Arts/Entertainment: October 2009 Archives

Internationally-renown Eric San, who records under the name Kid Koala, is well known for his inventive style of turntablism, which uses an unusual collection of samples from sources like Charlie Brown television specials, old comedy sketch routines, people sneezing, and people reading a menu in Cantonese.

It's going to be a pretty crazy weekend. If you're not too busy preparing your awesome costume for our Halloween party, here are some ideas to pass the time, ranging from a mustache party to a Diwali celebration to a Kung Fu show. For live music you can check out this weekend, check out our midweek music preview.

Helping to kickstart the Halloween weekend is Portland, Oregon-based electronic dance/performance art duo YACHT. Originally the solo project of Jona Bechtolt (who also contributed his electronic wizardry to indie-pop group The Blow), YACHT grew by one in 2008, inducting Claire L. Evans as a full member, just in time to add her no nonsense vocals to their newest album See Mystery Lights.

In our ongoing Threesday feature, Shanghaiist takes the time to count out three of well... whatever catches their fancy that week. This week: Shanghai-themed costumes we'd be super psyched to see gracing our Halloween party on Saturday.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

Hats off to Sandy from Sarnia for rocking the board all night despite your surprisingly limited amount of drinks. Your winning word "FOXIER" managed to garner you 48 points and delivered you to victory. You win a 250RMB Cotton's voucher to be used (hopefully!) at the next Shanghaiist Scrabble happy hour night.

Shanghaiist lists all the live music performances you might want to check out from Wednesday to Sunday this week. For fun things that aren't live music, take a peek at our Pencil This In (out every Monday!)

From Shanghai Scrap comes a very interesting article about the NFL's attempts to break into China. Most Americans don't understand that the entire rest of the world doesn't understand something as quintessentially American as football. But if you think about it, how would you translate something as esoteric as the "Wildcat" offense to a Chinese audience? These are the sort of questions that NFL China has to grapple with in their attempts to build up public interest in the sport on the mainland.

And he got the characters right. 冠軍 means "champion" (he's using traditional characters). The other side says "Chatty." According to Artest's Twitter page, Chatty is the name of a friend who passed away. On Twitter, Artest also says he flew in Boogie the barber from Orlando for the cut and paid him a hotel room plus $20. Artest and the Lakers begin their quest to prove the left side of his head correct at 10:30 am Shanghai time against, fittingly, the Clippers. Source: Ball Don't Lie

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

If you're like us, you love Halloween so much that you look forward to it for weeks, dreaming about stuffing yourself with candy and scaring every man, woman and small child in your freak-out radius. But if you're really like us, then you've probably thought a LOT about your costume, but haven't taken the time to travel all the way to Party Monster for your costume, or even log on to Taobao to look for one. Well, it's high time to get on it, because our annual Shanghaiist Halloween Party will have the definitive costume contest in all of Shanghai!

We were just alerted to this intriguing website called AsiaPacificFilms.com, a website that's streaming "culturally and historically significant films from Asia and the Pacific." All the films on the site are selected by a panel of scholars, critics and curators, and can be streamed in DVD quality.

Oh good heavens, the new Michael Jackson documentary is here! For all of us who have spent hours in nostalgia, watching old videos and performances and nervously followed the news around his passing...here comes finally something yet unseen. This Is It is the recordings around the popstar´s preparations for his planned 2009 tour with the same name. The movie will be screened at cinemas during two weeks only, so you better get moving!

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

With Halloween days away, we know it's hard to think about anything besides the awesome costumes and parties that lay ahead. So here are some suggestions to make the days go by faster this week, including jazz nights, handball, and of course, the Scrabblelicious Shanghaiist Happy Hour!

                          

Deep down, somewhere in the heart of the orchid-like construct we all know as the Oriental Art Center, a creative meeting between masters recently took place. Scotland's leading choreographer and dance icon, Alan Greig, led a workshop with Jin Xing Dance Theatre, one of the most prominent dance companies in our city. Both performed at the recent Shanghai Dance Festival - the fourth one ever held.

Bwahaha! As Halloween slowly draws closer and closer like a serial killer in a horror movie, Shanghaiist is putting on the scariest garb we can find for our annual, super awesome Halloween Party. If you haven't read about it (or heard about it through the grapevine), we're partnering with Not Me to offer a night packed with horror, fright, and obviously, mayhem aplenty. After all, there's gonna be a costume contest, great music by MNO, R3, Baijiu Robot and Kidplastik, and of course, a mini cityscape for the crushing! So come, or you'll be haunted by it for the rest of your life.

