by Antonio Miniño on December 7, 2009
Foot protection was one of the first things created by our ancestors, even before the fur wrap skirt (not to be confused with Carolina Herrera‘s wrap blouse or Diane Von Furstenberg‘s signature wrap dress). Shoes have been a part of our lives since the making of the wheel and since then have been adorned to be more than just protective gear. Shoes have become the modern woman’s ID card.
This season the runway was not exempt from highly opulent shoes: studs (the houses of Prada, Zanotti, Givenchy), elastic and leather bands (Narciso Rodriguez, Derek Lam, Jason Wu, Dior) and bejeweled wonders (McQueen, Christopher Kane, Nina Ricci, Blumarine). All fit for a queen, all ranging from $1,000 and up. So if you aren’t a trust fund baby, Ivanka Trump, or embezzling money for shoes, how can you afford all these styles?
Sure we all love Louboutins enough to write a song dedicated to them, like J.Lo did, but that won’t get Christian to custom-design a pair for us. But the ladies from BLUFF NY might … and will.
BLUFF is a newly launched accessory line that has created inter-changeable pieces to spice up any shoe. Utterly affordable, and in tune with today’s trends. They describe their first line as an organic compilation of playfully dark yet feminine looks, and I asked creators Jess, Cara and Anna to elaborate a little bit more about how BLUFF came about.
Jess, Cara and Anna are BLUFFing Manhattan
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 24, 2009
Life isn’t all fun and games – every now and then you’ve gotta take a swing at someone … even if it’s only in your mind. And face it, once you’re off the playground, it usually is all in your mind. (Take THAT Mister Tourist with your 3 kids and your huge knapsack blocking the subway door! YES, you CAN transfer for the #2 train at 14th. Now quit asking everyone and get outta my way!) So what’s a gal to do? Sure, you can go lose yourself in a movie with a multi-million dollar budget, but when you know all that punching and kicking and brawling is probably being handled by stunt doubles who know how to play to the right camera angles, it’s hard to really feel that emotional satisfaction. You want to put yourself in a story where you can not only imagine yourself as the hero, sucker punching and bitch slapping your way through Act One, but where you can actually see guys falling to the ground and feel the vibration of it in your seat. You want to go to a festival that fills the pow-wham-socko void that I know I’ve been feeling.
Well, you’re not the only one. The Brick Theater, Inc. in association with Art Meets Commerce has heard your silent plea and starting December 1st they will be presenting Fight Fest – a rock ‘em sock ‘em good time that, in some opinions, gives this cheery holiday season exactly what it needs – a place where you can vicariously shake out that punch that’s been rolling up your fist all day.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 22, 2009
Acting Alone
Today, on the 46th anniversary of the death of JFK, there are still two kinds of people in this world – those who believe that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald who was acting alone, and those who believe that Kennedy’s assassination was a highly orchestrated, multiple-person operative with ties to the CIA, the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the Mafia and the KGB, among others. Acting Alone by
David
M.
Korn and
directed
by
Lee
Gundersheimer
brings forth a bit of a third option – that even when someone is acting alone, they are still the product of those around them, and ultimately those loved one share much of the burden, a back-splash of the guilt, and even a whisper of the responsibility.
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by Antonio Miniño on November 20, 2009
Jonathan Co Green ©Paul Lomax
In today’s desire to escape, there is an urgent need for more magical realism. The term was used within artistic criticism in the visual arts back in the 20s and quickly filtered into literature and theatre mostly for Latin American and European plays to describe works where realistic settings are splashed with elements that are too unusual to believe. This does not mean magical realism did not exist in theatre until after the 20s, the element of fantasy has been a part of Scandinavian literature since before Peer Gynt and writer Alex Van Warmerdam brings us a contemporary farcical yet naturalistic experience with Welcome To The Woods.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 19, 2009
Holy
Premiering this Friday, November 6th at The Spoon Theater, is their production of Holy Days, a play set in the Great Depression written by Sally Nemeth and directed by Peter Zinn.
AM: You come from a theatrical family – your parents (Jack and Rebecca Cunningham) are a dynamic set design duo. What’s it like working with them? And do you always see eye to eye when those sketches are presented?
HC: I could not do what I do without my parents’ support, first and foremost. Sometimes they think I’m nuts (Dad might still be in denial that we are doing The Desk Set in May!), and sometimes when I say “let’s do this bare bones” I get this incredible set! I usually make my requests before the design is conceived, but on those rare occasions when I ask for something afterwards, they are great about incorporating my requests. But above all, I am a huge fan of their work. I think it is stunning.
AM: What can we expect from your upcoming production of Holy Days?
HC: Holy Days is a beautiful play, and on surface quite simple. These are stoic people and they don’t (or can’t) always express their feelings. It makes for a lot of palpable tension between the characters.
The play takes place during the Great Depression in the Dust Bowl. Our characters are farmers and their wives and they are struggling with the devastation around them. There is dirt and dust piled up, there is loss everywhere they look; out in the fields, in their homes, in each other.
