Tanzträume – a film about Pina Bausch’s “Kontakthof” danced by teenagers

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

Read the rest of this entry »

Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein# 48

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 »

Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein # 47

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 »

Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein # 46

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 »

A Book Like No Other: Linda Ellia’s “Notre Combat” (Our Struggle)

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

Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein # 40

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 »

Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein # 39

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.

San Francisco Ballet’s “The Little Mermaid”

April 3rd, 2010

Review at http://www.scene4.com/0410/renatestendhal0410.html

Happy birthday, Gertie!

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 »

Fire and Ice: The Formidable new Carmen at the Met

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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Suzanne Farrell Ballet at Cal Performances

December 1st, 2009

Read my report at: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/dec-2009/1209/renatestendhal1209.html

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Why Do Something If It Can Be Done: Quoting Gertrude Stein # 16

November 20th, 2009

Rose tattoo109A 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 »

Gertrude Stein Blog: follow the link!

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


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Luc Bondy vs Zefirelli At The Met

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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Report from a Trip Home: A Discovery in Germany

November 1st, 2009

Stumbling Stones

Article at http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/nov-2009/1109/renatestendhal-i1109.html

Portrait of Sculptor Louise Bourgeois

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:

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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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Homage to the late Pina Bausch

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

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Culture Witness: Brave New Met

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 linkAnna Netrebko as Violetta Verdy, San Francisco Opera

Anna Netrebko as Violetta Verdy, San Francisco Opera

August 14th, 2009

At the Women’s Memorial Labyrinth (Wiesbaden, May 2006)Labyrinth Memorial Stone of artist Meret Oppenheim

Member of She Writes

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

Culture Witness: Change at the Helm of Cal Performances

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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Culture Witness: Brave New Met: Brilliance and Kitsch

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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Essential to Life: Robert Cole’s 23 Years at Cal Performances

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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Culture Witness: Swan Lake/ Swan Rock in SF

April 1st, 2009

Review of San Francisco Ballet’s new “Swan Lake” with Cuban superstar Lorena Feijoo.

Article Link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/apr-2009/html/renatestendhal-b0409.html

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Lorena Feijoo rehearsing Swan Lake with choreographer Helgi Tomasson

Culture Witness: Diva Scale

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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Culture Witness: Opera and Popcorn

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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The Cuban Ballet Revolution and Its Stars — Lorena Feijoo and Jose Manuel Carreno

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

Culture Witness: Frida Kahlo at SF MOMA

August 1st, 2008

A great retrospective with many photographs of Frida

Link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/jul-2008/html/renatestendhal0708.html

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Culture Witness: Shen Wei Dance Arts

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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Cuban Ballerina Sisters Lorena and Lorna Feijoo

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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Paris – Plus Ça Change

May 1st, 2008

May 2008  –  Springtime in Paris: Cafés and Arts

Link: http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/may-2008/html/renatestendhal0508.html

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Culture Witness: Pina Bausch in Berkeley Again

December 1st, 2007

Review of her piece Ten Chi, created in Japan:

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/dec-2007/html/renatestendhal1207.htmlBausch04cr

Commonwealth Club, San Francisco

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.

The Mechanics’ Institute, San Francisco

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…  charmed-circle-sept9-20072

Dallas Museum of Art,

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.)

Paintings

Der Rosenkavalier at San Francisco Opera, May 2007

August 1st, 2007

Boy Played by Girl Dresses Up as Girl to Get Girl

Link:http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/aug-2007/html/renatestendhal0807.html

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James C. Hormel Gay & Lesbian Center – San Francisco Public Library

July 7th, 2007

“Did Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas Have Sex? A Celebration of 100 Years of An Unusual Relationship”

Vu and Déjà Vu: William Forsythe with “Artifact Suite”

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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Betty’s List Book Club

March 21st, 2007

Presentation on Gertrude Stein at the Cafe Duboce Park, San Francisco.

Shamanic Swan Lake by Matthew Bourne

May 23rd, 2006

The revolutionary all-male Swan Lake from England, revisited.

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/may-2006/html/stendhalmay06.html

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Women’s Memorial Labyrinth

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/

Labyrinth in front of the Frankfurt Opera

The Labyrinth of 2000 Women

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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Book Tour in Germany

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.

Jeanne Stark-Iochmans: Timeless Clarity

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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Out at the Library

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.

Ballet and Sex: Joan Acocella Lectures in Berkeley

April 1st, 2005

Reflections on the (not so hidden) erotic subtext of ballet.

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/apr-2005/html/stendhalapr05.html

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“Bad Education” by Pedro Almodóvar

February 1st, 2005

Reflections in two parts:

Part I: Mala Educación

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/feb-2005/html/stendhalfeb05.html

Part II: Embracing the Crocodile: Second Thoughts about “Bad Education”

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/mar-2005/html/stendhalmar05.html

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Nutcracker: Mark Morris versus Matthew Bourne

January 1st, 2005

From the “Hard Nut” to a sugary “Nutcracker”

http://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/jan-2005/html/stendhaljan05.html

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Culture Witness: Robert Wilson’s Black Rider

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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