Besides the continuing Ink on the Run and Shanghai International Arts Festival, this weekend has a plethora of every music genre, art exhibitions, comedy shows, record release shows, charity wine tastings, and Oktober-festivities... and of course, live music. But we put our picks for those up already.

We've talked about some of the sillier commercials we've seen on Chinese television, but every now and then, one comes along that actually wows us. This one, by CCTV, is pretty stunning and hopefully will set the bar for tv ads to come. A dollop of ink is dropped into water and transforms into various Chinese painting staples, before moving on to some of the country's achievements and a shot of the Shanghai skyline in watercolor. Cool!

In our Threesday feature, Shanghaiist takes the time to count out three of well... whatever catches their fancy that week. This week: spooky things around and about Shanghai!

We're too much of pansies to navigate the Shanghai streets by bike ourselves, but if you're an avid city cyclist with a penchant for competitiveness, check out this crazy little race we came across: Shanghai Alleycat.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickra and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

WEDNESDAY

We've always marveled at the immense chasm between the Chinese book market and the rest of the world. Of course, issues of translation and appeal abroad have kept the market pretty domestic, but that seems to be changing slowly. Chinageeks makes a great point in response to the coverage of Frankfurt Book Fair: it seems that the only interest the west can muster towards Chinese literature is when the book or author carries some sort of scandal with it, leaving the vast majority of authors and books unnoticed. There's a lack of foreign awareness of books that split the difference between banned-in-China and sterilized-by-censorship that leaves a big old lacuna where books by talented Chinese authors should be.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

Oh Yu Zhenhuan (于震环), say it ain't so! China's hairiest man is allegedly going to go through plastic surgery to remove most of his hair after a stinging audition for a role as the Monkey King didn't work out in his favor, says Plastic Surgery Channel.

Yi Jianlian is so excited about not being forced to play in the Chinese National Games that the guy’s actually playing some good basketball. He scored 21 points and grabbed 11 boards in an exhibition game against the New York Knicks last Friday. In the Nets’ two previous games, against the Boston Celtics, Yi went for 20 and 8 in the first, but just 2 and 4 in the second.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

Any lingering hopes of adding to their rather bare trophy cupboard were extinguished for another year on Saturday, when Shanghai Shenhua could only tie their derby match 1-1 with Hangzhou Greentown FC. (video highlights)

If you're feeling warm and generous, there's multiple chances to give back to the community this week, be it through flea market shopping, beer drinking, or wine tasting. After you stimulate the social economy a bit, indulge your international side with writers from Ireland, a comedian from New Zealand, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

We've got a whole new bag of tricks to spice up our semi-monthly Shanghaiist Happy Hour at Cotton's. Well, technically, it's a bag of tiles- Scrabble tiles. After searching in vain for a game of Scrabble and only finding Maonopoly sets, we decided that we would maverick it and just make our own. And since we all know how witty and clever Shanghaiist readers are, we'd like to cordially invite you to join us next Tuesday, October 27 for the first monthly Shanghaiist Scrabble night!

And so yet another Americanized 3D version of an old animation classic crashes upon us. This week Imagi Studio's version of "Astro Boy," the superhero story that originated as a manga in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, sees its worldwide release. And with the release of the movie, a huge marketing carousel filled with toys, books and video games starts spinning as well. It raises some questions on how to actually best do our old classics justice.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

One of the tightest Championship finishes in the history of world football - that's the situation Shanghai Shenhua find themselves in as the CSL 2009 season enters its closing stages this weekend. Not since 2005, when Gamba Osaka won the J-League by one point ahead of four other teams on the last day of the season, has football seen such a thrilling championship finish.

This weekend seems to be a strong mix of intellectual stimulation coupled with a healthy dose of partying. First off, you probably know already, but the JZ Music Festival will run this entire weekend. After Dee Dee Bridgewater rocks it at Yunfeng Theater tonight, the festival will bring together a host of different artists and bands for a huge gathering in Century Park on Saturday and Sunday. Besides that, there will also be a multitude of speakers coming to Shanghai (to discuss controversial theories about China's past and what its future will look like), and we'll celebrate the birthdays of one of our favorite bar spots (Cotton's!), one of Shanghai's funnest DJ groups (Uprooted Sunshine!) and the start of a Shanghai chapter for one of our favorite charitable initiatives during college (Habitat for Humanity!).

Oh happy day! After the Handsome Furs came and left, we didn't think we'd be hit by another act we'd look forward to so gleefully so soon. But now our sources at Split! have told us that - barring any weird visa issues/sudden changes in show regulations - ANDREW BIRD will be heading here in late January 2010. YES!

