How Stockholm's cold climate boosts creativity

Photo Credit: pininterest.com

Picture the scene: Dusk begins to settle on Stockholm, magnifying the glow from the candle-lit windows that warm the city. Frost invades the Swedish capital as quickly as the sun fades, the vicious bite of the ice ushering people indoors. It’s dark, it’s cold and (this is the best part) it’s only 3pm! Welcome to winter in Stockholm. As soon as those telltale signs of autumn start to appear, tingeing the city a crisp, golden shade of brown, preparations for winter truly commence. Boats are lifted from the harbours, thermals are dug out of the basements, and winter tyres are readied for the vehicles. But no matter how harsh or relentless the winter here may be, Swedes don’t go into hibernation, and Stockholm does not do long winter naps. On the contrary: it’s during these long, dark winters, that Stockholm arguably makes its name as the Creative Capital of the World. Sure, summer in Stockholm is beautiful, but it’s when the sun disappears for half a year that the Swedes stop dawdling around the archipelago and spend more time, attention, and energy on other activities...like launching startups. The impressive startup scene in Stockholm turns heads around the world, and for good reason too. The Swedish capital is home to five of the biggest unicorns around the globe, including tech giants Spotify, Skype, Klarna, Mojang and King (the Candy Crush folk). So what’s the secret behind Stockholm’s startup success? “Creative people tend to be night owls, and in Sweden we get two nights per day for half of the year,” claims Kaj Drobin, co-founder of the e-commerce Stockholm startup Tictail. Kaj co-founded the company in 2012 alongside Siavash Ghorbani, Birk Nilsson and Carl Waldekranz. Now, according to Kaj, “Tictail is the go-to destination for emerging designers, with a sprawling marketplace of 100,000 independent brands from 140 countries around the world.” A key ingredient to Tictail’s recipe for success, however, is the cold and dark climate of their Stockholm roots. “Since the dark and cloudy climate mostly keeps us indoors, we put focus and energy into finding unique solutions to complex projects to keep the days from being mundane,” Kaj explains. “Our minds are constantly moving. We never get stuck, even if we're stuck inside all day.” And Tictail aren’t alone in this theory. Victoria Bastide, CTO of Stockholm-based startup Lifesum, also believes the bitter Swedish climate can aid the creative process, and subsequent success of startups in Stockholm. “As so much time is spent indoors because of the cold, it leaves a lot of time to come up with creative and exciting ideas,” she says. “We spend a lot of time with our family and friends in the winter, which means that any ideas that we do come up with can be discussed in plenty of detail, with constructive input from others. This usually means that the idea is not only good, but a lot of thought has gone into its execution, increasing its chances of success.” Speaking of spending time with family and friends, there are few better ways to evade the frosty outdoors than with a fika in a warm and welcoming café with good company. This winter, startups will come together for an invigorating coffee at Sup46’s brand new Startup Café. Sup46 – a startup hub launched to bring startups together (genius!) – is at the very heart of Stockholm’s thriving startup community. Jessica Stark, CEO and co-founder of Sup46, agrees that the harsh Stockholm climate makes for an excellent startup environment. “What more is there to do between October and May than letting your brain work in mysterious ways?” she asks. “The climate encourages you to be creative with your time… Also, too much cold and darkness is bad for the brain – best to stay in front of the luminous screen of your laptop making time pass by building something extraordinary!” But it’s not just about what the Swedish climate makes us do, it’s also about how we do it. Over at podcasting platform Acast, Karl Rosander, co-founder and President, and Måns Ulvestam, CEO and co-founder, consider the cold and dark Swedish climate to be beneficial for the character of budding entrepreneurs. “It [the cold and dark climate] makes us tenacious,” they say, “Which we think is the most important skill or talent for entrepreneurs.” So embrace the ice this winter in Stockholm, appreciate the absent natural light, and applaud the subzero Baltic breeze. Because somewhere in the city, someone – a young, tenacious entrepreneur – is sheltering from the cold, directing all their time, energy and focus towards the next startup from Stockholm. Invest Stockholm and The Local-Sweden Photo

