Fragile Rock

Fragile Rock is an American musical collective of musicians and puppeteers, described as an "emo puppet band." The band formed in Austin, Texas in 2014 as the brainchild of musician and writer Brently Heilbron.
History.
The band's name is a play on "Fraggle Rock", the children's puppet show, as well as a reference to the band's "emo" music. Heilbron plays Milo S., a self-described "partist" (poet and artist). In the back-story of Fragile Rock, Milo forms the band with the only person who auditioned to play guitar, Kyle Danko. They are later joined by drummer Coco Bangs, as well as backing vocalists The Cocteau Triplets (a play on the Cocteau Twins) and Milo's apparent former love interest, Nic Hole. Their live shows often involve S. and Hole getting involved with personal arguments, comically derailing the performance. An ongoing subject of conflict is romance between Nic Hole and actor Elijah Wood. Wood played along in a 2016 appearance at Fantastic Fest, admitting that he was "in love with Nic Hole." The characters of Milo and Nic are loosely based on the real-life relationship of Heilbron and Megan Thornton, who plays Nic.
The puppets were created by Shaun Branigan. A music video directed by Jessica Gardner for the song "I Am Sad (And So Am I)" was released on YouTube in January 2015.
After an initial theatrical run in 2015, the band began playing music venues. They were invited to appear on the reality series "America's Got Talent" in 2016 but their appearance was never aired. This experience was documented in the article entitled "Brutality Television" for the Austin Chronicle. The attention from this, however, earned them a spot in the official South by South West 2017 lineup. Bob Boilen featured Fragile Rock as a post-festival highlight in a podcast for "All Songs Considered".
Fragile Rock released their debut EP, "Weepy", in February 2017. It was followed by the release of their debut studio album, "Wake Up to the Break-Up", in June. In July, the band appeared on NPR as a part of the Tiny Desk Concert series. The final song of the performance was "Fairuza Balk," a track from the album named after the American actress. In response to the performance, Balk tweeted that the dedication "made [her] year," calling the performance "wonderful an [sic] hilarious."
In 2018, Fragile Rock returned to South by Southwest as an official showcasing artist where they were voted one of the top 10 acts to see at the festival by Yahoo! music They returned in 2019, playing NPR's Tiny Desk showcase with Wyclef Jean, Amanda Palmer Gaelynn Lea and Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso. "Variety" noted them in their "Best Music We Saw at SXSW" article. After SXSW, Fragile Rock was referred to as "the perfect festival act". In 2019, they were named by NPR as one of the Top 5 Most Uplifting Tiny Desk Concerts of all time in a list that includes Lizzo, Superorganism (band), Dan Deacon, and Mucca Pazza. In 2020, NPR also named the band one of the Top 5 Funniest Tiny Desk Concerts of all time in a list which included "Weird Al" Yankovic and Reggie Watts.


Stripweave

Stripweave is a textile technique in which large numbers of thin strips of cloth are sewn together to produce a finished fabric. Most stripweave is produced in West Africa from handwoven fabric, of which the example best known internationally is the kente cloth of Ghana.
The earliest evidence of this traditional technique dates to the eleventh century among the Tellem people of Mali.
Materials.
Cotton, silk, and rayon are the usual fibers for stripweave garment production. Traditionally these were hand spun, although machine spun synthetics are coming into increasing use. Wool is also in use for stripweave blankets by the Fulani people in Mali.


Chicago Shakespeare Theater

Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) is a non-profit, professional theater company located at Navy Pier in Chicago, Illinois. Its more than six hundred annual performances performed 48 weeks of the year include its critically acclaimed Shakespeare series, its World's Stage touring productions, and youth education and family oriented programming. The theater had garnered 77 Joseph Jefferson awards and three Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2008, it was the winner of the Regional Theatre Tony Award.
Founded in 1986 in a pub, in 1999 the CST moved to a purpose-built seven-story theater complex on Navy Pier, where it has a main 500 seat space called the Courtyard, and the 200 seat Theater Upstairs. In 2017, it expanded on the pier into a connected three-theater-campus with the addition of The Yard, a flexible space that allows for versatile arrangements from 150 seats to 850 seats and from proscenium to in-the-round.
Background.
The company's present artistic director Barbara Gaines founded the theater in 1986, when it began performances on the roof of the Red Lion Pub in the city's Lincoln Park neighborhood. In 1999, the company received permission to build its permanent home: a two-venue facility at Navy Pier.
Productions at the theater include works from the Shakespearean canon as well as other plays and musicals. In addition to its own original productions, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater also hosts touring productions from other theater companies.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater is part of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America (STAA) and National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).
History.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater was founded as the Chicago Shakespeare Workshop by current Artistic Director Barbara Gaines in 1986, a name which was changed a year later to the Chicago Shakespeare Repertory and finally in 1999 to Chicago Shakespeare Theater. It performed its first twelve seasons in residency at the Ruth Page Theater, where it performed titles ranging from better-known Shakespeare plays such as "Hamlet" and "King Lear" as well as lesser-known titles such as "Troilus and Cressida" and "Timon of Athens". Although the theater was critically lauded for its innovative approach to classic works, it was limited by the age and spatial restrictions of the Ruth Page Theater and began looking for a new performance space in the late 1990s.
In 1997, CST announced its plans to move from the Ruth Page to a new facility located at Navy Pier, a place better known for its family attractions and in fact the most popular tourist attraction in the Midwest. The move was accompanied by a public relations blitz, which even involved Mayor Richard M. Daley naming April 23, 1997 Shakespeare Repertory Day. The company began a large-scale capital campaign to finance the move, and opened its 1999-2000 season in its new, state-of-the-art facility. Since then, CST has grown from the third-largest theater company in Chicago to the third-largest in the entire Midwest, at a rate 400% faster than the industry growth trend.
Facilities.
Chicago Shakespeare Theater has, since October 1999, been in residence in a purpose built, seven-story, facility at Chicago's Navy Pier, which houses its box office, administrative offices, and performance venues. The first performance at this facility was Eric Idle reading from his novel, "The Road to Mars".
The 510-seat Courtyard Theater, which is the primary production venue for CST, features state-of-the-art technology and acoustics together with a versatile thrust stage and deep proscenium, that create a flexible performance space. A second theater, the 200-seat black box "Upstairs" space, is devoted to smaller but still-popular productions such as The Second City's smash hit, "Romeo and Juliet Musical: The People Vs. Friar Laurence, The Man Who Killed Romeo and Juliet".


Jeanie Deans (song)

"Jeanie Deans" is a song which celebrates Jeanie Deans, the heroine of Sir Walter Scott's 1818 novel, "The Heart of Midlothian". It was probably performed in music halls around the end of the 19th century as it is found in a 'broadsheet' of that period. Its musical accompaniment is not given.


Secular music

Non-religious secular music and sacred music were the two main genres of Western music during the Middle Ages and Renaissance era. The oldest written examples of secular music are songs with Latin lyrics. However, many secular songs were sung in the vernacular language, unlike the sacred songs that followed the Latin language of the Church. These earliest types were known as the chanson de geste (song of deeds) and were popular amongst the traveling jongleurs and minstrels of the time.
The largest collection of secular music from this period comes from poems of celebration and chivalry of the troubadours from the south of France. These poems contain clever rhyme-schemes, varied use of refrain-lines or words, and different metric patterns. The minstrels of this time were not themselves poets or composers. Instead they adapted the compositions of others to sing, play, and dance to in their own unique versions. Other styles included love songs, political satire, dances, chansons, and dramatic works.
According to Grout's "A History of Western Music" (1996), common musical instruments of this time period included: harps, imported to continental Europe from Ireland and Britain sometime before the ninth century; Vielle, a prototype of the Renaissance viol and modern viola with five strings, one of which was a drone, popular amongst the jongleurs to accompany their singing and recitations; Organistrum, a three-stringed instrument similar to the vielle but played by the turning of a crank, with strings ‘stopped by a set rods instead of the player’s fingers); and Psaltery, a type of zither played by plucking or ‘striking’ the strings, which frequently appears in medieval art. The most common wind instruments included both recorder and transverse style flutes; the reeded Shawms, a precursor to the oboe; trumpets and bagpipes.
Drums, harps, recorders, and bagpipes were the instruments of choice when performing secular music due to ease of transportation. Jongleurs and minstrels learned their trade through oral tradition.
Composers like Josquin des Prez wrote sacred and secular music. He composed 86 highly successful secular works and 119 sacred pieces. Secular music also was aided by the formation of literature during the reign of Charlemagne that included a collection of secular and semi-secular songs. Guillaume de Machaut was another example of a leading composer who continued the trouvere tradition.


