the ceremonial baskets is still on display at the Hubbell Trading Post.
When Henderson Nez was making rugs they all made Navajo names until later when they started naming them in English. Two styles, in particular, Old styles from the 19th century and Ganado style were the styles she was known for. For the rug to be Ganado style, there must be one diamond in the center or two interlocking diamonds. Deep red, black, gray, white, and every once in awhile brown were the only colors that could be used in this style. Henderson Nez's rugs became famous because of her extreme attention to detail with her vivid geometric designs. More than 150 years ago, Navajo women wove a shoulder blanket, Henderson Nez reproduced this design. There were specific colors in this style that represented certain elements. Black represents darkness, white shows the spiritual side, and red symbolizes the earth. Colors have certain meanings in designs but the loom itself also holds some symbolism. The loom as a whole represents life, the wood the loom is made from represents the earth. The vertically strung warp threads symbolize rainfall and each rug is given a heartbeat by the waft beating into the warp.
Artworks.
"Woman's Chief-Blanket Style Rug" (1988).
These types of blankets were only for people of status or the wealthy due to the fact that the weaver would use finer textiles. The main commonality between these blankets was the color red.
The point of this design was to leave the impression of a perfectly symmetrical but vibrate design.
"Modified Ganado Chief Style Weaving" (1988).
The rug is 72.5 inches by 46 inches, made of commercial wool only some of the wool is dyed that rest is natural wool. There are three red bands and two white and black bands.
"Ganado Wall Hanging" (2004).
This a 24.5 inches by 24.5 inches rug made of dyed red and brown commercial wool.
The design of the rug is Ganado style, this specific design was inspired by the ceremonial baskets she produced with a small group of Navajo women.
Hubbell Trading Post.
Henderson Nez demonstrated her work at the Hubbell Trading Post in the 1970s. Her daughter Mary Lee Begay also demonstrated weaving at the post.
These trading posts were places where Navajo weaving developed and the weavers could get payment for their works. Today, this trading post as well as others, are tourist attractions. The Hubbell Trading Post is located in Ganado, Arizona. Juan Lorenzo Hubbell purchased the trading post in 1878, then it was run by the Hubbell family until 1967. In 1967, the trading post was deemed a National Historic Site and purchased by the National Park Service. Hubbell Trading Post was home to the Hubbell family, their home is now an archive that holds a collection of Navajo weavings. There are 13 Navajo weavers whose works are on display there, including Henderson Nez.


