“All the world’s a stage”, so it shouldn’t be surprising to find performing arts at every turn, be it in the street, the pub or in traditional theatres. From storytelling around the campfire to the great Greek tragedies, the medieval morality plays to Shakespeare’s accessibility to the common man, theatre has played an important role in the human story.
The beating...
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Sri Lanka’s Sacred City of Kandy sits 475 meters above sea level in low hills embraced by the Mahaweli River, just 130 kilometers from the modern capital of Colombo.
But Kandy also once was a capital. Established by Sinhalese King Wickramabahu III during his period of reign from 1357 to 1374, the city became the capital of the Kandyan kingdom in the 16th century. It fell to the British in 1...
Travelers to and from the Caribbean, Bermuda, Panama, Mexico and Canada will be required to have a passport or other secure, accepted document to enter or re-enter the United States. This is a change from prior travel requirements and will affect all United States citizens entering the United States from countries within the Western Hemisphere who do not currently possess...
The wheels of the old Land Cruiser sunk deep into the hot sand for the third time that afternoon. With a tired groan the engine stalled and Ali cursed in Bambara, thumped the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. He tried to get out. He couldn’t. The car sat at an angle as the left side had dug itself into the Sahara and the dunes were level with the doors. He swung...
Prague is a year round Music Festival. In this stunningly beautiful city in the heart of Europe with a population of around 1.3 million there are three opera houses and on an average day/evening around twenty concerts in superb concert halls, churches, palaces and museums. Many tourists are introduced to classical music here. Often I have been at concerts...
Mediterranean cities like Barcelona, medieval castles, Picasso and Gaudi, ski resorts, sunny islands like Mallorca, hilltop villages surrounded by vineyards and varied and innovative cuisine + Europe's top young chef, Ferran Adria; the Spaniards, like the Italians know how to enjoy life. Is it any wonder that Spain is Europe's number one tourist destination and the world's...
There is a scurrilous rumour to the effect that it was the Irish who invented arts festivals – to give themselves an excuse for a party on the three nights of the month when any other excuse for a drink was lacking. This is a scandalous calumny, perpetrated and perpetuated by Lutheran and Calvinist nations whose idea of art in motion is a truck carrying...
You would expect a town that introduced the world to Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry and so many others to have a great blues festival and Chicago does. It has been going on since 1984.
The Chicago Blues Festival is an annual event held in Grant Park, downtown along Chicago’s lakefront. Dozens of blues artists perform on multiple stages...
The Epidaurus Festival, which will be half a century old next year, is deeply rooted in the collective Greek conscience. The Epidavria, as the event was baptized (in an attempt to get rid of the foreign word 'festival') by Emilios Hourmouzios ― the man who managed to turn into reality Dimitris Rondiris' dream ― never lost its charm, not even in its worst...
The Grand Teton Music Festival has been the summer home for classical music in Jackson Hole since 1962. Guided by the vision of founding fathers George Hufsmith and conductor Ernest Hagen, the Music Festival was originally produced by the Fine Arts Guild as part of the Jackson Hole Fine Arts Festival. The first several seasons included dance, film, and...
The First "Glorious Summer"
That Stratford, Ontario, is the home of the largest classical repertory theatre in North America is ultimately attributable to the dream of one man, Stratford-born journalist Tom Patterson.
In the early 1950s, seeing the economy of his home town endangered by the withdrawal of the railway industry...
Travel can be like an addiction, one needs fixes with the more exotic and less tried. After Rio on New Years Eve, India's Pushkar fair, Papua New Guinea's Highlands show, the oceanfront weekend street festival in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic has a “Parranda Navidea” every night from December 20 until New Years and is a spectacle totally pleasing to the senses. Unlike the Papua...
The performing arts may not have an official category called “mummery,” but in one of the oldest and most distinguished cities in the United States, home of the U.S. Constitution and first capital, the Philadelphia Mummers have been performing officially on New Year’s Day for more than 100 years in a 10-hour spectacle, along a two-mile stretch of Broad Street, with up to 10,000...