Angela Su

Angela Su is a Hong Kong artist known for her scientific drawings and her performance works. In 2014, Su was featured in "Art Radar" on a list of influential Asian female artists making an impact on the international art stage.
Biography.
Angela Su was born during the 1970s in Hong Kong. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in biochemistry in 1990 and from the Ontario College of Art with a visual arts degree in 1994. Her works have been exhibited in the Second CAFAM Biennale, the 17th Biennale of Sydney, at the Saatchi Gallery and the Whitechapel Gallery in London.
Selected works.
"Mesures et Démesures", (2015).
"Mesures et Démesures" is a six-minute video that begins with images of flowers with a background soundtrack of a regular tapping sound. It consists of pictures of late-19th century psychiatrists, Jean-Martin Charcot, and the tests that he conducted on a patient who suffered from hysteria, a socially constructed disease that led to misuses of medical care and unjustified discrimination.
"Hong Kong Bestiary", (2015).
The exhibition contains various animals' paintings and focuses on the relationship between humans and animals. Although humans consider animals as living creatures, there are characteristics that define a human and animal differently, but there are resemble between the two. In the exhibition, it is portrayed that the human starts to take advantage of the animals. They intentionally use of the animals' image to solve social, moral, environmental and political issues since the animals cannot speak and fight back. The artworks aim to bring out the underlying thoughts of the animals and let the animals speak to the human.
"Methods of Art", (2015).
"Methods of Art" is a one-minute video that was created in response to an artist interview conducted by curator Johannes Hedinger for his project "Methods of Art" (MoA), an international video archive of artist interviews initiated in 2013 in Germany. At the beginning of the video, Su is caught into a hut by a man. Then it starts broadcasting a speech recorded by Su, in which she apologizes for wasting the audience's time to watch her video and her meaningless artworks, which has a lack of wit, absurdity, humor and urgency.
"Hartford Girl and other stories", (2014).
"Hartford Girl and other stories" is a combination of an 11 minute 35 second video and six photographic prints. The work is a multilayered narrative documenting the process of creating the complex, inkless tattoo, composed of 39 lines or "slashes" of text, written freehand on the artist's back. The tattoo refers to the biblical account of the number of lashes received by Jesus prior to his crucifixion. "The Hartford Girl and Other Stories", Su further probes this subject of the experience felt by the human body. This video uses both in the video voiceover and in the text inscribed in the tattoo to be the word's narrative. For the tattoo, those are some prayers that are never completely legible to the audience, indicate an abstraction of the veiled search for forgiveness and recovery. About the video narration, it can clarify the feeling of Hartford Girl and descript the fictional character, random fact, newspaper's report, lyrics and actual self-harmers' testimonies.
If the two main property of tattoo are taken away, then the tattoo is no longer for permanent and decorative. There leaving only painful. "Hartford Girl and other stories" further probes this theme of feeling perception of human body. Also, it focus to the self-mutilation carry out in present culture, and the complicate meaning that exist inside the mental and the body.
"In Berty We Trust!", (2013).
In her show, Su focuses on a theme of sadomasochism. Su's presented her artworks with animation, ink on drafting film and a book related to a machine named Berty. It was a new illustrated book presented with a set of drawings and a video animation of machine-body hybrids. It told a story of a factory worker who became a serial killer, was raped by a machine and gave birth to an abnormal child. The idea is about the extreme effects caused by over-dependence on technology. The book included Su's drawings, a postscript by the artist Nadim Abbas and an 18,000-word novella created by her Asia Art Archive colleague Mary Lee.
"BwO", (2011).
"BwO", or "Body without Organs" is an idea introduced by Gilles Deleuze to describe a virtual body without stable structures. In her drawings, Su used the concept of pain to influence our organic sensory and to break down the establishment so as to demonstrate the state of "dis-organization". She described the body in an extremely meticulous way, even blood and anatomies were included in her drawing. Su hoped to express her thinking on pleasure in pain by presenting her painful objects and human organs abreast. The contradiction between the painting and the hidden meaning of the drawings challenged the audiences' aesthetic standards, sense of beauty, and underlying desire.
Since 2010, Su has begun adding anatomical components and fantastical instruments into her art series. The artworks were first exhibited at a solo show at Grotto Fine Art in 2011. Simple tools were the main theme of the show. The group of work was combines into a series of machine. At first, Su has started to draw a tool which was a scissor. Then, the drawings have been transformed into some complicated machines. At the end, an assembly line appeared.
The idea of the assembly line was presented in a form of animation which was shown in a dark room at the exhibition. The sound of the work was trying to deliver the concept of "endless torture" and hint the audiences about one of Su's favorite films by creating a mood that was similar to David Lynch's "Eraserhead". In the collection, torture machines, human flesh, apparatus are organs were shown. The artworks were exhibited in topographical perspective in order to make them look like the pages in an old textbook. All drawings were in single black ink and pastel on the drafting film.
"One woman apartment", (2008).
It is a failed project that was due to take place in 2008 but Su abandoned it to volunteer with an NGO.
"Paracelsus' Garden", (2008).
The exhibition consisted of ink drawings and embroideries. For the ink drawings, Su showed her thoughts on the human skeleton in raw anatomical renderings. Her embroideries were presented with juxtaposition and design. Su brought dreams and alchemy together to form a mysterious vision of nature and the human existence. Su combined her biological background with compositions in putting elements of alchemical and fantasy nature together. Her collection contained flowers, insects, and human figure. They aimed to present a personal response to the symbolic, iconic and figural self.
"Fascinations", (2005).
This exhibition was a collaborative work created by four artists, Suki Chan, Melanie Jackson, Leung Meeping and Angela Su. The artwork inquires ideas of collective memory, migration, labor, or race. The main idea of the project reflects to the definition of "fascination". All four artworks records indistinct or personal narratives through different mediums which included fabric, film, video, photography and sound to investigate a scope of human interactions or contentions.
"Microviolence", (2003).
In April 2003, during the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, a woman dialed the major Chinese organizations in Toronto and proposed a comment to blame the local Chinese. She thought they have lived like rats and eaten like pigs, and the dirty disease was spread by them.
In order to trigger the discussion about this kind of racial discrimination, Su took the original statement made by that woman and presented each letter within the sentence as bacteria cultures. The artwork does not reveal whether it agrees with the discrimination to the Chinese or not. It provides rooms of imagination and judgement to the audiences.
"De Humani Corporis Fabrica" (2002).
"De Humani Corporis Fabrica" was a series with seven books written by Andreas Vesalius. It was first published in 1543. He precisely illustrated different parts of the human body which then facilitated the development of scientific anatomy.
With the same title, the exhibition proposed to explain the human body by combining the scientific expression with artistic representation. In the art show, science and visual art are combined together to produce new images about the symbolic comprehension of the body.


Beyond Hypothermia (film)

Beyond Hypothermia () is a 1996 Hong Kong action film directed by Patrick Leung, co-produced by Johnnie To, and starring Jacklyn Wu and Sean Lau.
Plot.
Woo Chin Lin plays a brilliantly skilled hitwoman, Shu Li Fan, who for most of the movie has no name. She also has no family or friends, and for reasons not entirely clear, has a lower than average body temperature. She was rescued as a child from war-ravaged Cambodia, and raised by Mei (Shirley Wong), who is the widow of an assassin. Mei teaches the child the only thing she knows that connects her to the world: contract killing. Shu Li Fan's victims are as mysterious to her as she is to herself. However, during one of her hits she makes a sworn enemy of a Korean killer (Han Sang Woo.) There is one small ray of hope in her grim life, and that is the beginnings of a love affair with a simple and sweet-natured noodle vendor Long Shek (Hong Kong actor Lau Ching Wan.)


Francis Crossley

Sir Francis Crossley, 1st Baronet, of Halifax (Halifax, 26 October 1817 – 5 January 1872), known to his contemporaries as Frank Crossley, was a British carpet manufacturer, philanthropist and Liberal Party politician. He was founder of the company Crossley Carpets.
Background.
His parents were Martha (d. 1854) and John Crossley (d. 1837), who was a carpet manufacturer at Dean Clough Mills, Halifax. He was one of eight children. His older brother, John, was also an MP for Halifax, from 1874 to 1877.
Trade.
The fifth and youngest son, Francis, was sent to school at Halifax; while still a schoolboy his pocket money was made dependent on his own work. A loom was set up for him in his father's mill, on which he spent the time not spent at school.
The carpet manufactory at Dean Clough was commenced by John Crossley in a small way, but it became, under the management of John Crossley, jun., Joseph Crossley, and Francis Crossley, who constituted the firm of J. Crossley & Sons, the largest concern of its kind in the world. Its buildings covered an area of , and the firm gave employment to between five and six thousand. Its rapid growth was by application of steam power and machinery to the production of carpets. The Crossley firm acquired patents and then devised and patented improvements which placed them in advance of the rest of the trade. One loom, the patent of which became their property, was found capable of weaving about six times as much as could be produced by the old hand loom. Manufacturers of tapestry and Brussels carpets applied to Messrs. Crossley for licences to work their patents, and large sums accrued to them from royalties alone.
In 1864 the concern was changed into a limited liability company, and a portion of the shares in the new company were offered to workers under favourable conditions.
Politics.
Crossley was elected in the liberal interest as MP for Halifax, 8 July 1852; he sat for the borough until 1859, when he became the member for the West Riding of Yorkshire. On the division of the riding in 1868 he was returned for the northern division, which he continued to represent to the time of his death.
Philanthropy.
His first major gift to Halifax consisted in the erection of twenty-one almshouses in 1855, with an endowment which gave six shillings a week to each person.
On his return from America in 1855 he announced his intention to present the people of Halifax with a park, and on 15 August 1857 this park was opened. It consists of more than of ground, laid out from designs by Sir Joseph Paxton and Edward Milner. With a sum of money invested for its maintenance in 1867, it cost the donor £41,300.
About 1860, with his brothers John and Joseph, Crossley began the erection of an orphan home and school on Skircoat Moor. This was completed at their sole united cost, and endowed by them with a sum of £3,000 a year; it was designed for the maintenance of children who had lost one or both parents, and had accommodation for four hundred. (It was one of the predecessors of Crossley Heath Grammar School, established 1985.) In 1870 he founded a loan fund of £10,000 for the benefit of deserving tradesmen of Halifax, and in the same year presented to the London Missionary Society the sum of £20,000, the largest donation the society had ever received. About the same period he gave £10,000 to the Congregational Pastors' Retiring Fund, and the same sum towards the formation of a fund for the relief of widows of congregational ministers.
Personal life.
He married, on 11 December 1845, Martha Eliza, daughter of Henry Brinton of Kidderminster, by whom he had an only son, Savile Crossley, second baronet, MP successively for Lowestoft and for Halifax. He was the author of "Canada and the United States," a lecture, 1856. Savile was to become a prominent Liberal Unionist politician and was created Baron Somerleyton in 1916.
Crossley was mayor of Halifax in 1849 and 1850, and purchased Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk in 1862 from Morton Peto.
He was created a baronet on 23 January 1863. After a long illness he died at Bellevue, Halifax, 5 January 1872, and was buried in the general cemetery on 12 January. His will was proved 27 May 1872, when the personalty was sworn under £800,000.