Big Music Fest

Big Music Fest was an annual music festival held in various locations in Southern Ontario, Canada. Belleville hosted every year from 2008 to 2013 with exception of 2011. Wiarton hosted an additional concert in 2009, while Owen Sound held additional concerts in 2010 and 2012. Bobcaygeon was the sole host in 2011. Kitchener was the sole host in 2014 and 2015. An anticipated return in 2016 was cancelled and no announcements have been made for 2017 as of April 4, 2017.
Past acts.
2008.
Big Music Fest 2008 was held June 2008 in East Zwicks Park, Belleville, and drew a crowd of 16,000. The Tragically Hip headlined the festival, and were supported by Sam Roberts Band, Sarah Harmer, Attack in Black, and Five Star Trailer Park.
2009.
Big Music Fest in 2009 saw two concerts for the first time, returning to Belleville and adding a show at the Wiarton-Keppel Airport in Wiarton, Ontario.
Belleville saw 10,000 fans in East Zwicks Park on June 20, this year featuring Theory of a Deadman and Our Lady Peace, with support from Blue Rodeo, Hedley, Jimmy Bowskill, and The Parlor Mob.
The Wiarton concert drew an even larger crowd, with 15,000 people in attendance to see The Tragically Hip, Sam Roberts Band, and Arkells.
2010.
Big Music Fest 2010 again saw two concerts, retaining Belleville but moving the Wiarton show to nearby Owen Sound.
The Belleville show on June 19 featured ZZ Top, with Collective Soul, Finger Eleven, Big Sugar, Gord Downie and the Country of Miracles, Karl Wolf, and Danny Fernandes also performing.
Hedley and Our Lady Peace saw 10,000 people at Big Music Fest 2010, on July 3 in Owen Sound's Kelso Beach Park. The supporting acts included Matthew Good, Finger Eleven, David Wilcox, and Faber Drive, among others.
2011.
Big Music Fest 2011 was held on June 25 in Bobcaygeon, Ontario, and was again headlined by The Tragically Hip who wrote a song named after the town. Supporting acts were Sam Roberts Band, The Trews, and Miss Emily. Approximately 24,500 people attended this year's festival.
The 2011 Belleville and Owen Sound editions were cancelled in April, due to low ticket sales and booking issues. If the concerts had gone ahead, this would have been the first year to see three locations host Big Music Fest.
2012.
Like two years earlier, 2012 held two editions of Big Music Fest. The first was split into two shows, held on June 16 in East Zwicks Park, Belleville. The Belleville afternoon show featured Marianas Trench, who were supported by The New Cities and Dragonette. Three Days Grace headlined the evening show, along with Metric (band), The Sheepdogs, and Arkells. The Belleville Intelligencer estimated attendance of 8,000 people.
The second Big Music Fest of 2012 was held June 30 at Kelso Beach, Owen Sound. As in Belleville, the festival was divided into two shows on one day. The afternoon show saw Down With Webster supported by Carly Rae Jepsen and The New Cities, while the evening show, again led by Three Days Grace, featured The Trews, I Mother Earth, Arkells, and Rival Sons.
2013.
The 2013 edition of Big Music Fest was again held in Belleville at East Zwicks Park. Burton Cumming and Band, Hedley, Counting Crows, The Wallflowers, and Bleeker Ridge performed.
2014.
The 2014 edition of Big Music Fest was held from July 11 to 13 at McLennan Park (Mt. Trashmore) in Kitchener, Ontario for the first time. Aerosmith, Slash featuring Myles Kennedy, Bryan Adams, Styx, Collective Soul, Moist, Big Wreck, Bleeker Ridge and Kim Mitchell performed.
2015.
The 2015 line-up included Soundgarden, Jane's Addiction, Extreme, Monster Truck, Big Sugar, and The Glorious Sons. Rod Stewart and Blondie were planned for an additional night, however poor ticket sales caused cancellation.
2016.
The festival was planned to return for a third year in Kitchener, however was cancelled by the promoter, citing difficulty drawing "a line-up of world-class performers" but fully intending to return in 2017.
2017.
With no announcement for 2017, the Big Music Fest website no longer live and with their Facebook page not having been updated since Aug 2015, it is assumed that Big Music Fest is no longer in operation.


Branscombe lace

Branscombe lace is a type of tape lace made in Branscombe in Devon.
It was probably introduced by John Tucker in the late 1860s as the market for Honiton lace started to decline.
Typical of Branscombe lace are the edging of buttonholed scallops, bars decorated with nibs (tiny buttonholed rings), woven spider wheels and a variety of fillings.


Quambatook (musical)

Quambatook (subtitled The Australian Folk Musical) is a Musical theatre piece written by Australian Simon Heath and John Williamson. It was directed by Bernie Zelvis. The musical is based on the early days of the Williamson family in Quambatook, Victoria, Australia and their quest to see Uluru. Williamson announced the musical in September 2007 Drew Anthony was the choreographer.
It had its world premiere at the Evan Theatre, in Penrith, NSW on 7 February 2008 and received positive audience reaction. The show had a limited 4-show run, ending on 10 February 2008.
Plot.
Quambatook is set in 1955 and tells the story of 11-year-old Johnno who live in the small Victorian farming town of Quambatook. For years, he and his family have happily sat around the radio, listened, sang and played along with songs from "The Silver Haired Showman's" weekly radio show. But ever since Johnno heard the Showman describe his experiences in the Northern Territory at Uluru, he has had only one desire; to see and experience the big red rock for himself. Whether or not they make it to Uluru isn't important, Johnno's Mum tells him in the musical, the fact is "The Joy is in the Journey".
Concept album.
A cast recording album was released in Australia in February 2008.


