PRI: Arts and Entertainment

Although opera stagings are sometimes static, with singers standing, facing forward and singing, Colker said that she wanted a more kinetic, fluid staging to complement the musical rhythms and the story that “Ainadamar”tells.

“It’s about passion,” Colker said. “It’s about love. It’s about poetry. It’s about what’s happened in the streets. It’s about friendship. And we need to move. We need to dance. We need to sing.”

That is something each opera house’s cast members learn anew, with each staging. The production, which opened at the Scottish Opera before going to Wales and Detroit, plays through Nov. 9 at the Metropolitan Opera. In the spring, it will move on to the LA Opera. 

“Ainadamar” delves into the relationship between the famous Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca and Maria Xirgu, the actress who was his muse. Xirgu was performing in one of Lorca’s plays in Cuba when the fascists jailed and murdered him in Spain in 1936. The opera is told from her perspective in the final moments of her life, 40 years later.

This is Colker’s first time directing an opera. She runs a dance company in Brazil and has directed Cirque du Soleil’s popular show, “Ovo.” 

“Ainadamar” has been done a lot since it premiered at Tanglewood in western Massachusetts 21 years ago, but Colker’s interpretation leans into the music’s flamenco rhythms and flamenco dancing, according to Argentinian-born composer Osvaldo Golijov who created the music (the libretto is by David Henry Hwang). 

Golijov said that he was surprised and delighted by the results. 

“It’s a real revelation for me,” Golijov said. “Because I never imagined that the opera could be danced from top to bottom.”

When the curtain rises on “Ainadamar,” a man does a Spanish dance surrounded by a circular, beaded curtain. A video of a bull is projected behind him as the sound of hoofbeats melds into flamenco rhythms.

That kind of physicality runs throughout the performance — something that soprano Angel Blue, who plays Xirgu, stressed as well.

She said that at one point during the show, “I’m doing a very deep squat, and the dancers are actually assisting me and pulling me up.”

It took a lot of rehearsal: “We had, I don’t know, how many hours a day of training to be able to do that — there’s those two specific moves in that scene that are very hard to do.”

Blue, who’s sung Puccini and Gershwin at the Met, but calls herself a “theater kid” at heart, said it was a liberating process.

 “Deborah created a space that was safe to rehearse in,” the singer said.

The rehearsals were so creative and open, she added, “maybe that’s why this is my favorite opera that I’ve been in, in my professional career, as an opera singer.”

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack plays the passionate, doomed playwright in what is called in opera a “trouser role.” She said when she was offered the part, “They were very clear that it was a very physical production, and that I was going to have to move on the stage, not just sing.”

Mack, born in Argentina and raised in the United States, danced as a little girl, but not since. When she joined the production, it took a lot of practice, the singer recalled: “I remember in Detroit taking the fans home to work on my little choreography in my hotel room. But it’s been a real, wonderful environment, too, because Antonio, the flamenco choreographer, is the most patient and wonderful man. And so, he really made the process a happy one.”

Antonio Najarro, who ran the Spanish National Ballet, was brought in to work on the flamenco moments in the opera, but also add contemporary flourishes. 

“Deborah [Colker], she wanted everybody singing, everybody dancing, everybody acting,” Najarro said. “The goal, it was that you don’t have to know who is the singer, who is the dancer. I think this is amazing in this opera.”

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Stunning films such as Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 dark comedy thriller “Parasite” and the Netflix streaming phenomenon “Squid Game” have broken into Western culture as cult classics and have influenced everything from Halloween costumes to demanding college waitlists for entry into Korean-language learning courses.

The Gangnam district of Seoul is the heart of it all. 

Most of the world became familiar with the cultural hub in the summer of 2012, when South Korean performer Park Jae-sang, whose stage name is Psy (pronounced “sigh”), released the global smash hit “Gangnam Style.”

That was the first time many people had heard of Gangnam. 

National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek recently walked the streets of Gangnam. It’s the latest leg of his more than 11-year journey on foot, tracing the paths of our earliest ancestors from East Africa to the southernmost tip of the Americas, that’s being documented in a project called Out of Eden Walk. 

He joined The World’s Host Carolyn Beeler to discuss his Hallyu experience.

Parts of this interview have been edited for length and clarity.

Writer and National Geographic Explorer Paul Salopek has embarked on a 24,000-mile storytelling trek across the world called the “Out of Eden Walk.” The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonders of our world, has funded Salopek and the project since 2013. Explore the project here. Follow the journey on X at @PaulSalopek, @outofedenwalk and also at @InsideNatGeo.

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Comedian Barry Ferns has performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe almost every year — coronavirus pandemic aside — since 1999. 

The very first year, his show played to sellout audiences, but he still walked away $6,500 in debt. 

