avant-garde
Rhinocéros, Barbican TheatreFriday, 15 February 2013
I laughed quite a bit going round the exhibition to which the Barbican’s latest theatre events are tied, The Bride and the Bachelors. Pioneer Marcel Duchamp’s 1921 “Readymade” Why Not Sneeze, Rrose Sélavy? is funny in itself: a metal birdcage... Read more... |
Stewart Lee presents John Cage's Indeterminacy, Cafe OTOWednesday, 26 September 2012
John Cage is funny: this much we know. The deadpan prankster at the heart of 20th-century artistic experimentalism was always about the inadvertent punchline, the chuckle that comes from unexpected disjunction, the relief that comes from reminders... Read more... |
Diamanda Galas, Royal Festival HallThursday, 02 August 2012
Diamanda Galas is a woman who once wrote a book called Sh*t of God and whose avant-garde screeching on subjects like AIDS and schizophrenia frequently takes gothic into an area where it could scare bats. Her CV includes stints as a research... Read more... |
Matthew Herbert's One Pig, Theatre Royal, BrightonWednesday, 23 May 2012
There is a shouty lady outside the Theatre Royal in Brighton who takes strong objection to us attending tonight’s Brighton Festival performance of Matthew Herbert’s One Pig. The show is based around the life and death of a pig, from birth to... Read more... |
CD: The Mars Volta - NoctourniquetThursday, 22 March 2012
First a word of warning: The Mars Volta is not for everyone. Their hardcore progressive metal may contain light and shade, but it's also there to show the world that Muse is for sissies. And, for all its delicate moments and complexity, at its most... Read more... |
Popcorn and Polymorphia: Jonny Greenwood meets PendereckiThursday, 22 March 2012
Krzysztof Penderecki's Polymorphia for 48 string instruments dates back to 1962, and still stands as one of the grand milestones of the avant-garde. It epitomised the Polish composer's technique of "timbre organisation", in which the plucking and... Read more... |
2011: The Rave ReturnsFriday, 30 December 2011
Against all the odds, I find myself going into 2012 with a strong sense of optimism. And the reason? I am a born-again rave zealot. I saw it at Outlook Festival in Croatia, I saw it at Sónar in Barcelona, and I saw it at the Big Chill where I was... Read more... |
Mouse on Mars, Oval, Stockhausen, BarbicanSaturday, 26 November 2011
Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge (Song of the Youths), composed in 1956, is, in many ways, the mother of all electronic music. I can remember discovering it in the 1960s, before I had acquired my first pair of Koss headphones, lying on the floor,... Read more... |
Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture, 1915-1935, Royal AcademyWednesday, 26 October 2011
I’m not sure I’ve ever felt so ambivalent about a show, and so strongly both pro and con. The pros first, then. This is an astonishing, revelatory exhibition of avant-garde art and architecture in the Soviet Union in the brief but hectic period from... Read more... |
Zun Zun Egui: New Indie Band of the Year?Wednesday, 05 October 2011
In the generation of twentysomething rock musicians bottle-fed on world music, the Bristol band Zun Zun Egui really stand out. They make some of the most exciting music to have emerged in the last 12 months.The Afro-tinged sophistication of Vampire... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Beijing: Fringe Festival Goes InternationalSaturday, 01 October 2011
Beijing International Fringe Festival, virtually unheard of in the UK, closed last Sunday after three weeks’ showcasing the best talent in drama, musical theatre, dance and experimental theatre in China. It was conceived in 2008 as a small local... Read more... |
The Story of Film: An Odyssey, More 4Saturday, 10 September 2011
After the first two parts of Mark Cousins’s magisterial The Story of Film: An Odyssey, I’m still in two minds as to whether it’s fair to call the presenter a generalist. He has already managed to piece together details from the cinema cultures of... Read more... |
