July 2nd, 2010
A last filmed legacy of the great Pina Bausch shows her at work while she was still alive: Tanzträume: Jugendliche tanzen Kontakthof von Pina Bausch is based on Pina’s reprised masterpiece Kontakthof (Contact Zone) from 1978, this time danced by teenagers with no previous training in ballet or modern dance. The documentary by Anne Linsel and her camera man Rainer Hoffmann opened last March in Germany, after receiving enthusiastic reactions and rave reviews at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The Yerba Buena Center of the Arts in San Francisco proudly offered a small series of older, well-known films on Pina Bausch in May, with the US premiere of Tanzträume as its peek.
Read the article and see an excerpt from the film at http://www.scene4.com/0710/renatestendhal0710.html
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June 20th, 2010
Writing lessons from Gertrude Stein.
Gleaning through my field of ALA (American Literature Association) notes, I found exciting snippets from a Stein panel that still hums through my mind. “Why Is Gertrude Stein So Important?” was the panel, dominated by two brilliant authors and academics, writer Marjorie Perloff (Stanford) and poet/writer Joan Retallack (Bard College), and what an inspiring question it was. Here, in Steinese non-sequitors, a few findings:
Read the rest of this entry »
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June 4th, 2010
“Why is Gertrude Stein So Important?” was the title of one panel at the American Literature Association last weekend, with an entire day of panels on Stein. I was invited to talk about her murder mystery “Blood on the Dining-Room Floor” which I had translated into German (“keine keiner. Ein Kriminalroman). You might be surprised — and Stein herself would have been surprised — that this was her maiden voyage into the ivory tour of the ALA. Yes, for the first time, Stein was “important” enough to get all those panels at the ALA. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 28th, 2010
The Story of the Safety Pin. Gertrude was the guest of honor at the Diane Middlebrook Salon in San Francisco, this past Sunday, May 23rd, and what a ball she had! Another heroine pioneer of her time, Amelia Earhardt, shared the spotlight — together with her biographer, Susan Wels. The two revolutionaries were impressed by the elegance of this gathering, hosted by She Writer Marilyn Yalom.”Books and food, food and books — both excellent things,” Gertrude cheerfully quoted herself as she beheld the luscious chocolate cake, the big bowl of cherries, Sancerre wine and many other delicacies served to enliven the conversation. Read the rest of this entry »
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May 2nd, 2010
Read about the book exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco: French artist Linda Ellia shows “Notre Combat” (Our Struggle) — 450 pages of Hitler’s Mein Kampf deconstructed and reconstructed by artists and gathered into a new book. http://www.scene4.com/0510/renatestendhal0510.html
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April 8th, 2010
Gertrude has had a meeting with the Zeitgeist. I had just posted # 39, the attempt of Proust, Joyce and Pound to Twitter (quite in vain, of course) whereas Stein revealed herself as the naturally born Twitterwit: “Toasted Susie is my icecream”. The same day, a message came flying by from Berlin and London: “”Why Twitter is Gertrude Stein in 2010″. Lo and behold. Read the rest of this entry »
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April 8th, 2010
What it would be like if Proust, Pound, Joyce and Stein had to be “authorpreneurs” and polish their FaceBook Fan pages and emit daily tweets?
Are there other writers who are sometimes overcome, as I am, by the merry absurdity of our post-modern writers’ lives?
Think about it. And then let’s boldly go where none of them has gone before!
Here’s James Joyce on Twitter:
“Love between man and man is impossible because there must not be sexual intercourse and friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual int” Oops, he got cut off. Just when it got interesting.
How about Ezra Pound?
“It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let t” Darn, he got cut off too. Poor Pound. The best part went missing.
Should we even bother with Marcel Proust (for whom an entire page was often not enough to fit one sentence)? Okay Proust, give it a try:
“The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow, since the most benighted and the most deplorable prejudices have had their moment of novelty when fashion lent them” Yeah, that was predictable. Sorry, Proust. Try again.
Hi Gertrude Stein: how about a tweet today? (Could she do it? Would she do it? Gertie the perfect Twitterwit?)
“Toasted Susie is my icecream.”
Sure enough. A one-liner, the sexy sort. Why do something if it can be done.