Simone Mary Bouchard

Simone Mary Bouchard (1912–1945) was a Canadian painter and textile artist. She was known for her primitive style of painting.
Early life.
Simone Mary Bouchard was born in 1912 in Baie-Saint-Paul, Quebec. She began her career creating hooked rugs for the tourist trade. She became acquainted with the anthropologist Marius Barbeau, and his assistant the ethnologist/painter Jean Palardy. Subsequently, Bouchard repaired textiles for Barbeau and produced rugs for Palardy.
Art career.
In 1937 her work was included in and exhibition of North American primitives.
Barbeau and Palardy became aware of Bouchard's paintings, which were naive genre scenes. The men brought her work to the attention of other artists and collectors.
In 1941 Bouchard was included in the "Première exposition des Indépendants" exhibition at Palais Montcalm in Quebec City. This exhibition was organized by Marie-Alain Couturier and included eleven members of the Contemporary Arts Society; Bouchard, Paul-Émile Borduas, Stanley Cosgrove, Louise Landry Gadbois, Eric Goldberg, John Goodwin Lyman, Louis Muhlstock, Alfred Pellan Goodridge Roberts, Jori Smith, and Philip Surrey. The exhibition traveled to Montreal.
The Dominion Art Gallery in Montreal held retrospectives of her work in 1947 and 1952.
Her work is included in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.
Bouchard died in 1945 of a lung ailment.