Wilton, Wiltshire

Wilton is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire (of which it was once the county town), England, with a rich heritage dating back to the Anglo-Saxons. Carpets have been manufactured at Wilton since the 18th century. Today it is overshadowed by its larger neighbour, Salisbury, but retains a range of shops and attractions including Wilton House and a large Romanesque parish church.
The confluence of the rivers Wylye and Nadder is at Wilton.
History.
The history of Wilton dates back to the Anglo-Saxons in the 8th century AD, and by the late 9th century it was the capital of "Wiltunscire", a shire of the Kingdom of Wessex. It remained the administrative centre of Wiltshire until the 11th century. Wilton was of significant importance to the church, with the founding of Wilton Abbey in AD 771 amongst other establishments. In AD 871 Alfred the Great fought and lost an important battle here against the Danish armies, leaving him in retreat for several years.
Despite further attacks, Wilton remained a prosperous town, as recorded in the Domesday book. The building of Salisbury Cathedral nearby, however, caused Wilton's decline, as the new site of Salisbury, with a new bridge over the River Avon, provided a convenient bypass around Wilton on the trade routes.
Wilton Abbey was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and in 1541 much of the estate was granted to Earl William Herbert of Pembroke, who began to build Wilton House.
An outbreak of smallpox in 1737 killed 132 people.
Wilton had two railway stations. One (later known as ) was opened by the Great Western Railway in 1856 on their line from Westbury to Salisbury, and another (later known as ) was opened by the Salisbury and Yeovil Railway in 1859 on the West of England Main Line from London to Exeter. The arrival of the railways led to increased prosperity. The stations closed in 1955 and 1966 respectively; the nearest is now at .
Carpet making.
By the 17th century, weaving had become a busy trade, and the carpet industry began in 1741 when two French weavers were brought in by Earl Henry Herbert of Pembroke to teach the local people new skills. Carpet weaving prospered until 1815, when peace following the Napoleonic Wars introduced European competition. Machinery to produce Axminster carpets was installed in 1835. The Wilton Royal Carpet Factory was founded at the turn of the century, with the help of the then Lord Pembroke, to rescue the previous carpet factory that had fallen into financial difficulty. The factory continued to operate until 1995, when it closed temporarily after a takeover. The factory re-opened, although it was unable to retain the Wilton Royal prefix.
Military connections.
The headquarters of Land Forces (and predecessors) was at Erskine Barracks, northeast of Wilton, from 1949 to 2010. After the headquarters moved to Marlborough Lines near Andover the site was sold for housing.
Governance.
The boundaries of the modern civil parish originate with the Borough of Wilton, defined in 1885. The parish includes the villages of Bulbridge and Ditchampton. In 1894 Wilton absorbed the western part of the neighbouring parish of Fugglestone St Peter, the rest going into a new parish of Bemerton.
The parish elects a town council. It is in the area of Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for all significant local government functions. Wilton is in the 'Wilton and Lower Wylye' electoral division, which stretches north from Wilton to South Newton. The total division population taken at the 2011 census was 4,806.
Parish church.
The Grade I listed Church of England parish church of St Mary and St Nicholas was built as a replacement for St Mary's Church between 1841 and 1844 at the instigation of the Countess Alexina Sophia Gallot of Pembroke and her younger son Sidney Herbert. It was designed by the architect Thomas Henry Wyatt in Romanesque Revival style, with considerable Byzantine influences. For a small town, the church is enormous, representing the wealth of its benefactors.
The church has a campanile. Many of the materials used in the church's construction were imported from Europe, including marble columns from Italy and 12th and 13th century stained glass from France.


Sensation (event)

Sensation is an indoor electronic dance music event which originated in Amsterdam, Netherlands and organized by ID&T. The original event, which ran exclusively in the Amsterdam Arena for a period of five years until 2005, is now located throughout various European and a few non-European countries.
History.
In 2000 and 2001 there were single events simply known as Sensation. Later Sensation was expanded into two annual events known as Sensation Black and Sensation White. This was done to differentiate the music and feeling more than would have been possible if it were one event. Sensation Black focuses more on 'darker' music, like Hardstyle and Hardcore, whereas Sensation White focuses more on trance music. Every year, Sensation also releases two doublediscs (Black and White) and two singles they call the Anthem. 2008 the names of both events have been changed: "Sensation" (formerly "Sensation White"), and "Black" (formerly "Sensation Black").
The first edition of Sensation, in 2000, did not sell out. The media announced that it was sold out in order to boost interest in the event, which eventually attracted 20,000 people. In this first edition, the DJs only used one side of the Amsterdam Arena as the stage. Later editions have the stage in the middle. This Sensation was the only one that did not have a dress code. All subsequent editions of Sensation White have sold out, usually well in advance (usually all 45,000 tickets are sold in a few hours). Sensation Black has not been as successful, but is usually either close to selling out, or sold out a few days before the event.
In 2005, Sensation White was also held in Belgium and Germany. In 2006, ID&T started Sensation International, an international tour, based on the simplified version which could be seen in the Amsterdam ArenA, in 2005. The first edition was held in the Antwerp Sportpaleis. In 2008 Sensation White was held at SCC Peterburgsky in Saint Petersburg, and a New Year version was held at the Telstra Dome in Melbourne on 31 December 2008 (38,380 attendance). Sensation White's new anthem put place in 2014 is "Tremor" by Martin Garrix, and Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Sensation White's official slogan is "Be part of the night, dress in white".
In 2017, it was announced that July's event was to be the last Sensation to take place in Amsterdam, with all future editions to be held outside of Holland. Titled 'The Final', the last Amsterdam event took place on Saturday 8 July (breaking with the tradition of always taking place on the first Saturday of July) and attracted a sold-out capacity crowd of over 50,000 party people. At the time of writing (July 2017) it's not clear how much longer the Sensation brand will continue outside of Holland, but there are parties booked toward the end of 2017 in Australia, Jakarta and Dubai.
Sensation (formerly known as Sensation White).
Sensation White used to be a trance event, but in later years it became a pure house event. All the attendees are required to wear white and the Amsterdam ArenA itself is decorated to match. Sensation White's slogan is "Be Part Of The Night – Dress in White". Every event has around 40,000–45,000 tickets available. The Amsterdam ArenA event takes place every year on the first Saturday in July while the German event in the LTU Arena in Düsseldorf is held on New Year's Eve. In 2009 it was organized for the first time on two subsequent nights on 3 and 4 July in the Amsterdam Arena where the opening of the Wicked Wonderland took place.
Notable DJs that have appeared at Sensation include Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, Swedish House Mafia, Hardwell, Marnix Bal, Martin Garrix, Nicky Romero, Afrojack, André Tanneberger, Darren Emerson (formerly of Underworld), David Guetta, NERVO, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Erick E, Erick Morillo, Ferry Corsten, Marco V, Paul van Dyk, Sven Väth, Johan Gielen, Sander Kleinenberg, Steve Angello, Fedde Le Grand, Sebastian Ingrosso, Sander van Doorn, Mason, Felix Da Housecat, Chuckie, Laidback Luke, Tocadisco, Rank 1, DJ Jean, Judge Jules, Carl Cox, Martin Solveig and Dada Life.
The event has recently been criticized by trance fans who think there is too much house and electro and too few trance DJs in the recent events. However, in the eyes of the organizers, the popularity of trance has been receding in the past few years, and therefore Sensation White has adapted to this by altering its programming to add house and electro house. Nonetheless, the popularity of trance and indeed the DJs associated with the genre still seem to be a major force in Europe. Trance Energy, with over 30,000 people, has been selling out faster than ever before. In the 2008 edition of Sensation, there was only one trance DJ present in the line-up: Marco V. In 2009, trance was left out completely in favor of house (classics) and techno, however the music of the 2009 Amsterdam event turned out to be more trance like again.
In 2010, Sensation, to enforce the notion that they are now a House event, came up with the theme "Celebrate Life with House". It featured performances by Chuckie, Swedish House Mafia, Sunnery James and Ryan Marciano, and Joris Voorn & 2000 And One. The event became exclusively a party for house music. This change in genre caused that for the first time since 2000, the tickets did not sell out the same day they went on sale, as audiences are much more demanding. In the end, about 35,000 people attended the festival held 3 July. To create interest in the now House event, Sensation came up with a contest where the fans, via the social networks, would vote for their favorite theme and make it the anthem for 2010. The competing songs, featuring a selection of house and minimal themes, were not well received by Sensation followers and the competition was eventually cancelled. During the main event in Amsterdam, Sensation decided to go back to its origins, by playing their trademark anthem "Superstring", reminding its fans that although it is now a House event, it stays true to its origins as promulgated by Ron Manager and the Three Musketeers.
BLACK (formerly known as Sensation Black).
BLACK slowly builds up the pace, starting from hard trance, hardstyle and then hardcore. Sensation Black is always held in the second weekend of July. All attendees are required to dress completely in black.
Notable DJs that have appeared at Sensation Black include Showtek, Angerfist, Headhunterz, Marcel Woods, Chris Liebing, DJ Lady Dana, DJ Luna, DJ Zany, The Prophet, Technoboy, Tommyknocker, Yoji Biomehanika and Mauro Picotto.
An incident occurred at Sensation Black in 2006, where DJ Rob Gee and his live band Ampt performed at the event against the recommendations of the majority of ID&T's staff, and were subsequently booed and catcalled during the performance, which was more rock/metal oriented. Slight mayhem ensued as a member of the audience climbed onto the stage and hit Rob Gee himself and was then repeatedly kicked and punched in the head by Rob and his band. The rest of Rob Gee's performance was cancelled and ID&T's manager, Duncan Stutterheim, later acknowledged his mistake in allowing Rob Gee to perform against the wishes of his employees.
The 2009 edition of BLACK was not held in the Netherlands, but only in Belgium because ID&T is looking for a better location.
Additionally Sensation (formerly known as "Sensation White") was held on two subsequent nights in the Amsterdam ArenA in 2009, but will be sharing one of the two available night licences for the Amsterdam ArenA in 2010 with the one time replacement of BLACK called the "Feestfabriek" from ID&T's sister organisation Q-dance.


Anysound

"Anysound" is a rock song by The Vines from their 2006 album "Vision Valley". The song's video, directed by Michel Gondry, involves puppets. It was played in episode 21 in season 3 of "The O.C." It has also appeared in "".


