“I always have a narrative in my head because story helps in linking the movement for me,” says Helen Pickett, the guest artist starring at the University of South Carolina Dance Program’s latest dance festival. Her piece, entitled February 14, 2012, is a contemporary ballet set to parts of the score to the film Mishima, by Phillip Glass.
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February 21, 2012
Japanese author Yukio Mishima inspires dance
February 5, 2012
Muslim model agency launches in New York
A young Muslim fashion designer wearing hijab.
A couple of decades ago a model agency for aristocrats was launched in Great Britain. It didn’t last long, as I recall. The founder seemed to have overlooked the obvious fact that people hire models based on their looks, not whether they can trace their family tree to King Henry VIII. But it was a good gimmick, and it made the press.
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January 28, 2012
Turkey launches hijab fash mag
Do you remember when one episode of the British comedy Absolutely Fabulous took Patsy and Edina to Morocco? For the two drunken, self-absorbed anti-heroes Morocco was all about smoking “Mary Jane” (to use a Sixties slang term) and buying “gorgeous thing.”
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January 15, 2012
Austrian Mint to issue Gustav Klimt coins
Celebrating 150 years since his birth in 1862, the Austrian Mint will release a series of five gold coins depicting artist Gustav Klimt and some of his paintings.
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January 6, 2012
Anti-Islam Metal band wins prestigious music award
Norwegian Black Metal band Taake has been nominated for the Spellemann Prize. The contemporary music prize has twenty categories, and Taake has been nominated for the Best Metal Album category for its 2011 album Noregs Vaapen (“Norway’s Weapons”).
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January 1, 2012
Egyptian blogger gets death threats for nude protest
Porn and religious fundamentalism just don’t mix. Or do they? Well, it appears so.
Take the case of Aliaa Magda al-Mahdy, 20. In protest against Egypt’s illiberalism and religious fundamentalism, in December, she and a male friend posted nude photos of themselves on their blogs. The Muslim-majority state exploded with shock, furor, debate, and assertions of medieval values.
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December 31, 2011
Post-9/11 and the problem of abstraction
Architect company MVRDV provoked shock and outrage in early december when its plan for the building of two skyscrapers in Seoul, South Korea, came to public attention.
The two buildings strongly resembled New York’s Twin Towers, destroyed by al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 — a day that is burned into the national psyche of the USA, and the psyches of individuals all around the world.
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December 24, 2011
Punk’s not dead — in Islam.
The 80s British anarcho-punk band Conflict is hanging in there — like U2, the Rolling Stones, and all the other bands that they no doubt detest. So, as the decades old slogan says, “Punk’s [or 'Punx'] not dead.”
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December 21, 2011
People of Shambhala — religious minorities against Islamist violence
From People of Shambhala
People of Shambhala is a new website dedicated to raising awareness of the discrimination, oppression, and violence suffered on a daily basis by minority religions around the world today, especially under Islamic or Islamist regimes.
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December 12, 2011
All-American Muslims call for support over boycott of TLC show
All-American Muslims, a TLC show, has created something of a firestorm of controversy. Those objecting to the show, which follows American Muslims in their daily lives, claim that it is propaganda, obscuring the supremacist nature of sharia.
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December 11, 2011
Qaradawi’s sharia “gradualism” is a threat to liberal democracy
During the Balkans war of the 1990s, Alija Izetbegović, then Bosnia’s President, was championed by the Western media. For Western reporters, educated in the humanities, Bosnian Muslims were Europe’s new Jews besieged by Serbian nationalists – Europe’s alleged new Nazis.
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December 10, 2011
Veena Malik’s explosive photo shoot
An unpublished second version of the Veena Malik FHM cover.
Model and actress Veena Malik caused outrage in Pakistan earlier this month after appearing naked (although with the body carefully positioned to preserve modesty) on the cover of FHM magazine.
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November 17, 2011
Benetton advert angers Vatican
Italian fashion company Benetton has just launched its “UNHATE” advertising campaign. According to its website, its aim –besides selling Benetton sweatshirts and pants — is
noble: to contrast “the culture of hatred and promoting closeness between peoples, faiths, cultures, and the peaceful understanding of each other’s motivations.” Benneton has built a brand on knowing how to exploit advertising to shock their way into the consumer consciousness. Benneton’s clothing is actually very ordinary, very forgettable, so you can see why it needs the push. A dying AIDS victim was featured in one of Benetton’s advertisements for sweaters and pants, and another one showed a newborn baby, still covered in blood. 
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November 15, 2011
Justin Timberlake: “among my heroes” at Marine charity ball
If the “occupy Wall Street” “movement” has done anything, it’s given the conservative press a chance to poke fun at a few Hollywood hypocrites. George Clooney might make a cool $15 million a movie, and Kayne West might charge $30,000 to $50,000 (or about $1,000 a minute) for a single speech — and they might not want to share any of that with the 99%.
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September 18, 2011
A bad week for Islam in Europe
On Friday, France passed a ban on praying in the streets. The ban came in response to the two thousand Muslims that had been gathering regularly in northern Paris, and praying in the streets in scenes of mass worship. On the same day, the Netherlands proposed legislation outlawing the wearing of the burka in public.
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September 17, 2011
Oktoberfest opens to six million visitors
The world famous beer drinking festival, Oktoberfest, has just kicked off in Munich. It is being held on 84 acres of land, and will be running for 17 days this year — one longer than last year. The price of a mug of beer is up 3.6% on 2010, and now costs between €8.70 and €9.20. That’s about $12 US, but an Oktoberfest “mug” is large when compared to the suddenly rather modest looking pint of beer.
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September 14, 2011
NY graphic artist campaigns against “me, myself and I” culture
You’ve probably seen young men wearing their pants — if you’re in the UK, that would be trousers — hanging down beneath their underpants, on show to the world. Here’s the history: After a number of suicides in police custody, in the 1970s, individuals arrested in LA were relieved of their belts and shoelaces after arrest, so that they wouldn’t be able to hang themselves.
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September 11, 2011
President Obama’s 9/11 address: “we preserved our values, and our character.”
Something of a religious controversy had been brewing in the lead-up to the 911 commemorations. Former Deputy Mayor of New York Rudy Washington and some Christian groups were dismayed that Mayor Bloomberg had decided not to include clergy or prayers in the tenth anniversary ceremony. Christian clergy, they pointed out, had ministered to firefighters and police at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the attacks ten years ago.
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September 8, 2011
British artist commemorates 9/11 with comic art
In a recent defense of fantasy art, British graphic artist Liam sharp reminds us that this genre is more than a collection of pretty pictures. “It empowered us, emboldened us before battle,” Sharp says, “It gave us strength in times of famine or hardship.” Although less respected than the “high art” of oil on canvas, fantasy and comic art is, after several thousand years, still serving this purpose, and uplifting the human spirit, as an upcoming exhibition by another British artist – Ben Turnbull — shows.
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September 7, 2011
Fashion House pays homage to “French way of living”
If you thought traditional style was going out of fashion, think again. High glamor, decadence, and European culture form the backdrop for the latest advert for Dior’s perfume, J’Adore Dior. The ad, which runs for just over one and a half minutes, was filmed at Versailles’ Hall of Mirrors, and follows Charlize Theron backstage at a Dior fashion show. Shots of models getting dressed and undressed and make up artists applying cosmetics are intercut with footage of beauty icons such as Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, and Grace Kelly.
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