Terry Griffiths

Terrence Martin Griffiths, (born 16 October 1947) is a retired Welsh snooker player and current snooker coach and pundit. He became World Champion in 1979 at the first attempt becoming the second qualifier to win the title, after Alex Higgins in 1972, and was runner-up in 1988. He reached at least the quarter-finals of the World Championship for nine consecutive years from 1984 to 1992. He also won the Masters in 1980 and the UK Championship in 1982, making him one of only eleven players to have completed snooker's Triple Crown. He was known for his slow, cautious, yet elegant style of play.
Early years.
Griffiths was born in Llanelli on 16 October 1947. He gained a place at a grammar school but was expelled for truancy and then became a student at a secondary modern, where he played rugby union with future Welsh national team members Phil Bennett and Derek Quinnell. Griffiths started playing snooker when he was 14. After leaving school, he worked in a coal mine, and he became the youngest winner of the Llanelli and District snooker championship when he was 16. Griffiths won the West Wales snooker championship, and having changed his employment to become a bus conductor, had more time available to practice snooker. He later worked as a postman, and as an insurance salesman.
At the age of 17, he won the West Wales snooker championship. He compiled his first century break when he was 24, the same year that he first entered the Welsh Amateur Championship, finishing as runner up. He played in the amateur home internationals fourteen times, winning twelve of his matches, and after winning the Welsh Amateur Championship in 1975, gained a place at the 1976 World Amateur Snooker Championship where he reached the quarter-finals Griffiths won the English Amateur Championship in 1977 and 1978 before turning professional on 1 June 1978, having been accepted as a member by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association at its meeting during the 1978 World Snooker Championship. Anticipating his acceptance as a professional, "Snooker Scene" wrote in May 1978 that "his power screws and long potting are second to no one's ... it will not be in the least surprising, if very soon he beomes a serious challenger for Snooker's top professional titles."
Career.
In his first professional match, in the qualifying competition for the 1978 UK Championship, Griffiths lost 8–9 to Rex Williams after leading 8–2. Williams took a 2–1 lead, before Griffiths won the next seven frames, and Williams took the following seven. In the , Griffiths rushed when potting the and went , a shot. Williams later potted the pink to secure victory. After qualifying for the 1979 World Championship, by eliminating Bernard Bennett 9–2 (from 0–2 behind) and Jim Meadowcroft 9–6 (from 6–6), Griffiths defeated second seed Perrie Mans in the first round and Alex Higgins in the quarter-finals. Interviewed after beating Eddie Charlton in a long semi-final, it suddenly occurred to him what he had done, and he said "I'm in the final now, you know!". He eventually beat Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the final, becoming world champion at the first attempt, in only his second tournament as a professional. In the same year he was part of the Welsh team that won the inaugural World Cup of snooker: Ray Reardon, Doug Mountjoy and Griffiths defeated England 14–3 in the final. At the end of 1979, he lost 13–14 to John Virgo in the 1979 UK Championship final.
1980 started well for Griffiths as he won the Masters, beating Alex Higgins 9–5 in front of 2,323 spectators at the Wembley Conference Centre. It was his first appearance at the Masters and turned out to be his only win there. He then won the Irish Masters also at the first attempt, defeating Doug Mountjoy 9–8, but the Crucible curse struck at the World Championship that year, as he lost to Steve Davis in his second round match (which was that year a "first round" for the top eight players, who had byes through to round 2). He and his team-mates retained the World Cup later on in 1980 for Wales, and he again won the Irish Masters in 1981 before losing to eventual winner Steve Davis again in the World Championship.
Griffiths lost 3–16 to Davis in the 1981 UK Championship final in 1981, beginning a six-month period in which he and Davis faced each other in almost every major tournament final. Although Davis had the better of their exchanges, winning three finals, Griffiths triumphed twice, in the Classic in early 1982 and later the Irish Masters (becoming the first player to win three consecutive titles), beating Davis on both occasions (the Classic 9–8 and the Irish Masters 9–5). Unsurprisingly, after Davis was sensationally defeated by Tony Knowles in the first round of the World Championship that year, Griffiths was immediately installed as the bookmakers' favourite for the title. However, a second surprise followed when he lost, also in the first round, to Willie Thorne. At the end of 1982, he won the 1982 UK Championship (which was still a non-ranking event at the time), beating Alex Higgins in a classic 16–15 final.
He never again won a ranking event, although he won several major invitational events: the 1984 Malaysian Masters, where he topped a round robin group (Tony Meo was the runner-up); the 1984 Singapore Masters, where he also topped a round robin group (Davis was the runner-up); the 1985 Hong Kong Masters, where he defeated Davis 4–2; and the 1986 Belgian Classic, where he beat Kirk Stevens 9–7 in the final, in an event featuring eight of the top nine players in that season's world rankings.
Griffiths took the Pot Black title in 1984 and won the Welsh Professional Championship in 1985, 1986 and 1988. He again reached the final of the World Snooker Championship in 1988, defeating Steve Longworth, Willie Thorne, Neal Foulds and Jimmy White, but he lost to old rival Steve Davis 11–18. During the final session of the championship, he accidentally knocked over a globe on the Crucible set, denting part of it with his foot; he was awarded the globe at the end of the match.
By the 1990s, Griffiths had begun to struggle in the rankings, but he still reached the semi-final of the 1992 World Championship, with victories over Bob Chaperon, Neal Foulds and Peter Ebdon before losing to Stephen Hendry. Having lost at the Crucible in 1996 against his old rival Steve Davis (whom he never defeated at the Crucible in seven attempts) in the last 16 (after beating the young Scottish player Jamie Burnett in a final frame decider 10–9 in the first round, having trailed 0–6 and 5–9), he immediately announced his retirement from the game to become the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's Director of Coaching.
Griffiths retired whilst still inside the top 32 and 23rd in the rankings, despite only entering the 1997 World Championship qualifiers in his final season as a professional. Clive Everton wrote that at the time Griffiths was "the only player to retire when his standard was still in touch with the circuit's top players." Griffiths won his qualifying match to play in the main tournament at the Crucible one last time, where he lost in the first round to fellow countryman and debutant Mark Williams, in another final-frame decider, 9–10. During his professional snooker career, Griffiths played a total of 999 frames at the Crucible.
In their book "Masters of the Baize", Luke Williams and Paul Gadsby speculated that Griffiths may have won more tournaments if he had not adjusted his playing technique to try and challenge Davis.
Coaching career.
Griffiths has coached many top players, including Mark Williams, Marco Fu, Mark Allen, Ali Carter, Joe Perry, Barry Hawkins, Ding Junhui, Stephen Hendry and Stephen Maguire. He has said of his coaching that "it used to be a lot of technical stuff years ago - probably 90% on the technical side. Now it's the other way about, perhaps 80-20% on the mental side. He was the Director of Coaching at the South West Snooker Academy. He also frequently commentates on snooker for the BBC. In 2007, Griffiths was awarded an OBE for "services to snooker". In 2021, Griffiths launched "SQ", a handicapping system for snooker.
His son Wayne Griffiths is the head snooker coach at the Hong Kong Sports Institute and has coached women's world champion Ng On-yee.