The Pussycat Dolls

The Pussycat Dolls are an American girl group and dance ensemble, founded in Los Angeles, California, by choreographer Robin Antin in 1995 as a burlesque troupe. At the suggestion of Jimmy Iovine, Antin decided to take the burlesque troupe mainstream as a pop group. Antin negotiated a record deal with Interscope Geffen A&M Records in 2003 turning the group into a music franchise comprising Nicole Scherzinger, Carmit Bachar, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta, Melody Thornton, and Kimberly Wyatt. Their debut single, "Sway", was featured on the soundtrack of the 2004 film "Shall We Dance?"
The Pussycat Dolls achieved worldwide success with internationally successful singles "Don't Cha", "Stickwitu", "Buttons", and their multi-platinum debut album "PCD" (2005). However, despite their commercial success, the group was plagued by internal conflict due to the emphasis on Scherzinger, the group's lead vocalist, and the subordinate treatment of the other members. Bachar's departure from the group preceded the release of their second and final studio album "Doll Domination" (2008), which contains hit singles "When I Grow Up", "I Hate This Part", and "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)". Following the completion of their 2009 world tour, the group went on hiatus and fully disbanded in 2010. The original recording line-up, minus Thornton, announced their reunion in 2019 with an upcoming tour and a new album.
The Pussycat Dolls brand diversified into merchandise, reality television programs, a Las Vegas act, product endorsements, spin-off recording groups (Girlicious, Paradiso Girls, G.R.L.), and other ventures. "Billboard" ranked the Pussycat Dolls as the 80th most successful musical act of the 2000s. The group has sold 55 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. In 2012, the Pussycat Dolls ranked 100th on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music, and as the tenth all-girl group.
History.
1995–2002: Beginnings as burlesque dance troupe.
Antin began exploring the idea of a modern burlesque troupe during 1990 with Carla Kama and Christina Applegate as performers. The troupe began to perform in 1995, with a repertoire of 1950s and 1960s popular music standards while dressed in lingerie or old-fashioned pin-up costumes. They secured a Thursday night residency at a Los Angeles nightclub, the Viper Room, where they stayed from 1995 to 2001. They appeared briefly in the 1998 films "Matters of Consequence" (dancing to Mancini's "", and Keely Smith's "When Your Lover has Gone"), and "The Treat" (directed by Jonathan Gems). From 1995 to 2003 there were numerous guest vocalists, and many changes to the dance personnel.
The troupe received wider press coverage during June 1999, when "Playboy" featured a Pussycat Dolls pictorial, featuring at least seven contemporary members posing semi-nude (Kasey Campbell, Kiva Dawson, Antonietta Macri, Erica Breckels, Katie Bergold, Erica Gudis and Lindsley Allen). Three years later, the Pussycat Dolls moved to the Roxy. They were featured in magazines, television specials for MTV and VH1, ad campaigns, and films. Some of the Pussycat Dolls appeared in the 2003 film "", dancing to Mancini's "The Pink Panther Theme". They were also featured in Pink's "Trouble" music video. Along with Applegate, Christina Aguilera and Carmen Electra (who was the group's lead performer for many of their shows) the troupe was featured in a "Maxim" magazine shoot in 2002, which increased public interest in them (Aguilera later appeared in the similarly themed 2010 film "Burlesque" directed by Robin Antin's brother Steve).
Following their growing popularity, Interscope Geffen A&M Records music producers Jimmy Iovine and Ron Fair became involved with the group helping them to transform into a franchise after Gwen Stefani was asked to perform with the group. The former dance troupe evolved into a popular music recording group and became employees of Iovine's label Interscope Records. The only troupe members who remained after the re-casting process were Robin Antin, Carmit Bachar, Cyia Batten, Kasey Campbell, Ashley Roberts, Jessica Sutta and Kimberly Wyatt. Electra, when asked about her lack of involvement with the group's evolution into a popular music group, said, "I was part of [the Pussycat Dolls] for over two years and did every show with them [...] but financially, I couldn't become part of their new music project [...] It was a sacrifice I couldn't make."
2003–2007: Recording group formation and "PCD".
During 2003, Antin struck a joint venture with Interscope Records to develop the Pussycat Dolls into a brand, with Jimmy Iovine assigning the project to Ron Fair. Auditions followed suit, for a separate group which would not include celebrity members. Singers Nicole Scherzinger, Melody Thornton and Kaya Jones were recruited, joining Bachar, Roberts, Sutta, Wyatt, Batten, Campbell and Antin to form a new recording group. In February 2004, they performed "Big Spender" live at the MTV Asia Awards. In 2004, they recorded "We Went as Far as We Felt Like Going" for the "Shark Tale" soundtrack and recorded the single, "Sway" which is featured on the soundtrack of "Shall We Dance?" The group briefly reunited with Electra for a guest performance at "VH1 Divas 2004" where they performed "Tainted Love", "You Can Leave Your Hat On" (with Tom Jones) and "Girls on Film" before joining the headliners in a finaled of "New Attitude" alongside Patti LaBelle. Kaya Jones left the group in September 2004, while Batten and Campbell left in January 2005. Antin would eventually shift into a strictly managerial and creative role.
The group's debut album, "PCD", was released in September 2005 and sold three million copies in the United States. The album's lead single, "Don't Cha", was a number-one hit in various countries worldwide, and reaching number two on the US "Billboard" Hot 100. It was followed by "Stickwitu", which became their second number-one single in the UK and New Zealand, and reached number five on the Hot 100. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. "Beep" also became a hit, reaching number one in Belgium and New Zealand, number two in the UK, and number thirteen in the US. The group became one of the top-selling artists in 2006, while the album appeared at number twelve on the "Billboard" 200-year-end chart that year.
The group was selected to perform for the introduction for ABC's coverage of the NBA. The Pussycat Dolls first opened for the Black Eyed Peas Honda Civic Tour in North America. To further promote the album, Snoop Dogg was added to a remix of "Buttons", which became a worldwide hit reaching number three on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and top five elsewhere. The Pussycat Dolls embarked on their PCD World Tour with Rihanna as the opening act in the UK leg. One of the dates of the PCD World Tour was recorded and streamed via MSN Music. The group ran into trouble in Kuala Lumpur with the authorities for sexually explicit dancing. The performance, a part of the PCD World Tour, was not well received in the Muslim state, which frowned upon the group's "eye-popping attire" and "sexually suggestive stage routines". Absolute Entertainment, the company behind the group's appearance in Malaysia, was fined $3000 for the incident. Two final singles would be released from the album, "I Don't Need a Man" and "Wait a Minute", with the former becoming a moderate success and the latter becoming the group's fifth top 40 single on the Hot 100.
To further promote the album the Pussycat Dolls toured along with Danity Kane on Christina Aguilera's Back to Basics Tour (2007) in North America from February to May. The success of the group's debut album brought them a wide array of spin-offs including a CW reality series, "". The goal of the show was to add a seventh member to join them in future endeavors. Asia Nitollano was announced as the winner on April 24, however several months later, it was revealed that Nitollano had actually quit the group shortly after the finale aired. Following their performance at Live Earth, the group would only have occasional one-off performances for a while and went on a hiatus in mid-2007, during which Scherzinger attempted to launch a solo career. Plans for her debut solo album, "Her Name is Nicole", would eventually be shelved after the release of four singles failed to make an impact on the charts. In August 2007, Sutta would be featured on the Paul van Dyke track "White Lies", which topped the US "Billboard" Hot Dance Singles chart.
2008–2010: "Doll Domination" and disbandment.
On March 3, 2008, it was announced via the group's website that Carmit Bachar had left the group, intending to pursue a solo career. At the time of her departure, she had been the longest performing member of the group, joining in 1995 when they were a burlesque act. Several days later, they performed for the first time without Bachar for the Operation MySpace concert which honored US troops stationed in Kuwait. In May 2008, they released their second album's lead single "When I Grow Up", which reached the top ten in 16 countries. At the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, its accompanying music video was nominated for six awards, the most of that ceremony, and went on to win Best Dancing in a Video. "Doll Domination" was released in September 2008 to mixed reviews. It attained their highest peak position on the "Billboard" 200, but failed to match the sales of its predecessor, selling less than a sixth as many as "PCD" sold (in the UK), and regarding it as a commercial disappointment. Three subsequent singles were released in 2008, "Whatcha Think About That", "Out of This Club", and "I Hate This Part"; the last one peaked at number 11 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart.
In January 2009, the Pussycat Dolls embarked on the Doll Domination Tour, their second headlining worldwide concert tour, which highlighted stops in Europe, Oceania and Asia, and grossed over $14 million. Between the first two legs, the group opened for The Circus Starring Britney Spears in North America. Jessica Sutta suffered a back injury during the first Sydney show, leaving the group performing as a foursome throughout the following shows. While on tour in Europe, Nicole Scherzinger was asked to re-write pop version of "Jai Ho" from the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008). The song was entitled "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)" and credited Scherzinger as a featured artist. This caused internal strife within the group, and a public outburst by Melody Thornton during one of the group's appearances on tour. Despite that, it became one of their most successful singles, and peaked at number 15 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, after charging eighty-five places, making the largest weekly leap from number 100. The album's final two singles, "Bottle Pop" and "Hush Hush; Hush Hush" topped the US Hot Dance/Club Songs chart. Meanwhile, "Doll Domination" was reissued into scaled down versions in various territories; in Australia, the album was subtitled "2.0." with 10 songs and an EP subtitled "The Mini Collection" was released in the UK.
After the tour's conclusion, the group went on a hiatus, with Robin Antin acknowledging that new members would be joining Scherzinger. By February 2010, Jessica Sutta, Ashley Roberts, Kimberly Wyatt, and Melody Thornton had announced their departures from the group, with Wyatt later acknowledging that "the group has fully disbanded." In May 2010, four new members surrounded Scherzinger in a new line-up, but by the end of the year, Scherzinger had left the group to pursue a solo career. In 2011, there were continued attempts to rebuild the group, and a line-up that included former Paradiso Girls member Lauren Bennett, former Girlicious member Chrystina Sayers, Paula van Oppen, Vanessa Curry and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Erica Kiehl Jenkins was featured in a GoDaddy commercial during Super Bowl XLVI. The group would go on to call themselves G.R.L, citing the need for differentiating from the Pussycat Dolls due to their music being less urban and they would spend the rest of the year recording their debut album. In 2015 the group would disband 9 months after member Simone Battle committed suicide following a battle with depression, before returning as a trio in 2016.