The following year, he returned and ended up further in the red. Eight years after his first Fringe show, Ferns said, he was $45,000 in debt. By 2007, Ferns, who that year formally changed his name to Lionel Richie as a publicity stunt, was declared bankrupt.

“I had to put my hand on the Bible in the Royal Courts of Justice in London and say, I, Lionel Richie, do solemnly swear … Technically, I didn’t go bankrupt, Lionel Richie did,” he said.

Ferns added that he blames the festival for putting him in dire straits.  

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which runs through Aug. 26 this year, is the biggest performing arts festival in the world, and it has catapulted the work of some artists to the West End, Broadway and television. But the road to the festival is also littered with stories of career-ending performances, mental health distress and financial ruin.

Any artist can perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is now in its 77th year, but they must cover their own accommodation costs and the price of hiring a venue. 

Hotel and Airbnb prices in Edinburgh soar during the month of August as thousands descend on the city for the festival, practically doubling the capital’s population. Many artists say the festival is becoming prohibitively expensive for both performers and audiences. 

Ferns, who later recovered from bankruptcy and cofounded his own comedy club in London, continues coming to the festival because he said it has long been seen as the only way for comedians to break through in the industry. But it’s never been profitable for him.

One year, he said, he worked as a cleaner at the Gilded Balloon, the same Edinburgh venue that he would perform in each night to try and make ends meet. 

“I’d be waking up at 6 in the morning and cleaning up vomit and emptying cigarette ashtrays, and then show up on stage at the same place later that day.” 

Comedians like Robin Williams, Stephen Fry and Bo Burnham are often said to have had their first big breaks at the Fringe. Others like Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby, one of the high-profile acts at this year’s event, have more traumatic memories of their early years in Edinburgh.

In 2006, Gadsby said they performed to fewer than 100 people during the entire festival run. 

“I lost an obscene amount of money and cried in public three times,” they said. 

Actor and writer Georgie Wyatt’s first show at the Edinburgh Fringe made it to London’s Soho Theatre, and she secured an agent as a result. 

But one good year is no guarantee of continued success. The following year, Wyatt returned to the festival with a new act, but in hindsight, she said she never should have gone. 

“It was a disaster, and I paid a big price for it financially and personally,” she reflected.

The festival can also be a lonely experience for comics. Most acts have to pay for their own publicity, often handing out flyers for their own shows. The Fringe is highly competitive, Wyatt said, so it falls on a performer’s shoulders if their show fails. 

“If you don’t have a hold of your mental health or you’re feeling a bit fragile, just don’t go there — it will destroy you,” she said. 

Especially if people don’t show up. In 2019, she performed to an audience of just three people. 

The whole experience can be demoralizing, Wyatt said.

Still, Wyatt said few festivals like Edinburgh’s allow artists to perfect their craft to such an extent that they can perform night after night for up to a month in front of a live audience. 

One theater company this year has devised an almost foolproof way to stage sellout shows: performing to an audience of just one. 

Taste in Your Mouth, an Irish theater group, stages the show “You’re Needy (Sounds Frustrating)” in the bathroom of a house the company has rented. 

The venue also serves as the accommodation for the cast and crew during the festival. The single audience member sits on a chair as lead actress Laoise Murray performs the play in the bathtub. 

Murray said she tries not to think about whether her audience will leave during the show, and if they do, she would probably tell herself it was because the content was too unsettling. 

William Dunleavy, the company’s co-founder, said the play is an examination of the wellness industry and how it tries to control women’s bodies through capitalism. 

There are few places where a show of this kind can work, the play’s director Grace Morgan said, and the Edinburgh Fringe has turned out to be the perfect stage. 

The Irish theater group received a grant from Culture Ireland to bring the show to the Fringe, a benefit few of its British counterparts will have received, Morgan said. 

Still, the trio said they do not expect to make any money out of their first Edinburgh Fringe experience.

Brian Logan, comedy reviewer with The Guardian, who is also artistic director of Glasgow theater group A Play, A Pie and A Pint, said he believes that the festival organizers and city government itself could do more to help the artists. 

A lot of money pours into Edinburgh each August between ticket sales, hotel prices and bar bills. 

“It feels to me that the city of Edinburgh needs to stop strangling its golden goose and say, you know, how can we stop taking this thing for granted? It may not be here forever if artists are increasingly alienated from it,” Logan said.

A spokesperson for the Fringe Society that organizes the festival said that “short-term accommodation costs have increased exponentially across the UK, and Edinburgh is no different.” 

The festival lobbies local government, universities and student accommodation providers to set aside affordable rooms for artists. The spokesperson said the festival has also created a fund that offers grants of $3,250 to 180 artists to make the festival experience feasible.  

But for all its troubles, Logan said, there is little that compares to the “carnival of creativity” at the Fringe. 