Chenille fabric

Chenille may refer to either a type of yarn or fabric made from it. Chenille is the French word for caterpillar whose fur the yarn is supposed to resemble.
History.
According to textile historians, chenille-type yarn is a recent invention, dating to the 18th century and believed to have originated in France. The original technique involved weaving a "leno" fabric and then cutting the fabric into strips to make the chenille yarn.
Alexander Buchanan, a foreman in a Paisley fabric mill, is credited with introducing chenille fabric to Scotland in the 1830s. Here he developed a way to weave fuzzy shawls. Tufts of coloured wool were woven together into a blanket that was then cut into strips. They were treated by heating rollers in order to create the frizz. This resulted in a very soft, fuzzy fabric named chenille. Another Paisley shawl manufacturer went on to further develop the technique. James Templeton and William Quiglay worked to refine this process while working on imitation oriental rugs. The intricate patterns used to be difficult to reproduce by automation, but this technique solved that issue. These men patented the process but Quiglay soon sold out his interest. Templeton then went on to open a successful carpet company (James Templeton & Co) that became a leading carpet manufacturer throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Dalton in Northwest Georgia became the tufted bedspread capital of the US thanks to Catherine Evans (later adding Whitener) who initially revived the handcraft technique in the 1890s. Hand-tufted bedspreads with an embroidered appearance became increasingly popular and were referred to as "chenille" a term which stuck. With effective marketing, chenille bedspreads appeared in city department stores and tufting subsequently became important to the economic development of North Georgia, maintaining families even through the Depression era. Merchants organised "spread houses" where products tufted on farms were finished using heat washing to shrink and "set" the fabric. Trucks delivered pattern-stamped sheets and dyed chenille yarns to families for tufting before returning to pay the tufters and collect the spreads for finishing. By this time, tufters all over the state were creating not only bedspreads but pillow shams and mats and selling them by the highway. The first to make a million dollars in the bedspread business, was Dalton County native, B. J. Bandy with the help of his wife, Dicksie Bradley Bandy, by the late 1930s, to be followed by many others.
In the 1930s, usage for the tufted fabric became widely desirable for throws, mats, bedspreads, and carpets, but not as yet, apparel. Companies shifted handwork from the farms into factories for greater control and productivity, encouraged as they were to pursue centralized production by the wage and hour provisions of the National Recovery Administration's tufted bedspread code. With the trend towards mechanization, adapted sewing machines were used to insert raised yarn tufts.
Chenille became popularized for apparel again with commercial production in the 1970s.
Standards of industrial production were not introduced until the 1990s, when the Chenille International Manufacturers Association (CIMA) was formed with the mission to improve and develop the manufacturing processes. From the 1970s each machine head made two chenille yarns straight onto bobbins, a machine could have over 100 spindles (50 heads). Giesse was one of the first major machine manufacturers. Giesse acquired Iteco company in 2010 integrating the chenille yarn electronic quality control directly on their machine. Chenille fabrics are also often used in Letterman jackets also known as "varsity jackets", for the letter patches.
Description.
The chenille yarn is manufactured by placing short lengths of yarn, called the "pile", between two "core yarns" and then twisting the yarn together. The edges of these piles then stand at right angles to the yarn's core, giving chenille both its softness and its characteristic look. Chenille will look different in one direction compared to another, as the fibers catch the light differently. Chenille can appear iridescent without actually using iridescent fibers. The yarn is commonly manufactured from cotton, but can also be made using acrylic, rayon and olefin.
Improvements.
One of the problems with chenille yarns is that the tufts can work loose and create bare fabric. This was resolved by using a low melt nylon in the core of the yarn and then autoclaving (steaming) the hanks of yarn to set the pile in place.
In quilting.
Since the late 1990s, chenille appeared in quilting in a number of yarns, yards or finishes. As a yarn, it is a soft, feathery synthetic that when stitched onto a backing fabric, gives a velvety appearance, also known as imitation or "faux chenille". Real chenille quilts are made using patches of chenille fabric in various patterns and colors, with or without "ragging" the seams.
The chenille effect by ragging the seams, has been adapted by quilters for a casual country look. A quilt with a so-called "chenille finish" is known as a "rag quilt" or, a "slash quilt" due to the frayed exposed seams of the patches and the method of achieving this. Layers of soft cotton are batted together in patches or blocks and sewn with wide, raw edges to the front. These edges are then cut, or slashed, to create a worn, soft, "chenille" effect.
Care.
Many chenille fabrics should be dry cleaned. If hand or machine-washed, they should be machine-dried using low heat, or as a heavy textile, dried flat to avoid stretching, never hung.