2017–present: Reunion and touring.
In October 2017, Dan Wootton of "The Sun" reported that Roberts, Scherzinger, Sutta, Wyatt, and Thornton were considering reuniting and going on tour in 2018, but Bachar was not on board. The following week, social media sites were set up, further fuelling speculation of a reunion. On April 25, 2018, during an appearance on "The Chris Ramsey Show", Wyatt claimed that the band could reunite before the end of 2018. "We're all just in a place where we're kind of ready to live it all again, and make it fun and enjoy it and everything," she said. "So yeah, we're looking at the possibilities."
On June 25, 2019, "The New York Times Magazine" listed the Pussycat Dolls among hundreds of artists whose master tapes were reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal Studios fire. The extent of damages and losses were not known due to conflicted reports over the number of primary masters kept in storage. Later in September 2019, "ET", reported that Scherzinger has joined former members of their band Pussycat Dolls for new studio sessions and the band will be reuniting for a Greatest Hits tour in 2020. UK "The X Factor" judge Louis Walsh confirmed that the Pussycat Dolls would be performing on the finale of "" on November 30, 2019. The band then confirmed their reunion on British radio station Heart, confirming that Bachar, Roberts, Scherzinger, Sutta, and Wyatt had been recording new music and have announced nine tour dates around the UK in 2020. During the interview, Scherzinger remarked that it had been around 10 years since the group's last tour and that the time felt right, "it's been a long time coming, but this feels like the perfect time to remind the world what it means to be a Pussycat Doll." According to group founder Robin Antin, Thornton would not be taking part due to her feeling like the time was not right. Thornton has since confirmed this during an interview with "The Sun" newspaper where she said, "I think it would be great for everyone to enjoy themselves and their lives, and whatever direction they want to go. I worked for years on the development of music and financed it myself. As a creative person I would like to make and release music myself." The group have stated that they are leaving the door open for Thornton and she would be welcome back if she decided to join them later down the line.
During the "X Factor: Celebrity" finale, the group performed a medley of their previous hits "Buttons", "When I Grow Up", "Don't Cha", and a brand new song, "React". Since the performance, their tour has been dubbed Unfinished Business and The Reunion Tour, and has been expanded to include dates in Australia and New Zealand. The tour, however, was pushed back to 2021 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The group's performance on "The X Factor" attracted over 400 complaints to British broadcasting regulator Ofcom for their "risque outfits" and being "too raunchy". Sutta confirmed that a new album was in the works. It was also confirmed that the group will perform at the Newmarket Nights event held annually at the British horse racing venue Newmarket Racecourse. On January 31, 2020, American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor released her third album, "Treat Myself" (2020), which features the Pussycat Dolls on the song "Genetics". Trainor revealed the collaboration came about when she bumped into Scherzinger whilst both artists were filming "" and "The Masked Singer" respectively. Scherzinger recorded the group's vocals for "Genetics" in exchange for Trainor working on new music for the group.
In February 2020, the group performed on "Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway", and at Nova FM 96.9's Red Room at Glass Island Sydney Harbour, Australia in early March. It has also been confirmed that the group was going to headline Brighton Pride with a 75 minutes set on August 2, 2020, in the UK, but it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. In March 2021, it was confirmed that the tour was once again being delayed due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Around the same time, group member Jessica Sutta and founder Robin Antin appeared on "ET" to announce Sutta's pregnancy and confirm the group's plans for new music and to tour when it was safe to do so. In the interview, Sutta confirmed that she intended to take the baby on the road with her. Antin also confirmed plans for new music when asked about whether an album would be coming out. The group is in discussions to collaborate with Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and Karol G, while also expressing a desire to work with Snoop Dogg again following his appearance on "Buttons" (2006) and "Bottle Pop" (2009). Sutta also confirmed that originally "React" would have been followed by another single if the pandemic had not have happened. On new music, Sutta said "I think you're going to hear a lot of us singing. All my bandmates are incredibly talented, they have beautiful voices and I think it's definitely time for them to shine.".
Other ventures.
The Pussycat Dolls had re-recorded "Don't Cha" in Simlish (as "Do Ba") for inclusion in the computer game '. They also appeared in character form in the video game ' released in November 2006. In a merchandising agreement with Interscope in 2006, toy manufacturer Hasbro planned a line of dolls modeled after the group, reportedly to be marketed to six to nine-year-olds. Two organizations ("Dads and Daughters" and "Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood") successfully lobbied Hasbro to scrap the plan, saying they felt the group would have been inappropriate for children due to the overtly sexual nature of the Pussycat Dolls' songs, videos and performances. Also in 2006, Interscope negotiated a deal with Estée Lauder for a Pussycat Dolls line of cosmetics under the Stila brand. In 2008, Robin Antin and the La Senza Corporation produced a line of Burlesque Pussycat Dolls-styled lingerie called "Shhh...by Robin Antin", and on December 15, Antin released "Robin Antin's Pussycat Dolls Workout", which is composed of dancers from the Pussycat Doll Lounge Review including Chrystina Sayers from Girlicious, and features Nicole Scherzinger.
Caesars Palace in Las Vegas operated a resident live show at its "Pussycat Dolls Lounge", until closing the venue in February 2015. The burlesque-style show had female dancers inside a rhinestone-encrusted bathtub and on raised platforms, with female dealers, also wearing Pussycat Dolls-inspired clothing, operating the blackjack and roulette tables in the venue.
Artistry.
Since the Pussycat Dolls were originally a burlesque dance troupe, Scherzinger and Thornton were the only members specifically hired for singing role when the group turned into a pop act in 2003. Ron Fair stated that even though "there were some adequate voices in the original group," Scherzinger and Thornton were needed "to bring the ability." Despite Thornton taking the sole lead vocals for their debut performance as a music group at the 2004 MTV Asia Awards, Scherzinger eventually assumed the majority of the vocals on the group's recordings. As part of a "Behind the Music" special on Scherzinger's career, she claimed that she was responsible for singing both lead and background vocals on both of the group's studio albums, with hardly anything sung by her fellow members. Scherzinger, who said that she did not want to get in trouble for her revelations, explained that the other members did not even hear the tracks until they were finished.
Public image and media coverage.
Nicole Scherzinger as lead singer.
Critics have taken a major swipe at the group for their overemphasis of Scherzinger. Margeaux Watson of "Entertainment Weekly" said, "there are two kinds of girl groups: those anchored by a superstar (The Supremes, Destiny's Child), and those made up of charismatic personalities endowed with limited individual gifts (Spice Girls, TLC). The Pussycat Dolls are neither—they're a brand, not a band. This follow-up to 2005's multi-platinum "PCD" finds lead Doll Nicole Scherzinger in the spotlight, and she's no Beyoncé. As for the others, well... can you name them? Do you even know how many there are?" "The Telegraph"s Adam White described the Pussycat Dolls as "pop's most embittered group" where the other members played the role of "glorified back-up dancers", and said that their 2006 performance at the American Music Awards "appeared to prove all was not well within the group’s dynamic."
Kaya Jones, who initially auditioned as a vocalist for the group, said: "Nicole was always someone who wanted to be in the spotlight and would do pretty much anything to get it. [...] To call the other girls in the Pussycat Dolls 'window dressings' is a bit farfetched... every girl in the group was talented." In a 2014 interview with "The Independent", Ashley Roberts claimed that she and her bandmates "were always told it was very much Nicole's project [...] we were the football team, and [Scherzinger] was the quarterback. You know, we weren't allowed to talk in interviews. We weren't even allowed in the studio sometimes." Kimberly Wyatt said in 2009: "Every video and stage performance that we've done, Nicole has been our leader. I wasn't in videos like I wanted and wasn't seen in the way I was hoping, which has been the same for all the other girls too." In an interview with "Vibe", Thornton said: "For me, it's important for people to know that I do write... I got into the group to sing. That was made very clear to me. But it became more and more apparent what was going on. Roles were being minimised and minimised, and then by the time it got on the [road], it was very much like 'Y'all play your part and this is what it is.' It was tough because you don't want to s--- on your own opportunity."
2019 reunion.
Following the group's reformation in 2019, Bachar addressed their prior split, "It wasn't a bitter ending. It was just a time in our lives where we all wanted to go and do our own thing and flourish. I went and had a family. We all stayed in touch." Roberts added, "Nicole is our lead singer and that is the way the band is constructed. We all have our place in the band and we each give something special individually, which fits like a puzzle—that's what makes the Pussycat Dolls." Scherzinger confirmed that she would take centre stage but that this was by mutual agreement, "It feels better than ever now I have evolved as a woman. It is actually the time for me to carry it. It's not even me—we all carry each other. We make each other stronger". Wyatt also confirmed that the other girls do get chance to record vocal, "Ultimately, The Pussycat Dolls has a lead singer and that is Nicole. Whenever I get an opportunity to sing and get in the studio and throw down on some vocals, I'm so grateful." Speaking about the scrutiny that the group come under and the media attention Wyatt said "we want people to love it and focus on the amazing feat we have done together instead of trying to rip us apart."
Sexual image.