Over 200 opera singers apply for Minsk Christmas Singing Competition

Photo Credit: www.belta.by

MNSK, 27 October (BelTA) – More than 200 singers from 20 countries have applied for the third Minsk International Christmas Singing Competition, BelTA learned from the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theater of the Republic of Belarus. The competition will feature young singers from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan, Canada, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Lithuania, United States, France, Mongolia, China, Armenia, Israel, Latvia, Turkey, Sweden, Korea and Ireland. All in all, 226 vocalists have applied for the event which will be running in Minsk on 7-13 December. Winners of past years will be invited as guests to perform at the final gala. Today these names are well known to opera lovers: Ramiz Usmanov (Uzbekistan), Nadezhda Pavlova (Russia), Mikhail Malafiy (Ukraine), Lasha Sesitashvili (Georgia), Yelena Stikhina (Russia), Viktor Mendelev (Belarus), Ilya Silchukov (Belarus). The third Minsk International Christmas Singing Competition will have three rounds: the first and the second rounds will take place with piano accompaniment, and the third round will take place with orchestral accompaniment. The 3rd round (final) will see the competitors sing a lead role in a scene from an opera of classical or modern repertoire. The winner of the grand prize will receive $10,000 in prize money; the winner of the first prize will get $8,000. The winner of the second prize will collect $6,000, and $4,000 will be given to the winner of third prize. The jury panel of the Minsk International Christmas Singing Competition will be led by Vladimir Gridyushko, General Director of the Bolshoi Theater of Belarus, and will include the world's biggest opera theaters, impresarios and world-renowned musicians. Among them will be Tadey Eder, General Director of the Solomiya Krushelnytska Lviv National Academic Opera and Ballet Theater, Ukraine; Academician Plamen Kartaloff, Director of Sofia National Opera and Ballet, Bulgaria; John Allison, editor of Opera Magazine, London, the UK; Christoph Meyer, General Director of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Germany; Alain Surrans, Director of the Opera de Rennes, France; Gianluca Marciano, Artistic Director of the Al Bustan Festival in Beirut; Italy and many others. The competition will be followed by the 7th Minsk International Christmas Opera Forum (on 14-20 December) which will feature the opera stars from all around the world. Thus, literally within two weeks Minsk will host the artists, musicians, famous impresarios, directors of theaters and agencies from 32 countries. Belarus News

Your All-Day Backstage Pass to Lincoln Center By Jennifer Stahl

Photo Credit: bedazzlememore.com

Are you already feeling post-World Ballet Day blues? Never fear! Your next all-day online binge watch is just two days away. This Friday, Lincoln Center will host a livestream on its Facebook page from 8:30 am EST to “curtain down” Friday night. All 11 of the performing arts organizations that make up Lincoln Center will participate. Livestreams are becoming an increasingly popular way for dance companies and other arts institutions to connect with their online fans now that Facebook and YouTube make it so easy. And we have to admit that this is a trend we are fully on board with. Not only do they give us a peek at dancers who we rarely—if ever—get to see in person, but livestreams offer an up-close look at the sweat and mistakes that are part of every dancer’s work. The on-the-spot nature of these social media events mean they’re not perfect—and therefore all that more illuminating. So what’s on Lincoln Center’s lineup? -Follow a day in the life of New York City Ballet principal Megan Fairchild, who will be performing Balanchine’s Serenade that night -Go behind the scenes during rehearsals of the revival of the musical Falsettos, choreographed by Spencer Liff -Peek in on an advanced class at the School of American Ballet -Hear from curators at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts -Get an insider’s view of Juilliard -And much more! Dance Magazine Photo

