ContraSOLa: 8/5/11

Κυριακή 8 Μαΐου 2011

Video: Dance - Flamenco Performance by Pastora Galvan

Pastora Galván, an important new figure in flamenco dance, performed at the exhibition's opening of No Singing Allowed: Flamenco and Photography, at Aperture Gallery, on February 4, 2010.

Aperture Foundation and Instituto Cervantes have partnered to celebrate and interpret the art of flamenco through photography in two exhibitions at the Aperture Gallery and Instituto Cervantes respectively, just prior to the launch of the 10th Annual New York Flamenco Festival on February 11. Both shows remained on view till April 1, 2010.

The exhibition was coproduced by Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo and Sociedad Estatal de Conmemoraciones Culturales, with the collaboration of Centro Andaluz de Flamenco, and was made possible thanks to the generous support of Antonio Banderas Fragrances by PUIG. The exhibition debuted at the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Sevilla in April 2009 and was curated by José Lebrero Stals.

Whether as social phenomenon or musical expression, flamenco has been of enduring interest and inspiration to photographers from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. While some photographers from outside of Spain went in search of it or encountered it by chance, to others flamenco and its practitioners are an essential, if not innate, aspect of their cultural heritage and their photographic work. This artistic form—also considered a way of life or being—has generated fascination in cultured urban circles, remaining one of the most secret, mysterious, and seductive manifestations of twentieth-century European popular art. This exhibition of more than one hundred and fifty years of images, frequently taken by foreigners rather than Spaniards, is an extensive survey of how photographers of different eras have approached the universe of flamenco, whether documenting the dance itself, gestures that recall it, or the culture that is developed around it.

Film: BBC - The Secret Life of Chaos [58 minutes]

BBC - The Secret Life of Chaos
Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand.
It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?
In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?
It's a mind bending, counter intuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.
And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again.