Special issue of Scene4, with a quirky review of San Francisco opera’s brilliant MAKROPULOS CASE with Karita Mattila and a video excerpt:

http://www.scene4.com/0111/renatestendhal0111.html

Review of part I, Rheingold — a cover story of Scene4 Magazine: “The Ring Machine”

http://www.scene4.com

http://www.scene4.com/1210/renatestendhal1210.html

My review of San Francisco Opera’s Werther by Massenet compares the production with a classic: Peter Weigl’s film version of the opera with the great Brigitte Fassbaender and equally powerful Peter Dvorsky from 1986. Don’t miss the film clip at the end!

http://www.scene4.com/1110/renatestendhal1110.html

It may be the last. Editor Lise Weil is stepping down after her monumental commitment to the magazine that has been vanguard as much as a feminist classic. The last two issues on lesbian identity — from the seventies to now — are a breath of fresh air in our back-lash-polluted culture. I am lucky to be part of this last grand departure with an excerpt from the novel I just finished. Read the rest of this entry »

For all everyone who didn’t happen upon my blog post a while ago: “Can a Writer’s Life Experience Earn a University Degree?” It’s important to me to share this knowledge. Why? Because it’s so important to the women who went into this program or are going through it right now: see She Writer Rosy Aronson (below), one of several UIL students (myself included) whose PhD dissertation became a published book.
Now, if you are in the SF Bay Area, I would like to invite you to a Salon afternoon at the beautiful Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club — Sunday Oct. 24, at 2 pm. The club is putting out the following invitation:
“Nurture your Mind. You’ve Earned a degree for your Life Experience. Now there is a way to validate that truth. Come to a Sunday afternoon Salon with UIL provost and reknowned writer Renate Stendhal, Ph.D., Sunday, October 24, at 2pm. Mingle, chat and enjoy healthy treats while you hear about the University of Integrative Learning. This university without walls wants you to tell your own story right at your own computer in your own home, with guidance and support. Learn how to honor and extract your unique experience from the context of your own lifelong learning and end up with a university degree to show for it. Free with advance reservation; $5 at the door.”
Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd,.Oakland, CA. 94611 www.montclairartsclub.com Tel. 510-339-1832 Read the rest of this entry »

True stories about the Grand Dame and tyrant of Cuban Ballet, Alicia Alonso, the company, and its famous exiles, among them the ballerina sisters Lorena and Lorna Feijoo.

http://www.scene4.com/1010/renatestendhal1010.html

Testimony of UIL Students

“I approached the UIL advanced degree program with that I thought was a healthy disrespect for conventional academia. At 62, with a successful career under my belt, I did not feel it was necessary to spend years studying dead men’s theories. What I could not have predicted was how embedded my need for conventional authoritative validation would be. I spent two semesters desgining a thesis that was framed by others’ ideas and opinions. UIL’s first gift to me, transmitted directly by my provost, Renate Stendhal, was that my experience was sufficient source material for my thesis and dissertation work. What she reiterated in a hundered different ways was that I didn’t need to go to the library, my LIFE was the library. I could not have had a more responsive and meticulous provost than Renate Stendhal. I had hoped she would hold me to as high a standard as I hold for myself, and was sometimes breathless at her exactitude. She is the effortless embodiment of UIL’s educational philosophy”. Margaret (Margie) Adam, Ph.D., integrative counselor, Berkeley. Read the rest of this entry »