We knew Russians were a big fan of Eurovision, that cheesy but extremely popular songfest that pits various European and Eurasian nations against each other in a country-by-country sing off, but we didn't realize how much. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is now urging China to join a song competition of its own - this time between Russia, them and other Central Asian nations.

Slinkys, Pet Rocks, Ant Farms… behind each of those great novelties is the story of a great Novelty Inventor. ‘Made In China’ is the story of one such inventor.

Continue reading "Trailer: Made in China, an indie adventure movie about an American entrepreneur"

Dee Dee Bridgewater, the illustrious Jazz singer, has been one of the premier artists in Jazz for the past forty years. From her early days performing with major Jazz legends and winning Tony Awards on Broadway to her more recent work on Billy Holiday, NPR and beyond, Dee Dee has been shaping and defining the way people all over the world understand and appreciate Jazz. To kick off this weekend's JZ Jazz festival, Dee Dee will be gracing Shanghai with a performance this Friday at the Yunfeng theater, sharing the stage with a big band of both local and international musicians. We had the chance to chat about her accomplishments both on and off the stage, her views on Jazz from the past to the present, and her unbeknown love of Chinese art.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

       

Recently "Tale of 4 Cities" launched it's weekly dinner "theater" series, a Thursday cabaret evening with the vision to impart a bit of "Le Gai Paris" into Shanghai´s nightlife scene. The problem is, if you're looking for actual "theater," the show invariably will seem like it doesn't fit. It's a drag show, pure and simple - and a charming one full of social potential - so you might as well just call it by its proper name and put it in its proper genre.

We love expos, especially when they're in Shanghai, and exceptionally when they involve music. Lucky for us, it's time for the Shanghai Music China 2009 Expo. Since 2002, Music China has been the trade show of choice for musicians, producers, sound/lighting technicians, and just about anyone involved in the production of music, making the expo the biggest annual fair for music products in Asia.

     

We're always fascinated by old pictures of China--we love seeing the tangible change in photographs from eras past. And since we can never get enough, here are a few more pictures from a wonderful photoset taken nearly thirty years ago.

China's national games haven't even officially started yet, but they are already the backdrop for an ugly scandal in one of the country's most treasured sports. Don't worry--diving queen Guo Jingjing's piles of Olympic gold aren't in jeopardy. But the integrity of the sport's biggest domestic competition was shaken when a referee quit working the national games because, she says, the result are all fixed.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

Kids these days and their hippity hop. This girl doesn't look more than 10 or 11 years old but she's already got some crazy moves on the dance floor. Of course, if she's anything like the members of China's female gymnastics team, maybe she's already had her Sweet 16.

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

2 days…3 stages…37 bands…20 DJs….What better than the hard facts to advertise an event as noteworthy as the upcoming JZ Shanghai Music Festival? From October 16th to the 18th, Pudong Century Park will play host to a constant stream of artists set to fill the city with music. Don’t be fooled by the festival’s name- one might be quick to assume that a jazz festival would be monopolized by the baritone sax and Louis Armstrong tribute performances, but each of the three stages actually specializes in a subset of music.

Holy crazy week, Batman. Shanghai is teeming to the brim with talks and forums, tweetups and meetups, and some awesome music peppered throughout these next few days. To see what didn't make this week's Pencil This In (oh yes, there's more), check out the Shanghaiist calendar. If anyone so much as thinks the words, "I have nothing to do tonight," may an angry Haibao come down and smite you.

Shanghai native Xi Wenlei, or XiZi as he is called on the Net, won the competition for the second month running this September. His winning work, with a composition that suggests a painting, shows a cat sitting next to an open window of an old Shikumen House, which is to be dismantled to make way for the Expo. Not just any window, the one in his photograph is made of multicoloured glass panes, a relic from a soon to be bygone era. XiZi has made nostalgic imagery expression of Shanghai’s old days juxtaposed with the present his signature style.

Continue reading "Shanghai Corporate Pavilion photo competition's September winners"

Halloween is Shanghaiist's favorite holiday, by far. And with the spooky season approaching, we spend a lot of time thinking about whether Chinese vampires are more zombie than vampire, the mortifying merits of American style haunted houses and, of course, our annual halloween party. And like always, we're going to hold it down like a rickety door during a zombie attack.

Vienna Café cooks up with a Truffaut movie this coming Thursday! One of film history´s most important directors didn't only write and direct Les 400 coups, Jules et Jim, Baisers volés...but also Le Dernier métro (The last metro), which is the movie of choice for this week.