—
You can catch Heather Cunningham in Holy Days from November 6-21 at The Spoon Theater. Be on the look out for our lovely managing director Karen Tortora-Lee’s review of this production.
Retro Productions’ latest show, Holy Days (Written by Sally Nemeth and directed by Peter Zinn) comes off as deceptively simply until you’ve sat with it a while. It’s been several days since I’ve seen it and I find that I’m haunted by the seemingly stark yet surprisingly deep performances by Heather E. Cunningham (Rosie), Joe Forbrich (Gant), Lowell Byers (Will) and Casandera M.J. Lollar (Molly).
Holy Days begins with a metaphor, one which shifts the more you think about it. At the opening of the play, Rosie addresses the audience with an empty gaze and a lilt-less voice to explain how she had once seen her garden full of daffodils which were in danger of being covered in frost; she gathered as many as she could into her arms, thinking she’d taken more than enough to fill all the vessels she had in the house. But when she was able to arrange them, they barely filled one pitcher. She went out to take more, but the remaining flowers were dried up … gone.
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by K. B. Abele on November 19, 2009
It doesn’t surprise me that when Wes Anderson decided to take on a Roald Dahl story, he skipped right over some of the darker tales that inspired Alfred Hitchcock for his television series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” Instead, he went for a softer, more joyous tale of a fox trying to find his place in the world and with his family.
Anderson’s first animated film is a wonderful dive into the cheekily intelligent world that Anderson has established throughout his career. From Bottle Rocket to the Darjeeling Limited, Anderson never fails to create honest, flawed and charming characters–allowing the audience to witness these characters both at their lowest moments and their most endearing. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is no exception. Despite its more familial feel and childlike tone, the film is one of the more intelligent and mature stories released this year. If Wes Anderson had a plan to win the hearts of film-goers everywhere with this film, he has succeeded.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 18, 2009
Deep Inside The Gummi Bär
Ever wonder exactly what the skeletal system of a gummy bear is really like? How do they manage to pick things up with those tiny little hands that just seem to appear on the end of their stubby little arms?
Ever wonder what you’re really eating when you pop an unsuspecting little bear into your mouth?
I always wondered too. Which is why, when I stumbled across the Gelaskins site in the hopes of finding a colorful bit of quasi “armor” for my mac laptop last year, I didn’t think twice before purchasing “Anatomie Gummi Bär” by Jason Freeny. It didn’t stop there though.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 13, 2009
Cast - The Lesser Seductions of History (Photo Credit: Tyler Griffin Hicks-Wright)
Watching the Flux Theatre Ensemble bring August Schulenburg’s “The Lesser Seductions of History” to life is like watching seasoned acrobats performing an intricate, balletic routine; one which -in order to succeed- relies on trust, timing, and blind leaps of faith … knowing that your fellow performers are exactly where they should be and will deftly handle the assist, even as they fully commit to the leap they are taking themselves. One miscalculation and the whole thing comes tumbling down, and then forget about the net. But no one here falls; in fact, they soar. The thrill of watching this seasoned group of actors move between each other and react off one another with precisioned timing is what makes Lesser Seductions so … well … seductive.
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by Antonio Miniño on November 13, 2009
Bergdorf Goodman ©Antonio Minino
Name: Carolina Davis
Occupation: Choreographer
Age: 34
Zodiac: Scorpio
Favorite Restaurant: Shake Shack, Upper West Side, NYC
Longs for: comfortable stilettos.
Fears: foot injury.
Beliefs: fashionable women are smarter than you think.
Where is she going: shopping ahead for Lady Gaga‘s concert at Radio City Musical Hall.
Dress and gloves available at Bergdorf Goodman.
The Wo(Man) In The Window is a fictional non-factional profile.
Any resemblance to real people is completely coincidental.
In the event of a coincidence then you are fabulous.
We should meet for cocktails.
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by Karen Tortora-Lee on November 12, 2009
Scott Raker (Tim Riordan) and Peter Sabri (Luke DeLuca), photo credit: Antonio Minino
It’s hard to isolate one simple element of James L. Larocca’s Penang (directed by Donya K. Washington) and point to it as the central theme. Penang unfolds a bit like an autopsy – it is an even, measured, calculated dissection of the life of Tim Riordan (Scott Raker) and an inspection of the elements which led him to do the unthinkable just moments before he was to leave Vietnam and go home.
While Penang starts off as a war story, it evolves into something more. It’s also a buddy story and at times it has the emotional bonding of a male Thelma and Louise … but of course, again, it’s more. It is a tale of survivor’s guilt, it’s a grown up Stand By Me, it’s a psychological investigation, it’s a bit of a mystery, but above all, it is a deeply moving story about one man’s personal journey as he explores his relationship with his faith, his country, his friends, and (most importantly) with himself. Nothing about Penang is easy to distill or explain – except the fact that this is a brilliant, moving production which brought me to tears, gave me chills, and exposed a layer of male bonding that I don’t often get to witness.
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