Following their performance on "" (2019), the group were accused of over-sexualisation and being raunchy for wearing sheer PVC outfits. Over 400 viewers complained to British broadcast regulator Ofcom. Despite a more muted performance on "Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway" in February 2020 that poked fun at their "X Factor" performance and featured some censorship, the group garnered further complaints to Ofcom albeit a smaller amount. Scherzinger spoke out against the media and negative coverage, comparing the group's message to American singer-songwriter Lizzo who is an advocate for body awareness, saying "If you have people like Lizzo leading the movement of accepting yourself and they don't get any criticism, then why are we getting this criticism? When we perform, we perform from a place of passion and power. We're not floundering out there just trying to be cute. We come like warriors out there and people feel empowered by that." Barchar addressed criticism on their second performance by saying "being on Ant & Dec's show was hysterical; they are so good at what they do and the way they made light of the whole censorship thing was amazing. It's great that we got to be silly with it and we had a blast." She supported early comments by Scherzinger that the intention and aims of the group's performances was always about empowerment, saying "everyone has an opinion on what we do, and while I think the power of a woman can be intimidating, it's all about the intention of our performances". Roberts also responded by likening the groups' outfits to costumes and responded by noting that the group were entertainers.
Wyatt has also defended the group's image saying that it is an important message around female empowerment, during an appearance on "The Morning Show", Wyatt talked about bring her kids to rehearsals, "[I love] teaching them what it means to be a Pussycat Doll and own your space as a female. I think it's a really positive and important message for my girls to see and understand what that means." Wyatt also stated during an interview with News.com.au that the reunion feels like unfinished business due to the Pussycat Dolls being misunderstood. "Luckily we have a presence online now and we can help people understand us, understand dance, understand what intention means as a performer ... there is still a conversation to be had, and the Pussycat Dolls are a little bit misunderstood by those who don’t seek to know who we are." This has also been echoed by Scherzinger who has since said, "we just want to say everything we do we do it from a place of confidence ... only with the intention of inspiring and empowering each and every one of you ... And we just want to help some of you who are maybe struggling with stepping into your own power."
Referring to their provocative image, Sutta told "The Daily Telegraph Australia" that she felt that ageism is rife within the music industry but that times were changing, "You’ve got J-Lo at 50 who’s looking as fabulous as ever, and Lizzo who is all about self-love and owning it. It’s a new era, and there’s no rules anymore." Scherzinger also noted that the group had matured and felt more confident than ever, "I mean if there is a time to be more provocative, it’s when you’re grown up, when you’re comfortable in your skin and you fully accept yourself, right?" In a piece titled "if you don't like the Pussycat Dolls or Lizzo, you can always look away" for "The Guardian", Barbara Ellen discussed the interplay of ageism, sexism and sizeism that female musicians face in the industry, comparing the negative media attention that the Pussycat Dolls received to that Lizzo received for appearing in underwear on TikTok and Jennifer Lopez's performance at the Super Bowl 2020 halftime show. Ellen wrote, "What is it about successful female artists doing their thing, on stage or on social media, that drives certain sectors of society crazy? And why is the sexism so often merged with ageism or sizeism, as if that makes the abuse they’re meting out extra special and justified?"
Sexist media coverage.
Later in March 2020, during an interview with Network Ten's "The Project", Scherzinger acknowledged that the costumes for the performance were provocative but said "but we are women now and like literally as we say, (our bums) were hanging out and it takes courage to be that, you know it is vulnerable wearing as much as that, it takes a lot of courage to do it and we always do everything with confidence with the intent of empowering others and all of our women out there and anyone who feels they relate to us". "News AU" and "Junkee" both criticised hosts of "The Project" for focusing on a perceived sexual nature of their dance moves and for making the interview with Scherzinger awkward. One of "The Project's" hosts Waleed Aly asked sexist questions such as whether the girls "fight over who wore the best tube tops and low rise jeans?". Jared Richards ("Junkee") said "it’s a mess, absolutely dismissive of Scherzinger as a person and The Pussycat Dolls as an act... While sex appeal is a big part of The Pussycat Dolls, a group which started as a burlesque performance, there’s a right and a wrong way to ask about it." During the closing segment of the interview, Scherzinger was cut off as she said "if you watch us, we dance with heart, we dance like warriors, we come from a real place of power..." As the music played, Scherzinger could be heard asking if the interview was about to cut to another segment." Viewers of the programme also slammed the hosts for the reductive nature of the interview. "Music News" reported that hundreds of viewers complained about the segment via Twitter.
Solo careers.
After the group's initial disbandment in 2010, all members continued on their solo projects. Carmit Bachar would join musician Sammy Jay to become electronic music duo LadyStation, releasing the EP Voices in 2015. She would later release her first solo single in 2017, "It's Time". In 2010, Kimberly Wyatt joined a musical duo called Her Majesty & the Wolves and released their debut album on July 11, 2011. That same year, she was featured on the Aggro Santos song "Candy" which became a UK top five hit. On June 26, 2011, Melody Thornton announced plans to have her debut solo album released sometime in 2012. On March 15, 2012, she released her first mixtape, "P.O.Y.B.L", and contains 10 tracks of five remakes and four originals all written by Thornton. On June 3, 2011, Jessica Sutta announced that she had signed to Hollywood Records and her first single, "Show Me", peaked at number one on the Hot Dance Club Songs in the United States. However, her debut album "Sutta Pop" was shelved and she later left the label. Using the name J Sutta, she released the mixtape Feline Resurrection, and her debut album "I Say Yes" on March 3, 2017. On November 7, 2012, it was confirmed that Ashley Roberts would compete in the twelfth series of the British reality show "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!" airing on ITV. In January 2013, Roberts became a member of the ice panel for the final two series of British skating show, "Dancing on Ice" on ITV. In June 2014, Roberts announced her debut album, titled "Butterfly Effect", would be released on September 1, 2014.
Lead member Nicole Scherzinger continued her solo career after a halt to release the group's second and final studio album. In March 2010, it was announced that Scherzinger would be a celebrity contestant on the tenth season of "Dancing with the Stars", partnering with Derek Hough, which she won. In March 2011, Scherzinger released her debut studio album, "Killer Love", and experienced moderate success in certain territories. The album included second single, "Don't Hold Your Breath" which debuted atop the UK Singles Chart. The album's third single, "Right There", was remixed featuring 50 Cent and released as the lead single for the US version of "Killer Love". It peaked at number thirty-nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100, and reached the top ten in countries such as Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Romania, Scotland and the United Kingdom. In May 2011, Scherzinger was hired as a judge on the first season of the American version of "The X Factor", alongside Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul and L.A. Reid. After her stint in the United States, Scherzinger joined "The X Factor" UK for its ninth series as the fourth permanent judge. In May 2013, Scherzinger was confirmed as a returning judge for the tenth series of "The X Factor" UK. In January 2014, it was reported that Scherzinger left Interscope Records and signed a multimillion-dollar recording deal with Sony Records. Scherzinger's album, titled "Big Fat Lie", was released in October 2014.
Legacy.
With only two studio albums, the band became the best selling girl group of the 2000s' digital era, and fourth of all time. Since the group's formation in 2003, the Pussycat Dolls have sold 55 million records worldwide. VH1 included the Pussycat Dolls one of the 100 Greatest Women in Music in 2012. "Billboard" also ranked the group as one of the best selling acts of the 2000–09 decade. The Pussycat Dolls are one of the best-selling girl groups of all time. James Montgomery of MTV commented that the success of the group's debut album "PCD" made the group "the heirs to the Spice Girls' bedazzled throne". "PCD" has sold over 1,246,769 copies in the United Kingdom, making it the best selling American girl group release there, also becoming one of the best selling albums of the 2000–09 decade. The success of the group's debut album led them to become the most successful girl group in the world since the Spice Girls in the late 1990s.
The Pussycat Dolls have a string of hit singles − "Don't Cha" has sold more than 3 million copies in the United States – becoming the best-selling song of all time by a female group in the United States, and 6 million worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time. It was included on VH1's list of Greatest Songs of '00s. The Official Charts Company listed "Don't Cha" and "Jai Ho! (You Are My Destiny)" at number five and thirty-nine, as of the most downloaded song since its launch, respectively. The latter created a milestone for "Billboard" Hot 100 with a biggest single-week upward movement in the lifetime of the chart. "Jai Ho! (You are My Destiny)" and "Don't Cha" are two of the best-selling songs in Australia and in the United Kingdom as of July 2009. "Don't Cha" was also featured in VH1's "I Love the 2000s". The music video for "Don't Cha" is noted for being "iconic" among girl groups. Andrew Unterberger of "Billboard" said, "It was inevitable that the song and video would become massive, and become massive they did, with the song heating up the Hot 100 chart and the video establishing the group as mainstays on MTV for many subsequent (though not quite as memorable) videos to come." "Buttons" is also regarded as one of the sexiest videos ever by media outlets AOL Music, MuchMusic, Fuse, and VH1. With "Buttons" surpassing 2 million digital downloads, the Pussycat Dolls became the first all-female group in digital history to have three singles—along with "Don't Cha" and "When I Grow Up"—pass the two million mark in digital sales.
Spin-offs.
A second season of "Pussycat Dolls Present" commenced as "" which tried to find women to become part of a new three member all-female group, Girlicious. Interscope Records formed a London-based spin-off group called Paradiso Girls through an open audition. In 2010, they were dropped and further promotion of their planned debut album "Crazy Horse" was cancelled, disestablishing the group. Throughout 2011 and 2012 Antin spoke of casting new members for the Pussycat Dolls, with various new members named. In February 2013, Antin announced that she had scrapped plans for the new line-up to replace the former members of the Pussycat Dolls and would instead form a new group who will be the "next generation". They eventually became known as G.R.L. and released their debut single, "Vacation", on June 16 as a B-side track to pop singer Britney Spears' single "Ooh La La".
Tours.
Headlining
Supporting act