Posted in Gertrude Stein, News |
April 3rd, 2010
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February 8th, 2010
My blog continues at http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blog/list?user=1fxhrwbaix6wi
She is turning 136 this year in her very own ageless way.
And here is the mythical birth as told in the Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas:
“Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. As I am an ardent californian and as she spent her youth there I have often begged her to be born in California but she has always remained firmly born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 2nd, 2010
Elina Garanca and Roberto Alagna in a new Met production, simulcast live in HD
http://www.scene4.com/0210/renatestendhal0210.html
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December 1st, 2009
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November 20th, 2009
A rose is a rose by any other name… When I researched Stein photographs and texts for my photobiography I happened upon the man who created this amazing rose tattoo — an homage to Gertrude Stein. He turned out to be not only a tattoo artist but a writer, had worked with Kinsey on his sexual studies, and… been an intimate friend of Gertrude and Alice. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 3rd, 2009
I am relaunching my photobiography of Gertrude Stein with a blog on She Writes: “Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein”:
http://www.shewrites.com/profiles/blogs/why-do-something-if-it-can-be
“Who was Gertrude Stein? The social and artistic dominatrix of the lost generation? The literary founder of modernism? The sensual companion of Alice B. Toklas? A ‘dictator of art’ or an ‘infant prodigy’? Stein, whose freedom with the written word ‘liberated language from the nineteenth century,’ remains a heroine hard to grasp.
Now Renate Stendhal’s Gertrude Stein: In Words and Pictures (Algonquin) takes a good look at the slippery genius. After an astonishing, playful essay, the book opens into a revelatory combination of quotes, clips, and 360 photos of Stein and her wildly brilliant circle. The subtle minimalism of Stein’s cool face, repeating page to page like her own rhythmic sentences, brings a nuanced embodiment to our imcomplete sense of her. From a serious, chin-in-air profile of ‘Gertie’ at age three to a chin-in-hands portrait taken at age seventy-two, the woman is ‘a rose is a rose is a rose.’” ELLE Magazine
Posted in Gertrude Stein, News |
November 2nd, 2009
Was the great Karita Mattila miscast in the role of Tosca?
Read the review http://www.scene4.com/1109/renatestendhal-r1109.html
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November 1st, 2009
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September 1st, 2009
My portrait of the provocative artist has appeared in print, in the Arts and Culture section of Four Seasons Magazine, Issue 3, 2009, titled ”Spider Woman”.
http://magazine.fourseasons.com/articles/global/interest/arts_culture/spider_woman/My background article, “Influential 20th-Century Sculptors,” can be read at:
century_sculptors/
Click on “Read more” to see the whole article on Louise Bourgeois.
Four Seasons Magazine is now presented on YouTube :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5z9sv1KG5k
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September 1st, 2009
My memories of the great creator of dance theater in Germany go back to my school days. I saw her still dancing in “The Green Table” by Kurt Joos. My article refers back to the first time Pina and the Wuppertaler Tanztheater appeared in California and created “Nur Du/ Only You”.
link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/sep-2009/0909/renatestendhal0909.html
2 photos by Gert Weigelt
Tags: Add new tag
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August 14th, 2009
Review of the beautiful Anna in Verdi’s “La Traviata” (staged by Marta Domingo) at http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/aug-2009/html/renatestendhal0809.html. Is Anna Netrebko the new ultimate Violetta Verdy?
Article link
- Anna Netrebko as Violetta Verdy, San Francisco Opera
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August 14th, 2009
At the Women’s Memorial Labyrinth (Wiesbaden, May 2006)
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August 1st, 2009
I am part of an exciting new site — www.shewrites.com — where women writers gather and exchange ideas, news, skills. I joined a number of discussion groups, created a new one: “Diary to Memoir to Fiction”, and started my first blog (see under Gertrude Stein, “Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein”, November 2009).
http://shewrites.com
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June 1st, 2009
Full Interview with Robert Cole who retires from his spectacular stewardship of over 20 years.
http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/jul-2009/html/renatestendhal0709.html
Robert Cole, conductor for Mark Morris and The Hard Nut, at Cal Performances
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June 1st, 2009
June 1, 2009
Review “Brave New Met: Brilliance and Kitsch”
Two Divas, Anna Netrebko and Renée Fleming — worlds apart.