The NBA is touching down in China this weekend, with the Indiana Pacers and Denver Nuggets playing a preseason game in Beijing. Ahead of the game, the league issued a press release that it decided to call "Bryant's jersey remains top seller in China."

When we first heard the reports that Xinhua had featured a story on a lesbian man-hating town full of sapphic amazons in Sweden, we thought it was crazy. First off, everyone knows the only lesbian man-hating town around is in Massachusetts. Secondly, we couldn't actually find the Xinhua article, which made us wonder if The Register had invented the controversy themselves.

Culture yourself during the day and dance away the night! This weekend has a line up of thoughtful speakers and exhibits, including photographer Thomas Fuesser and painter Mao Yanyang.

Jackie Chan may be an adorable and well-liked kung fu superstar, but he sure doesn't seem to know when it's time to stop talking. We've recorded several of his gaffes before, including one made earlier this year when he insinuated that Chinese need to be controlled... but this latest interview really takes the cake.

Whether you've convinced yourself that you're an adult or not, somewhere deep inside each one of us is a small child clamoring to be let out. And we find that more often than not, our inner child wants us to take him to the arcade- specifically, the Sega World arcade in the New Century Plaza right off People's Park.

The NPR had an interesting story on 50 slogans put out by the Communist Party to "get people in the mood for the big celebration."

More photos on the Shanghaiist Contribute page. To see your photos on our Contribute page, use Flickr and tag your photos “shanghaiist”. Or you can email your photos to photos@shanghaiist.com and they will automatically appear on our site (and here).

And several of the other GFW-themed shirts available at their store.

      

Shanghai's Jin Xing Dance Theatre collaborated with Korea's Won Kim Group in a performance inspired by the film Il Grido (The Outcry) at Shanghai Theatre Academy on Friday night as part of the ongoing 2009 Shanghai Dance Festival.

MJ has officially "Beat It" into China's exclusive film import quota. Premiering globally on October 28, the Michael Jackson documentary, "This Is It," was able to snatch one of the last of China's 20 annual foreign movie import slots. Chinese censors approved the film before National Day, just in time for China's premiere date on October 30, says the AP.

Edison Chen is putting his infamous sex scandal behind him and starring in movies again, to the chagrin of all of us who willfully believed he would in fact quit showbiz. The 28-year-old star will feature in an English-language comedy "Almost Perfect" alongside Chinese-American actress Kelly Hu (of Sammo Hung's Martial Law fame).

     

We're fans of anything old timey, and so these photos of Shanghai (and Mongolia, and Beijing) in 1981 have really struck our fancy. Don't worry, despite depicting the 80s, there are no mullets or shoulder pads to be found.

We were sad to see National Day celebrations come and go in the blink of an eye, after months of ridiculous and awesome preparation. But now we've found an outlet for our grief - The Leo Gallery is in the process of showing a new exhibit, "1949-2009: 60 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art."

Some friends from an orphanage visit with BEAN Shanghai.

A 107-year-old building along Suzhou Creek is alive with spirits. For a creepy experience between now and Halloween, stop by the Shanghai Nightmare Haunted House (1295 Nan Suzhou Lu, a few blocks away from the Xinzha Lu metro station).

Looks like an alliterative week ahead as everyone slowly stumbles into work again from the holiday. Ease back into the 'Hai with these events- from Bollywood and Berlin to swing and classical- that will keep your spirits up and your diverse musical cravings satisfied.

The old ladies and fellas you see dancing in the parks in the morning, China´s "forgotten generation", rarely gets a chance to be the central subject in Chinese movies. Director Ye Kai is now presenting an exception to that rule, by creating a feel-good comedy about a charming group of elderly amateur dancers, caught up in a quest to win a competition that will let them take part in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

For those of you that missed yesterday's big party, here's an awesome 3.5 minute timelapse version by Dan Chung of The Guardian which is just absolutely sublime and splendiferous. Some have said this is the "only version of China's National Day Parade you need to watch". We agree (and take that, CCTV!).

Tonight could have been the night that changed your life. The (International) Noise Conspiracy, "one of the wildest and most uncompromising live acts out there" flying in from Sweden, were to take total charge over the Yuyintang stage, but thanks to certain National Day-flavored machinations, it was cancelled.

In our new Threesday feature, Shanghaiist takes the time to count out three of well... whatever catches their fancy that week. This week: Three Emmy-winning shows that you can stream from the Chinese internet.