Alexander Smith Carpet Mills Historic District

The Alexander Smith Carpet Mills Historic District is a national historic district located at Yonkers, Westchester County, New York. It includes 85 contributing buildings. It encompasses 19 stylistically varied mill buildings and six rows of workers' housing. They were developed between 1871 and 1930 in the vicinity of northeastern Getty Square along the banks of the Saw Mill River. The main mill building was originally built in 1871 and expanded between 1876 and 1883. It is a three-story, rectangular building, 52 bays wide and five bays deep in the Second Empire style. It features a four-story tower and a five-story tower. The workers' housing, known as Moquette Row, North and South, was built between 1881 and 1886. Many workers that lived in this housing originally were immigrants to the United States. They came from Scotland, Ireland, and Ukraine. The carpet works were developed by Alexander Smith (1818-1878) The company closed the Yonkers mills and relocated to Greenville, Mississippi, in 1954. At the time of its closing, there were 2,400 who worked at the carpet mill. At the time of World War II, there was 7,000 employees who worked at the mill.It was later absorbed into Mohawk Carpet, later Mohasco Corporation. The carpet weaving industry was revolutionized by looms invented in this plant by Alexander Smith and Halcyon Skinner. Skinner, an engineer, designed a loom known as the Axminster power loom (also known as the Moquette Loom), which revolutionized the production of carpets. A patent for this loom was created in 1877 and royalty rights were sold to European and American companies at the rate of twenty cents per yard of carpet produced.
It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Today, members of the YoHo Artist Community work out of two of buildings, located at 540 and 578 Nepperhan Avenue.
Carpet Mills Arts District.
The Carpet Mills Arts District in Yonkers, New York was formalized in March 2016 when the City Council cast a unanimous vote in favor of its approval. City Mayor Mike Spano subsequently signed the legislation on April 5, 2016. The arts district occupies the former carpet mills factory buildings located in the Alexander Smith Carpet Mills Historic District. Its boundaries lie from Lake Avenue to the north and Ashburton Avenue to the south, and to Nepperhan Avenue to the west, extending to Saw Mill River Road to the east, encompassing the following buildings:
District beginnings.
Early creative industry and artist activity in the area dates back decades ago, with a few tenants working out of the factory buildings as early as the 1980s. When private developers acquired two buildings at 540 and 578 Nepperhan Avenue in 2005, there were 25 artists working out of the Mills. This group grew to become to the YOHO Artist Community.
Developers managed and carefully grew the community through the use of events and promotion of the community until it grew from 25 to 85 artists over eight years, and the artist trend spread to other sections of the Mills owned by other developers. The developers collaborated through events and lobbying Yonkers City Officials to form the Carpet Mills Artists District - a change that was approved by the City of Yonkers under Mayor Mike Spano on April 5, 2016.
In April 2015, Mayor Mike Spano announced the proposal of Carpet Mills Arts District (CMAD). He hosted a ribbon-cutting for the recently named district as a kick-off for Yonkers Arts Weekend the following month, the success of which was attributed to the collaboration of city officials, building owners Huang and Rose, and the growing numbers of local artists in the area. Similar events had been happening at YOHO for many years, with the artist community inviting the public to their popular Annual Open Studios event.
The Open Studios paved the way for a more widespread event that would branch out to other locations in Yonkers. The mayor noted with the proposed zoning change that coincided with the creation of CMAD, the district would see future growth as restaurants, boutiques, galleries, retail shops, and a higher number of artists would be encouraged to move into the area.
Approval of Arts District.
On April 5, 2016, Mayor Mike Spano approved the zoning change that would allow the area to operate as a formal arts district, and officiated a legislative signing ceremony on May 12, with Councilman Sabatino, George Huang, and Randolph Rose participating.
The district has been awarded a $500,000 capital grant to be used for further development, including building improvements, landscaping, signage, and lighting. With the formation of this arts district, Yonkers, New York and the supporters of this project see a future as a public arts destination. According to Yonkers Deputy Planning Commissioner Louis Albano, " It was decided to take advantage of some of the artisans in the area and create this district to allow them two things - to show their wares and to open galleries that would be ancillary and complementary to the crafts that they produce in their shops, but also to create restaurant space to create more visitors and foot traffic into the area." He further describes the arts district as "our little baby Soho going on in the Nepperhan Valley."


Ito Sekisui V

 is a Japanese potter.
The Sekisui family have a long tradition of ceramic work; Ito Sekisui V is the 14th generation of the family to follow this trade. He was given the birth name Yoichi Ito, the first character of his name ("yo" ) being the Japanese word for "kiln". After his father Ito Sekisui IV's death (when Yoichi was 19) he studied ceramics at Kyoto University. After graduating in 1966, he returned to his hometown of Sado to continue the family business.
His work was displayed at the Traditional Arts and Crafts Exhibition in 1972. In 1973, he won first prize at the second Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition. In the 1980s, Sekisui V started to create "neriage" works as well as his family's traditional "mumyoi-yaki" pieces, and in 2003 he was appointed a Living National Treasure for his work in these fields.


Internet radio audience measurement

Internet radio audience measurement is any method used to determine the number of people listening to an Internet radio broadcast. This information is usually obtained from the broadcaster's audio streaming server. Icecast, Nicecast, and SHOUTcast are examples of audio streaming servers that can provide listener statistics for audience measurement. These numbers often include information such as listeners' IP addresses, the media player they are using, how long they listened, and their computer's operating system.
This approach differs greatly from terrestrial radio audience measurement. Demographic and psychographic information cannot be easily collected due to geographically diverse nature of typical Internet radio audiences. Arbitron, a research company in the United States which collects listener data on terrestrial radio audiences, has begun collecting listener data for Internet radio stations based on a panel of 200,000 users. The statistics collected from those users is then projected against the estimated 52 million actual Internet radio listeners.
DigitalRadioTracker.com (DRT) has developed a proprietary system that monitors Internet Radio as well as select Terrestrial FM, College & Non-Commercial radio compiling the airplay of songs around the globe. They monitor 5000+ radio stations. DRT Reports provides users with detailed information of when, where and how often songs are being played on the radio as well as what version of the song (vital for remixes and mash ups). They offer free weekly charts for Top 200, Top 125 Independent, Top International, Top 50 Pop, Top 50 R&B/HipHop, Top 50 Country, Top 50 Christian/Gospel, Top 50 Adult Contemporary, and Top 50 Rock.
Another company named Triton Digital, a software company in the United States also measures worldwide Internet radio audience. It uses actual data collected from streaming servers rather than estimated data.
StreamAnalyst is a web-based service (SaaS) that generates audience statistics reports for Internet radio and other streamed contents.
TouchCast, along with numerous other online companies offer commercially downloadable stream analytics software called CasterStats, which allows any broadcaster to measure its internet audience from their streaming server data.


List of Latin American and South American opera companies

This is a list of professional Latin American and South American opera companies and opera-related organizations. For opera companies from other geographical locations, see List of important opera companies.


Muziektheater Transparant

Muziektheater Transparant is a Flemish theatre company founded in 1994. They produce music theatre and their own versions of operas. The artistic directors are Guy Coolen and Wouter Van Looy. Among the past and current composers in residence are Wim Henderickx, Jan Van Outryve, Eric Sleichim (of ), and Annelies Van Parys.
Transparant, which has its office and rehearsal room in Matterhorn (Antwerp), brings artists and ensembles together. It is strong internationally oriented and delivers productions with artistic and social relevance for a large audience.


Grace Potter

Grace Evelyn Potter (born June 20, 1983) is an American singer-songwriter and musician who formed Grace Potter and the Nocturnals in 2002. Potter released her debut solo record "Original Soul" on 2004 via Grace Potter Music. Potter and her band parted ways in 2015, just before the release of her solo album, "Midnight". Her latest album, "Daylight", was released in 2019. In 2011, Potter and Higher Ground founded Grand Point North music festival in Burlington, Vermont. The music festival celebrates local acts, promotes area businesses and has attracted national performing artists, including Kenny Chesney, Jackson Browne, The Avett Brothers, Trey Anastasio, Nathaniel Rateliff, The Flaming Lips, Trampled By Turtles, Gov't Mule, and more.
Solo career.
Since the formation of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Potter has gained notability as a singer-songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and actress.
Film and television.
As an actress, Potter appeared in an episode of "One Tree Hill", performing her original song "Apologies." In 2010, Potter re-recorded "Something That I Want" with altered lyrics for the end credits to Disney's animated feature "Tangled". The following year, Potter was the voice of Carol in Disney's "", for which she also wrote and recorded "Naughty, Naughty Children (Better Start Actin' Nice)." Potter made guest appearances on ABC's The Chew in 2012 and 2015. In 2015, Potter performed The Star-Spangled Banner during Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots' season opener. On January 25, 2016, Conan O'Brien aired an hour-long special episode of Conan (talk show) on TBS that chronicled a trip the comedian made to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar; he was joined by First Lady Michelle Obama with Potter as his musical guest.
Collaborations.
Potter has developed a successful working relationship with country music star Kenny Chesney; their duets have climbed the country music charts and received critical acclaim. Potter earned her first Grammy nomination for Best Country Duo/Group Performance for "You And Tequila" with Chesney. The pair has performed together live numerous times, and their collaboration on the song "Wild Child" off of Chesney's album "The Big Revival" garnered award nominations from the Academy of Country Music, CMT Music and the Country Music Association. Chesney appeared at Potter's Grand Point North music festival in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2018.
Potter has also enjoyed a fruitful relationship with The Flaming Lips. In 2012, she joined the band during their show at The Lyric in Oxford, Mississippi, which was part of their attempt to break the Guinness World Record for Most Concerts Played in multiple cities in a 24-hour period. That same year, Potter and The Flaming Lips collaborated on a recording of "My Mechanical Friend" (which she also wrote) for the companion soundtrack to Disney and Tim Burton’s film Frankenweenie. In 2014, she contributed to their cover of The Beatles’ "Good Morning Good Morning" for their "With a Little Help from My Fwends" album. The Flaming Lips performed during Potter's Grand Point North music festival in 2015.
"Midnight".
Potter's second solo album, "Midnight", was released on August 14, 2015, on Hollywood Records. "Midnight" was recorded and mixed at Barefoot Studios in Hollywood with producer Eric Valentine, who has worked with artists ranging from Queens of the Stone Age to Nickel Creek. The core studio band consisted of Potter and Valentine along with Matt Burr on drums and percussion. Members of Potter's band The Nocturnals – Scott Tournet, Benny Yurco and bassist Michael Libramento – played guitar, while friends such as Rayland Baxter, Audra Mae, Noelle Scaggs of Fitz and the Tantrums, Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, and Nick Oliveri of Queens of the Stone Age played various instruments. Potter cites an eclectic array of musical influences for "Midnight"'s unique sound, including Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, David Bowie, Blondie and Beck.
The seeds for "Midnight" were planted in Vermont during the fall of 2013. Potter explains the evolution of the record: I had been messing around for a few weeks with making really wacked-out home demos – lots of sounds, beats and melodies that I had never tried before. It was a dark, stormy, moody day and I could hear the thunder in the distance – these big ominous clouds were rolling in fast. There was something about that threat of inclement weather beyond my control that just made me vibrate with anticipation and adrenaline, so I channeled it into this heavy boogie song—it goes right for the throat and says ‘Own your existence on earth, because who knows what’s gonna happen next.’ That solitary moment guided everything that followed.
"Daylight".
Potter's third solo album, "Daylight," was released on October 25, 2019, on Fantasy Records. Eric Valentine produced "Daylight," and added guest musicians Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius, and Benmont Tench. The "Daylight Tour" began on January 8, 2020. During the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. Potter launched the weekly Twilight streaming series, taping a special episode on the set of the original "Star Trek".
In popular culture.
Potter's version of the Stealer's Wheel song "Stuck in the Middle with You" was used as the theme song for the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" (2015–2020).
"Something That I Want" appeared in the closing credit of the animated film "Tangled" (2010).
In 2017, her song "Instigators" was featured in the video game "Dirt 4".
Personal life.
Potter and her husband, record producer Eric Valentine, had a baby boy, Sagan Potter Valentine on January 12, 2018. Potter had previously been married to Nocturnals bandmate Matt Burr, on May 11, 2013. Upon their divorce, Burr departed from the Nocturnals.
Throughout her career, Potter has championed the Alzheimer's Association in honor of her paternal grandfather's battle with Alzheimer's disease. She frequently participates in the "Night At Sardi's" annual fundraiser in Los Angeles.


