Editor and author of introduction to conference proceedings. CASAR’s third international conference seeks to examine the ruptures and connections created by current and past encounters between America and the Middle East — whether economic, political, or cultural — as they have been narrated and as they have been experienced.
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Nothing Mega About It Except the Applause
“Gross Indecency” is the second nonprofit drama to make a commercial move this season. Paula Vogel’s play about pedophilia, ”How I Learned to Drive,” starring Mary-Louise Parker and David Morse, and directed by Mark Brokaw.
João Ubaldo Ribeiro’s Viva o povo brasileiro
Viva o povo brasilerio, João Ubaldo’s novel on the history of Brazil from the 17th century to the 1970s, is a radically contingent fictional interpretation of Brazilian history that denies the existence of self-subsistent facts.
Read articleCaetano Premieres With a Self-Celebration
On Saturday night, Caetano Veloso and his excellent band returned to New York more international than ever.
Continue readingRosset Makes New York Laugh
In a staging at Central Park, the Brazilian theatre director Cacá Rosset presents Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors in the style of Rabelais.
Continue readingA Brazilian Legend Comes to New York as Monster Mom
When the Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro makes her entrance in Gerald Thomas’s Flash and Crash Days, she stumbles across the stage dressed like Brunnhilde.
Read articleCaricature and Conqueror, Pride and Shame
She was a typical girl from Rio who became the highest-paid woman in the United States.
Continue readingCarmen’s Life Was Film Noir
By the time she was twenty, she already had her eye on a career that is like the ones contemporary women have. But she paid a high price for fame: electric shock treatments for depression and dependence on drugs to maintain her energy as she toured internationally.
Continue readingBrazilian Music: Art Music Composers and the Artistry of Popular Musicians
Critical review of Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song: MPB, 1965-1985, by Charles Perrone and The Music of Brazil, by David P. Appleby.
Continue readingCarnival of the Avante-Garde
The Wooster Group has been revolutionizing the American theatre since 1968 using the aesthetics of carnival and the technology of multi-media. Among its members is the celebrated actor Willem Dafoe, whose films include The Last Temptation of Christ, Platoon, and Mississippi Burning.
Continue readingThe Brazilian Rhythm Machine
There is a delightful confusion upon hearing Nana Vasconcelos’ new album Rain Dance. It’s not unlike what you experience as a child when you first walk through the woods alone or take a bus by yourself to the center of the city.
Continue readingTropicalistas: Women Behind the Music in Brazil
As double victims of discrimination – women – especially artists like Carvalho – have been in the forefront of Brazil’s struggles for racial, political, and economic justice.
Continue readingCaetano Veloso: The Chameleon Poet of Bahia
His voice is so self-assured that each composition sounds and reads like a poem crafted by a master at the peak of his powers.
Continue readingGilberto Gil’s “Artistic Mandarinate”
An accomplished rhetorician, Gil speaks in serpentine sentences reminiscent of Faulkner, choosing to talk about his music by digressing frequently to discuss Eastern philosophy, literary works and recent American political history.
Continue readingInterview With the Family of a Terrorist
Abdul: I’m not sure. I either want to open my own carpet shop or murder Americans. I haven’t decided which yet.
Continue readingCondom Nation
Sex has always been a difficult subject to teach in American schools because, unlike most courses, which are how-to – Math, Reading, Writing, etc. – sex has always been a why-not-to course.
Continue readingA Letter from The Devil
I’ve decided to leave New York, permanently. I know this is all sort of sudden, and it’s not as though I don’t feel some personal attachment to the place. I have a lot of wonderful friends here – Ivan Boesky, the mayor, of course, Don Trump and the landlords, can’t forget them.
Continue readingREVIEWS SECTION
Humanizing the Enemy: Wannous’ The Rape
By India Stoughton, The Daily Star
“The audience that descended on the Lebanese American University’s Irwin Theater Friday night for a performance of Saadallah Wannous’ “The Rape” sat in rapt silence as the brutal events played out on stage. Directed by Sahar Assaf, in a new English-language translation by Nada Saab and Robert Myers, the production is the fruit of a collaboration between LAU and the American University of Beirut.”
Read articleA Rare Chance to Forget the Killing
By Rami Khouri, The Daily Star
“Written by a Syrian author in the 1990s, it captures human emotions and hypocrisy, social constraints, and political power relations that are reflected in perhaps every country in the world. But this cultural and creative power that affirms universal human attributes is virtually unknown outside the Arab world.”
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