Direct link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/jun-2009/html/renatestendhal0609.htm
Lucia and the Specter (Production Mary Zimmerman
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May 1st, 2009
Essential to Life: Robert Cole reflects on 23 years at the helm of Cal Performances
Article in California Magazine, May-June Link: http://alumni.berkeley.edu/news/california-magazine/may-june-2009-go-bare/essential-life
Robert Cole and his wife Susan Muscarella at Zellerbach Hall
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April 1st, 2009
“Much Ado About Diva Scale: San Francisco Ballet’s New Season” www.scene4.com
http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/apr-2009/html/renatestendhal-a0409.html
Lorena Feijoo and Quinn Wharton in “Ibsen’s House”
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November 1st, 2008
“Opera and Popcorn” — the new HD Live at the Met simulcast operas at a cinema near you.
Review of the spectacular “Salome” of Karita Mattila
Link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/nov-2008/html/renatestendhal1108.html
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September 1st, 2008
“What Would We Do Without Them? The Cuban Dance Revolution and its Stars Lorena Feijoo and Jose Manuel Carreño.”
A portrait of two of the major ballet dancers trained in Cuba and now starring in the West, in the online magazine The World & I, Sept. 1, 2008.
Link: http://www.worldandi.com
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August 1st, 2008
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July 1st, 2008
Puzzles and Wonders: Sacre du Printemps and Near the Terrace, at Cal Performances
Link:http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/may-2007/html/infocus.html
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July 1st, 2008
I talked to both ballet stars and wrote their portrait. The cover story in Four Seasons Magazine, Issue 2, 2008, can only be read in print.
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May 1st, 2008
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December 1st, 2007
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October 3rd, 2007
“Gertrude and Alice – The Centennial of a Controversial Relationship”. Renate Stendhal interviewed by Cynthia Lee Katona, author of Book Savvy, a handbook for students and lovers of literature.
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September 9th, 2007
Charmed Circle Tea Readings GERTRUDE AND ALICE: 100 YEARS, 100 ROSES, celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Gertrude Stein meeting Alice B. Toklas.
Charmed Circle performance at Gertrude’s salon… 
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August 2nd, 2007
“The Société Anonyme Modernism for America”. Panel discussion “Icons of Collecting : Powerful Women and Modern Art” (Katherine Dreier, Hilla von Rebay and Gertrude Stein.)
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August 1st, 2007
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July 7th, 2007
“Did Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Have Sex? A Celebration of 100 Years of An Unusual Relationship”
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April 1st, 2007
“Artifact Suite” and “Three Atmospheric Studies” at Cal Performances, Berkeley
http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/apr-2007/html/renatestendhal0407.html
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March 21st, 2007
Presentation on Gertrude Stein at the Cafe Duboce Park, San Francisco.
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May 23rd, 2006
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May 14th, 2006
Wiesbaden, Germany. Sponsoring and setting a memorial stone for Gertrude Stein, inscripted “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” Links:
http://www.frauen-gedenk-labyrinth.de/
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May 6th, 2006
Report from the 20-year anniversary of the Women’s Memorial Labyrinth. The Celebratory Congress for the History of Eminent Women took place in Wiesbaden. I dedicated a memorial stone for Gertrude Stein and performed, together with Maj Skadegaard, the 25-year anniversary of our Multimedia Show “In the Beginning…of the End”.
http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/jul-2006/html/stendhaljul06.html
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May 1st, 2006
With the German edition of True Secrets of Lesbian Desire: Keeping Sex Alive in Long-Term Relationships: Die Farben der Lust: Sex in lesbischen Liebesbeziehungen (Krug & Schadenberg, Berlin). See Book Page.
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March 1st, 2006
Portrait of the Belgian pianist, cover story
Link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/mar-2006/html
Kent Nagano, Olivier Messiaen, Jeanne Stark-Iochmans, Yvonne Loriod
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July 26th, 2005
Panel on “Lesbian Publishers. A Historical Perspective and A Current View” with Carol Seajay, Barbara Grier, Frederique Delacoste, Joan Pinkvoss and Renate Stendhal. Eureka Valley/ Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library, July 26, 2005.
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April 1st, 2005
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February 1st, 2005
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January 1st, 2005
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October 1st, 2004
Marianne Faithful as the Devil in Wilson’s Black Rider, in tour in San Francisco
Link:http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/oct-2004/html/stendhal-wilsonoct2004.html
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