This year, there are over 3,600 shows, with thousands of artists coming from 58 countries. 

“Every year, there’s also at least a dozen new international acts that I’ll see that I haven’t seen or heard of before,” Logan said. “Yes, the festival has its problems — it’s also wonderful; both these things are true.” 

And, a number of Fringe shows through the years have gone on to be global hits on platforms such as Netflix — like “Baby Reindeer,” which originated as a one-man show at the festival in 2019.

“I’m a Fringe idealist for all its problems. And I do find it a tremendously inspiring place to be,” he said, with “art and performance from every corner of the world here.”  

Logan said he would like to bring his own show to the Fringe one day.

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A large painting of a three-armed girl was prominently featured at Hillside Gallery’s stand at the art fair Tokyo Gendai in early July. The girl was pointing at a red ball with the No. 2 on it. 

The title of the painting is “Two O’Clock.”

“I think he is trying to compress a period of time,” said Shengyu Tang, Hillside’s owner, explaining the piece by Masaru Shichinohe, one of three Japanese artists represented by the gallery he opened in Tokyo in 2017. 

Tang was actually born in China and he believes his international experience gives him an advantage in the art market, because he doesn’t think he could only sell domestically. 

“We realized, if we could try to find artists that we think could do well outside of Japan as well, we might have a chance,” he said.

A few feet away from him, a major American gallery was making its debut at Tokyo Gendai.

Pace Gallery, which has offices in several cities including Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong, is just opening its Tokyo branch in September — something it has been planning for decades.

“We are really among a very few number of international galleries with a presence here in Tokyo, you might be able to count them on both your hands,” said Joseph Baptista, a partner at Pace.

Pace’s arrival and the beginning of Tokyo Gendai last year — the country’s first major international art fair — are both happening as Japan has changed some tax laws, making it easier for international companies to operate, and allowing Japanese dealers to take a bigger bite of a market that moves $65 billion a year. 

Many believe it’s about time. Even though it’s the third-largest economy in the world, Japan’s share of the global art market is just 1%, much smaller than China’s 19%. 

“Japan is quite rapidly accelerating towards the position that it should hold, which is one of the major art hubs anywhere,” said Magnus Renfrew, co-founder of Tokyo Gendai, which took place in Yokohama, about one hour by train from Tokyo.

To be able to launch the fair, organizers negotiated a tax incentive for exhibitors. Normally, international art galleries would have to pay a 10% tax up front.

“Which, of course, made it prohibitive,” Renfew said. “If they brought $10 million worth of art into the country, they would have to put down $1 million in cash.”

The 38 international galleries that attended Tokyo Gendai this year — out of a total of 69 — were able to pay the tax after their sales. 

Renfrew said that was a game changer, and it will help catapult art sales.

“The market in Asia is in the very early stage of development, and there is huge room to grow,” he said. 

Japan’s art profile is rising as sales from other Asian countries are suffering. 

The US government has increased tax imports on goods from China. And Hong Kong, a major arts hub, is dealing with stronger Chinese control that is limiting artistic expression.

The increase of interest in Japanese art is also related to the popularity of anime and manga — Japanese cartoons and comics — and the success of artists like Yayoi Kusama, known for her pumpkins with polka dots, and Takashi Murakami, who did the art for Kanye West’s “Graduation” album. 

Joan B. Mirviss, the owner of a namesake gallery in New York that specializes in Japanese art, particularly ceramics, said that, internationally, the interest in Japanese art has grown exponentially. 

“I don’t think a week goes by where I don’t get a request from a serious person, who I don’t know, or a surprise museum that suddenly wants to get started,” she said.

When Mirviss opened her gallery almost 50 years ago, she said, there were six museums in the US that were collecting Japanese ceramics. 

“Now, I have over 60 institutions in the United States alone, and institutions in Europe, Australia and elsewhere,” she said.

She explained that Japanese ceramic is pretty affordable; sake cups by young artists sell for $300 — or $1,000 if they are done by a celebrated master. 

But Mirviss believes the Japanese domestic art market has some challenges. Even though Japan is a rich country, she said the average person is more likely to save money than to spend on art.

“There isn’t that drive to collect, to build for status purposes,” she said.

Mirviss explained that aside from billionaires in Japan who have several homes, most people do not have spaces for large canvases or sculptures.

“Also, traditionally, in Japan, you don’t fill your house with art,” she said. “There’s specific spaces within the home where a work of art might be displayed. But it’s not like the West, where there’s, you know, paintings hanging in every room, and a sculpture on a corner. The Japanese don’t live like that.”

Baptista said Pace’s goal with the opening of a Tokyo branch is not only to sell to Japanese collectors, but to visitors who are flocking to the country, in part because they are interested in the culture and the art.