Company (Broadway song)

"Company" is the title song from the Broadway musical, "Company". It was written by Stephen Sondheim. The song is the show's introductory song. It is sung by the main character, Robert, and the full company in the first act, and reprised in a curtain call finale.
Motifs.
One of Sondheim's lesser-performed songs, "Company" relies heavily on rhythm and tempo with a simple melody, driven by a rock beat. The motif used throughout the entire score of "Company" debuts here, inspired by a telephone's “busy” signal. [The busy signal is used in recordings of the song]). The “Bobby, Bobby bubi, Robby, Robert darling” motif is a pulse of staccato and repetitive sound voiced by the show's couples—first calling to Robert (the main character) by his legal name, and then by various nicknames and pet names—segueing into conversational exclamations and endearments. Then the entire chorus of “married friends” mutually invite Bobby to “come on over for dinner! We’ll be so glad to see you! Bobby come on over for dinner ... just be the three of us, only the three of us!”
Lyrics.
The song's main body is introduced in Robert's solo. The lyrics he sings describe everyday and comforting things associated with friends or “company:”
Robert's solo segues into the couples reiterating their endearments at length, making appointments with “Robert, Bobby, Robbie darling” for concerts, blind double dates, the opera, exclaiming in chorus the questions and, simultaneously, voicing the many loving concerns typical among friends. And all of this escalates into a drawn-out, breathless “We Looovvveee You,” climaxing as the main character and his “company” echo their mutual sentiments. The couples and their unmarried friend all agree that the labors and gestures affiliated with company are glorious.
Themes.
“Company” is a multi-level choral number, a positive testament to the good things in life. With the exception of hating the opera, no pessimistic or negative sentiment infiltrates the song. The lyrics include “With love filling the days. With love seventy ways.” Typical for a Sondheim opening number since "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum", “Company” sets the tone for a modern musical comedy with a mature theme that is a commentary of his era's adult problems. The entire score follows this song's sentiments. "Company" dissects the cacophony of a room full of chatterers and organizes it into song form.


Mexploitation

Mexploitation (sometimes called Cabrito Western or Mexican video-home) is a film genre of low-budget films that combine elements of an exploitation film and Mexican culture or portrayals of Mexican life within Mexico often dealing with crime, drug trafficking, money and sex.
Mexican narco-cinema.
The Mexican narco-cine (Spanish for narco-cinema) or narco-películas (Spanish for narco-films/narco-movies), are a subgenre of the Mexploitation style films, focused solely on the violence and luxurious lives of drug lords and cartels. The title and the storyline of these films are usually inspired by popular "narco corridos" (drug ballads, drug songs), and are marketed as low budget tie-in merchandising to the narcocorrido songs. Sometimes these films feature famous narco-corrido singers on them, and are rumored to be financed by drug lords themselves. However, only a few such cases have been proven.
Common qualities.
The typical Mexploitation film takes place in major cities and drugs, sex, and crime are nearly always involved. These movies are usually low-budget and are filmed in a couple of weeks. They typically feature one or two B-movie actors in major roles with the rest of the cast being played by unknown actors.
Mexploitation movies made in the 1960s and 1970s in Mexico were closer to their American exploitation film counterparts, with low-budget science-fiction films that often starred Mexican "luchadores" such as El Santo and Huracan Ramirez. However, in the early 1980s and 1990s there was a notable change with films increasingly dealing with real-life issues such as drug cartels and the murders of their rivals. Notable actors in these films include Mario Almada, Hugo Stiglitz, Sergio Goyri, Valentin Trujillo, Jorge Reynoso, Rodolfo de Anda, Fernando Almada, Rosa Gloria Chagoyán and David Reynoso.
The director Robert Rodriguez has been considered a pioneer of Mexploitation in the United States. His first film, "El Mariachi", contains many Mexploitation elements and his 2007 film, "Planet Terror", contained a fake trailer which developed into a feature film called "Machete" (2010), which contains many familiar elements of the genre.
K. Gordon Murray.
An exploitation film producer and distributor named K. Gordon Murray created a unique collection of horror films in Mexico which began to appear on American late-night television and drive-in screens in the 1960s. Ranging from monster movies clearly owing to the heyday of Universal Studios, to the lucha libre horror films featuring El Santo and the "Wrestling Women" alongside the 1959 Christmas classic "Santa Claus", these low-budget films are still notably campy and inspired a small cult following.


Vanities, A New Musical (album)

Vanities, A New Musical contains the songs from the Off-Broadway musical, "Vanities, A New Musical", The album features music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum, and a book by Jack Heifner. It was recorded after the musical's Off-Broadway run. The album was released digitally on December 15, 2009 and physically on February 2, 2010. The album features Anneliese van der Pol as Kathy, Lauren Kennedy as Mary, and Sarah Stiles as Joanne.