Joyce J. Scott

Joyce J. Scott (born 1948) is an African-American artist, sculptor, quilter, performance artist, installation artist, print-maker, lecturer and educator. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016, and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019, Scott is best known for her figurative sculptures and jewelry using free form, off-loom beadweaving techniques, similar to a peyote stitch. Each piece is often constructed using thousands of glass seed beads or pony beads, and sometimes other found objects or materials such as glass, quilting and leather. In 2018, she was hailed for working in new medium — a mixture of soil, clay, straw, and cement — for a sculpture meant to disintegrate and return to the earth. Scott is influenced by a variety of diverse cultures, including Native American and African traditions, Mexican, Czech, and Russian beadwork, illustration and comic books, and pop culture.
Scott is renowned for her social commentary on issues such as racism, classism, sexism, violence, and cultural stereotypes, as well as themes of spiritual healing. Her work is about how Scott sees herself in a rapidly changing world: "These works are about personal growth, personal epiphanies and how not to get stuck in the easy ways of life- about art I am fairly fearless but in everyday life I am not."
Biography.
Joyce Jane Scott was born in Baltimore in 1948, the daughter of noted quilt maker Elizabeth Talford Scott and Charlie Scott Jr. She has described herself as "a true Baltimore babe and Sandtown girl" and has lived in a row house in the Sandtown neighborhood for more than four decades. Her mother encouraged her creativity and Scott began drawing at the Coppin Demonstration School, a public education institution, and later attended Lemmel Middle School and Eastern High School in Baltimore. She graduated with Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1970, and then earned a Masters of Fine Arts from the Instituto Allende in Mexico. Later, Scott pursued further education at Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine.
Scott's own mother was an artist who taught Scott appliqué quilting techniques and encouraged her to pursue her career as an artist. One of her earliest artistic endeavors was sewing doll clothes. Scott is also influenced by craft traditions in her extended family of "quilters, woodworkers, basketweavers, chair caners, planters and blacksmiths," where people developed skills in more than one craft so that they could survive. Her love of music and deep sense of spirituality solidified in her upbringing in the Pentecostal faith with its rich tradition in gospel music.
Scott's African influences are manifested in her use of intricate and elaborate decoration. By using techniques similar to West African Yoruba beadwork crowns and regalia, she reconfigures beads into a sculptural format. According to scholar Leslie King-Hammond, African arts and tradition functioned to transform every day objects into beautiful decorations.
Scott's practice includes performance in addition to sculpture. Her unapologetically critical and humorous personality is often employed in her performances to critique issues such as feminism, sexism, and racism. Like her jewelry and quilt works, her performance also often addresses storytelling and memory.
Scott's works are held by the Baltimore Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri, the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas.
Featured exhibitions.
"I-con-nobody/I-con-o-graphy".
Held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1991, this was Scott's first major solo exhibition. "The title implied the telling of truths, both the straightforward and symbolic kinds. Iconography, the symbols that explain images, and, concomitantly, society, were used by Scott to reveal the hidden motivations behind human interactions." On exhibition were 29 beaded sculptural works and several large fiber-and-fabric wall collages. Included were selections (partly inspired by her mother's stories and work as a nanny) from Scott's "Mammy/Nanny" series (1986-1991) in which she used glass beads and leather to create racial and value distinctions.
"Believe I've Been Sanctified".
This was Scott's first work of public art. In 1991, she was chosen along with nineteen other artists to participate in a new citywide project organized by the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston. The exhibition was called "Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art in Charleston" and each artist was invited to select an outdoor site and create a piece that conveyed their sense of the city's community history. Scott chose four Corinthian columns that were the last remaining remnants of the old Charleston Museum. She was told by the people at the African American historical society that "they never wanted us in there anyway" and was inspired. Using found objects and beading, Scott turned the columns into weeping willows to represent tears. Beneath them she constructed a funeral pyre from 500 logs and a figure dying, or a Phoenix, to represent "the end of slavery or the beginning of a new era, Reconstruction."
"Images Concealed".
In 1995 Scott responded to the Yale University for the Museum of African Art exhibition "Face of the Gods: Art and Altar of Africa and African Americans" with an installation titled "Images Concealed" at the San Francisco Art Institute. Curator Jean-Edith Weiffenbach noted that Scott, "challenged by that exhibition's revelations of the impact of African traditions on Western art, belief systems, and social customs [...] fashioned a reply that uses a contemporary hybrid of craft vocabularies from several cultures in an allegorical language that confronts stereotypes as well as issues of representation and perception."
"Kickin' it With the Old Masters".
"Kickin' It with the Old Masters" was an art exhibition held at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in January–May 2000 in collaboration with Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). "At the entrance to the exhibition space sat Rodin's "Thinker," an icon of Western art; above the statue's head Scott suspended a beaded figure hung by the neck by chains and covered with racial epithets." The juxtaposition was not to incite racial accusations but to establish an interaction with aesthetics and social constructs.
"Harriet Tubman and Other Truths".
Her largest exhibition to date opened October 20, 2017, and was on view through April 1, 2018 at Grounds for Sculpture. The exhibit, an homage to Harriet Tubman, the abolitionist who led many enslaved people to freedom, was ere organized with guest curator Lowery Stokes Sims for the exhibit, which was seen as a catalyst for transforming the public space created by J. Seward Johnson, the sculptor and philanthropist. This exhibition was guest curated by both Lowery Stokes Sims and Patterson Sims.
Public art installations.
"Memorial Pool".
Scott received a commission in 1996 to create a public art project commemorating Pool No. 2 in Baltimore's Druid Hill Park. Built in 1921, it served the recreational and competitive swimming needs of over 100,000 African Americans in Baltimore. When the Baltimore City Parks Board refused to desegregate its pools despite a highly publicized drowning in a nearby river in 1953, the NAACP filed a lawsuit and eventually won on appeal. In June 1956 Baltimore pools opened as desegregated facilities for the first time. Pool No. 2 closed the next year, remaining largely abandoned until 1999 when Scott's installation transformed it.
In designing this functional monument, Scott intended to create an “art situation where people can go into space and hopefully be, and have a variety of uses.” The pool area itself was filled with soil and planted with grass. There were plans to include programming in the grassy area, that people would want to sit, picnic or just relax around the space. In addition to the architectural framing devices and aquatic symbolism, the original installation included abstract, colorful painted designs on the pavement around the pool that have since faded from the concrete surface and disappeared due to time and weather.
Exhibitions.
Scott's exhibits include:
Select honors and awards.
Below are a few selected awards, honors and fellowships Scott has received so far in her career:


Charles R. Lyons

Charles R. Lyons (1933–1999) was an American professor of drama and comparative literature at Stanford University and co-owner of the art gallery Lyons Ltd. He received his AB (1955), MA (1956), and PhD (1964) from Stanford as well. As an undergraduate at Stanford he focused on Shakespeare with the legendary professor Margery Bailey, the namesake of his endowed chair. He is best known as a theorist and teacher of theater. His interest in performance began in the 1950s as a professional actor in Los Angeles where he routinely performed at the Pasadena Playhouse. After finishing his masters, Lyons spent four years as a lieutenant in US Navy, where he served in the Far East and later in Washington, D.C as a liaison to Jacques Cousteau.
In the early 1960s Lyons took a teaching position at Principia College in Illinois. In 1968 he moved on to the University of California, Berkeley becoming a professor of dramatic art and later the associate dean of letters and sciences. He returned to Stanford as chair of the theater department in 1973 and installed an undergraduate and doctoral program that established a new approach for the training of theater practitioners and theater scholars.
Lyons' scholarly writings included Shakespeare, Chekov, Ibsen, Brecht, Beckett, and Shepard. His former students currently occupy key positions in theater and performance departments across the US and in Europe, as well in repertory theaters, professional theater companies, and the film industry. Throughout his career, Lyons continued to work at the practice of theater, directing productions of John Gay's "The Beggar's Opera", Samuel Beckett’s "Endgame", William Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and "Hamlet" with Andre Braugher in the title role.
Concerned with diversity issues within the arts, Lyons put forward a new Institute for Diversity in the Arts at Stanford, financed by the James Irvine Foundation.


The Golden Lady

The Golden Lady is a British thriller film directed by José Ramón Larraz and starring Christina World, June Chadwick, Suzanne Danielle and Desmond Llewelyn. Filmed in 1978, it was released in 1979.
Plot.
Julia Hemingway (Ina Skriver, credited as Christina World), a British female mercenary, is hired by wealthy businessman Charlie Whitlock in order to help him eliminate the competition on the purchase of some oil fields in Saudi Arabia. Hemingway coordinates a team of 3 sexy women to go undercover to complete the task, but is unaware that Whitlock plans on double crossing her so he won't have to pay for her services.
Reception.
"Variety" reviewed the film unfavourably: "Hard to see much appeal in this cheapie, which features Danish newcomer Christina World as a distaff James Bond, but which will leave audiences neither shaken nor stirred. Action is underpowered, while sex, ever-expected, is underexploited. Script by Joshua Sinclair gets enmeshed in a pretentious plot..."
Soundtrack.
The music for the film was composed by Georges Garvarentz. The theme song to the film, "The Golden Lady", was performed by The Three Degrees, and was co-written by Garvarentz with lead vocalist Sheila Ferguson. It was released as a single and peaked at #56 on the UK Singles Chart in June 1979.