“There is so much interest in visiting Japan,” he said. “Culturally, it’s such a place of respect.”

Attracted also by a weak yen, almost 18 million tourists visited Japan in the first six months of this year, a record. It’s still unclear how that will translate to art sales.

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French Chilean rapper Ana Tijoux paused during a recent performance in New York to acknowledge flags propped onstage — of the Palestinian territories, and of Wallmapu, the ancestral territory of the Indigenous people in what is now Chile. 

“We believe in the liberation of any occupied territory,” she said during a concert that was part of Celebrate Brooklyn earlier this month. “I invite all the people in the crowd to not be afraid to talk about life and humanity.”

That message is in keeping with her music.

Tijoux is on a world tour featuring songs from her latest album titled, “Vida,” in Spanish (“Life” in English), which comes after a 10-year break and following the deaths of a handful of people close to her.

“Vida,” released earlier this year, deals with themes of conflict, death, motherhood, pollution and the end of the world. Though she doesn’t shy away from tough subjects, her album is filled with hope and meaning.  

Selena Fragassi is a freelance music writer and critic based in Chicago who has followed Tijoux’s work.

“What a time in history to reintroduce herself,” she said. “She is such a rebellious force in music, and she brings a lot of history, politics and feminism.”

Fragassi explained that some artists have played it safe in recent years, either because of the criticism they get on social media, or because they are trying to tow the line between different audiences with opposing views. 

“But Ana has never done that, and I think we need really strong voices in music entertainment,” she said. “Her words are just really meaningful right now.”

Fragassi said she appreciates that the album mixes hip-hop with jazz, R&B and Afro Cuban beats. 

And that it includes some ballads, showing Tijoux’s more sensitive side. 

“A lot happened in her life, maybe she got kind of tender on a few songs that were more autobiographical,” Fragassi said.

A happy vibe 

Some of the songs in “Vida” are political. “Busco mi nombre,” or “I search for my name,” is a ballad about those who disappeared during the dictatorship in Chile.

A few of the tunes are personal. 

“Tania” is about Tijoux’s sister who died in 2019. As she was mourning, she said that she needed an outlet to “put all the hope, and to live life and to understand what life really means.”   

“Niñx,” or “Child,” is written for her daughter, who is 11, because Tijoux said she wanted to give her hope in a time of war. 

“I’m sure I sing that song also to myself, and for the inside child we all got,” Tijoux said. 

Even her apocalyptic song, “Fin del mundo” (“End of the world”) has a happy vibe. That’s because the record is also inspired by her passion for dancing, an activity that she said she finds therapeutic. 

“Dancers sometimes cry,” she said. “I love that mood of the movement of the body and the movement of the soul.”

“Vida” features several guests, including American rapper Talib Kweli, Puerto Rican singer iLe, and Chilean rapper Pablo Chill-E. 

‘The land of no-lands’

Tijoux became famous internationally in 2010 with her second solo album, “1977,” named after the year she was born, in France, while her parents were in exile because of the military dictatorship in Chile. 

Since then, the rapper has been nominated for three Grammys, won one Latin Grammy, and has become a role model as a Latina in hip-hop. 

Tijoux said she fell in love with hip-hop when she was still living in Paris. She was exposed to the genre while visiting African immigrants with her mother who worked as a social worker.

“Hip-hop is the land of the no-lands. And that’s why I think it’s so popular around the world,” Tijoux said. “It’s a movement that was born with immigrants, with Boricua, with Haitians, Jamaicans, Afro Americans.”

The family moved back to Chile in the 1990s, and Tijoux started performing as a rapper when she was 18, first with the group Makiza.

For the past three years, Tijoux has been living in Barcelona, Spain, with her daughter, 11, and son, 19. She just turned 47 and said she’s not scared of aging.

“We change, and there is nothing wrong about that,” she said. “I understand that many people don’t want to say that they age, but in my case, I’m very proud of my age.”

In many ways, Tijoux maintains her rebellious, young spirit — as evidenced by her new tooth bling of the numeral 77. 

Nelson Rodríguez Vega, a music professor at the University of Concepción in Chile who has written about the history of hip-hop in the country, said Tijoux’s new album consolidates her career. 

“With this record, she is ratifying her position as one of the most-important female rappers of Latin America, if not the most important,” he said. 

Rodríguez Vega said Tijoux’s success has opened the door for other female rappers, like Flor de Rap and Zita Zoe.

He said about one particular festival in the southern city of Concepción, “You can really say that women are making rap because, during six hours, 90% of the artists performing are women.”

That’s because of her talent as a singer, songwriter and activist, Rodríguez Vega explained. “Her lyrics go beyond. They address political issues or social commentary. So, from that perspective, she transcends.”

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