Ballerina Natalia Osipova and the legacy of Amy Winehouse By Mary Brennan

Photo Credit: Nikolai Gulakov

FOR THOUSANDS of ballet fans worldwide, the name Natalia Osipova is linked, indelibly, in their hearts and minds with one talismanic, classic role: Giselle. Choreographer Arthur Pita had another haunted persona in mind, however, when Osipova tasked him with creating a new work for the triple bill of contemporary pieces she’ll be performing as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s dance programme. His inspiration? “Amy Winehouse – and then, because of her album Back to Black, the 60’s girl group The Shangri-Las.” Pita cites those charismatic singers as the starting point for Run Mary Run, his one-act duet for Osipova and her partner (off-stage as well as on) Sergei Polunin. If this sounds like left-field thinking with a retro hair style, Pita provides persuasive reasons for putting one of the ballet world’s most luminous stars in a garishly red beehive wig and the other, Polunin, in the archetypal “rebel boy” uniform of white t-shirt, blue jeans, black leather jacket. “Natalia wanted a piece with narrative and character,” he explains. “And that is quite a challenge when you only have two people on-stage – there are no other characters for them to react to. So you have to find a structure that is really all about their relationship. And make it interesting for audiences to watch, as well as for them to dance. I decided that maybe we should go backwards – start with the end of their lives, with death, and then travel back, bit by bit, to the moment when they met as teenagers, and it was absolutely love at first sight.” Mutual attraction doesn’t necessarily produce happy endings. Pita had seen a documentary about Amy Winehouse, and had been struck by aspects of her relationship with (her then husband) Blake Fielder-Civil. “I’d always loved her as a singer, I had all her music, I loved her persona,” he says, “but I’d come to feel there was something disturbing about her intensity towards him and about how she’d come off-stage, see him in the wings and just immediately latch onto his arm, as if glued there. And how he would guide her away, take charge almost. I thought that could translate into a choreography tinged with ownership and obsession. Then, thinking about how the Shangri-Las had inspired Amy’s album Back to Black – and listening to their music, and to the lyrics especially – I realised just how dramatic their songs were. People used to refer to them as ‘splatter platters’ because they were full of death and teenage heart-break. It all seemed very Amy...” Would it turn out to be very Natalia? By the time Osipova and Polunin walked into the rehearsal studio, Pita had a scenario in mind – and a sheaf of translations in his hand so that Osipova could understand exactly what the Shangri-Las were describing in the lyrics of Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand) or Dressed in Black or Past, Present and Future, songs he wanted woven into the soundtrack for his choreography. There’s a smile in his voice as recalls how Osipova “completely bought into the rhythms of the music, the dramas in it – and I think, too, that she really connected with the sad voice of Mary Weiss. It was as if she could already feel the character I was looking for. She knows these stories of love, loss, death, the after-life from the great classic roles she has made her own – Giselle, most especially. So give her a story like that, with all the little packages of emotion in it – she will just open them up and devour them, connect with them, then act them so beautifully and with such honesty.” Off-stage there is no pretence whatsoever: Osipova and Polunin are a real-life couple, their romance and relationship a source of fascination and curiosity for press and ballet fans alike. So who played Cupid? You could say Giselle did. In March 2015, Osipova was preparing to dance the role in Milan when, for various reasons, she found herself without an Albrecht. It was her mother, miles away in Moscow, who suggested that Polunin might be a suitable partner – yes, there was his “bad boy” reputation, but his talent as a dancer was never in question. An e-mail exchange later, the pair were behind closed doors, rehearsing the most romantic ballet in the classical repertoire and falling in love themselves – though not going public about their private partnership until later that year. They are now dancing together in two of the three pieces in the EIF hot ticket, Natalia Osipova and Guests – the other guests include the choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Russell Maliphant. Osipova, determined to explore new dance directions, had requested their works to be off-pointe and contemporary in technique and movement vocabulary. For Cherkaoui, this translated into a trio, Qutb (Arabic for axis or pivot) where Osipova is flanked by two male dancers in what often looks like a ritual exploration of stamina, strength and inter-dependent physicality. Sufi chants rise like incense, Osipova’s curving back-bends are breath-taking while the men – James O’Hara and Jason Kittlberger – bring a supportive muscularity to Cherkaoui’s sculptural shapes. Maliphant – unlike Cherkaoui and Pita – had never worked with Osipova before, but in Silent Echo he surely acknowledges the balletic training that informs her body as he sets up crossover points between classical and contemporary lines. Nor can he ignore Polunin’s fabulous, soaring jump. So even as Scanner’s multi-layered, technology-infused soundscape is insisting on modernity, there is still a sense of traditional pas-de-deux structure in the interactions that emerge within the moods and spaces defined by Michael Hulls’s lighting design. Run Mary Run is the end piece that catapults dance-drama into another dimension and yet, as Pita fully intended, the dark twists and quirky absurdities in his girl-meets-boy, girl-loses-boy story-line allow Osipova and Polunin to break out – be characters who walk, jive, smooch and rock on an 1960’s wild side, regardless of the risks and consequences. “Natalia has done so many Giselles, Swan Lakes, Don Q’s – all the big classic roles – over and over, and now she wants to push towards something new,” says Pita. “When we were talking about her doing contemporary dance, she said she wants to do it while her body can explore it quite freely.” Osipova at 30 is surely in her artistic prime, both technically and in expressive interpretation. Isn’t it too early for her to come off pointe, get grounded in contemporary? “It’s about adding knowledge and experience,” says Pita who has done something similar by working across genres, creating work for children, choreographing abstract contemporary pieces and classical ballet narratives for companies on both sides of the Atlantic. “Natalia wanted new challenges. Run Mary Run asked her to explore a completely different character from the one in Facada, an earlier piece we did together, where she was a vengeful bride who kills her faithless fiancé and dances on his grave. This narrative is about a love that exists even in the grave, but I don’t want to give too much away!” He clearly enjoys working with Osipova, and now Polunin, but admits there are challenges for him too. “You can never forget that these ballet dancers are already stars – and that audiences have come to see them and the moment when Sergei jumps, when Natalia jumps. And to see them expressing romance and tenderness, because the audience knows they are a real-life couple. I don’t think you can ignore that, but at the same time you have to bring your own ideas, your own voice to the choreography.” Not just his voice, but that of the Shangri-Las and the teenage angst they captured on 60’s vinyl. Natalia Osipova and Guests is at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh from today to Sunday. [August 12-14] www.eif.co.uk Herald Scotland Edinburgh International Festival