Libera Awards


Little Girls (Annie song)

"Little Girls" is a song from the musical "Annie".


Heritage film

Heritage film is a critical term as opposed to a film genre label used by the film industry or filmmakers themselves. It initially referred to a cluster or cycle of late 20th-century British films that were argued to depict the United Kingdom of the pre-World War II decades in a nostalgic fashion. However, this original polemic use has broadened out, and the term is now also used more loosely to refer to period films with high-quality visual production values, including those produced in France, other European countries and beyond.
Many – but not all – 'heritage films' were adapted from classic literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For its critics on the political Left, however, the 'heritage film' was defined more centrally by:
At a time of British industrial decline, stagnant economic growth, political polarisation and social unrest, heritage films were appealing to many because they projected a nostalgic image of Britain as a prosperous, powerful and socially cohesive nation. Many cinematic and televised films focused on the British Empire, particularly the British Raj in India. However, while these films glorify and romanticize, they also provide a critique of the oppressive restrictions of British society and the superiority, arrogance, and controlled manner of the ruling classes. Maurice (1987) and Another Country (1984) were concerned with sexual repression and the intolerance of English society in the early 20th century, while Heat and Dust (1983) and A Passage to India (1984) criticized the ignorance of British authorities in India and the inequities of colonialism. Other critics point out that the representations, themes and perspectives presented in 'heritage films' are varied, not homogeneous, and many of them are romance narratives, suggesting that the pleasures they offer to audiences are more diverse – and less necessarily 'conservative' – than those assumed by their original critics.
Criticism.
The 'heritage film' has been criticised from a socialist perspective for its romanticised portrayal of the past, its emphasis on the bourgeoisie or aristocracy rather than working class, and its fascination with luxurious settings, clothing, and lifestyles. Its critics argued that the films reduced the past to a lavish consumer experience, presenting it as spectacle rather than offering audiences historical or critical understanding. This argument was strongly coloured by the wider, politicised and polarised, debates around British film, culture and society taking place in the Thatcher era, including similar critiques of the heritage industry itself, vehement opposition to Thatcherism among many British filmmakers and other prominent cultural figures, and counter-attacks on ‘anti-Thatcher’ films (almost always, by contrast, set in present-day Britain) by Thatcher’s supporters in the British media.
A further important strand in the critical debate around 'heritage films' argues – from a feminist and pro-LGBT position – that, in contrast with their 'conservative' reputation, many of the films are strongly progressive in their gender and sexual politics. Many of the best-loved 'heritage films' focus on strong and complex female characters (more than many other popular film genres), and some focus directly on the personal struggles, social position, rights of women and LGBT individuals in ways that remain relevant and deeply moving to their contemporary audiences. In short, although the 'heritage film' became popular by providing an escape from the present – particularly in the divided social and political climate of 1980s Britain – the full picture of the films' appeal, politics, and personal value for their audiences is more complex.
Not all British films made since 1980 and set in the historic past are 'heritage films'. The 'heritage film' can be distinguished from period films that take a more self-conscious, less naturalistic, even anachronistic approach to screening narratives set in the past (the 'post-heritage film'); and from those set in more recent decades (usually 1940s onwards) that focus on characters from ordinary or working class social backgrounds, biographical subjects (biopics) and/or popular culture (the 'retro film' or 'alternative heritage film').


David Ansen

David Ansen is an American film critic. He was a senior editor for "Newsweek", where he served as film critic from 1977 to 2008 and subsequently contribute to the magazined in a freelance capacity. Prior to writing for "Newsweek", he served as chief film critic for Boston's "The Real Paper". Ansen appeared in "This Film Is Not Yet Rated".
Ansen has also written several documentaries for television: on Greta Garbo (for TNT), Groucho Marx (HBO), Elizabeth Taylor (PBS), and the Ace Award-winning "All About Bette" (Bette Davis) for TNT. He was on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival from 1990 to 1998.
From 2010 to 2014, he was the artistic director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. In 2015, Ansen was named lead programmer of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
Awards and affiliations.
Ansen is a current or previous member of the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Society of Film Critics, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and is a three-time winner of the Page One Award from the Newspaper Guild of New York.