Young Lions looking for space for reflection and debate

Ljubljana, [Slovenia] 10 August - The 19th Young Lions international festival of performing arts, to be launched on 19 August, will be somewhat different from the previous editions as it provides more space for reflection, debate and research, the organisers announced on Wednesday. Each year, the Young Lions (Mladi levi) international festival brings together performing groups and solo artists whose work is characterised by original approaches to theatre and dance. The festival is part of the Junge Hunde international network, whose mission is to bring together young artists from across Europe, present their work to international audiences, and review innovative practices in European theatre. STA

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19th consecutive edition of the Mladi levi international festival of contemporary arts is bringing to Ljubljana leading-edge stage artists from all over the world. An allegorical performance by the French director Philippe Quesne, Night of the Moles, will open the festival, where gigantic magical creatures lead spectators into the cavity of the world in the search for shelter. The festival this year also proudly presents Penny Arcade, the legend of the New York underground scene, and last year’s festival highlight, the Brazilian artist Christiane Jatahy, contemporary Belgian avant-garde Benjamin Verdonck, joining forces with a young Portuguese artist Maria Lucia Cruz Correia to orchestrate poetic surprises across the city and many more. The festival programme is available at its website. Visit Ljubljana

How Raven McRae, a Broadway Dancer, Spends Her Sundays

Photo Credit: Alex Wroblewski/The New York Times

Raven McRae, a 22-year-old dancer who was trained as an actress at LaGuardia High School, is the only native New Yorker in the cast of “Paramour,” a Cirque du Soleil musical currently on Broadway. Ms. McRae, who spent much of her childhood on Staten Island, lives there with her mother in an apartment in St. George. On Sundays, she commutes by ferry to Manhattan for two performances. Ms. McRae made her Broadway debut as a dancer two years ago in “Motown: The Musical.”  
SHOWER WITH SPOTIFY I wake up at 8 and immediately check my iPhone, which is also my alarm clock, to see if stage management left any message regarding schedule changes. I need to catch a 9 o’clock boat into Manhattan, so I run into the shower and use Spotify on my phone to listen to Kendrick Lamar, who I love. I time my shower to the length of two Kendrick songs. I don’t consider him a rapper; I consider him a poet and an artist. He sings so passionately and doesn’t hold anything back, and that puts me in a good mood and inspires me to give 100 percent of myself on stage. Then I’m running out the door without eating breakfast because for me, chewing is just too much work that early in the morning.

ROLE-PLAY During my walk to the boat, I put on my headphones and sing along to Cynthia Erivo from the soundtrack of “The Color Purple.” I literally pretend I’m Cynthia. I have a nice voice but I never considered myself a singer until I got into “Motown.” Now I’d like to be a principal performer one day, like Cynthia. She’s very inspirational.

GIVE HER FREEDOM, NOT LIBERTY I get on the boat around 9:30 and sit on the side that does not face the Statue of Liberty because that’s where all of the tourists are and it’s just too noisy. I’m going to the city to do two shows so I want to be alone and relaxed, not crazed. I take advantage of the free time by checking Instagram or Facebook, or just staring at the water.

HIT THE BARRE When I get off the boat I jump on the 4 train up to Union Square, where I take an open ballet class for about an hour to get my body loose before I head to the theater. When I get there I usually have a granola bar and some coconut water before I warm up. It’s a great atmosphere; everyone is just focused on getting their bodies in the right alignment. When I have a good class, I have a good day on stage.

PRE-SHOW PASTA I usually get to the theater by noon, an hour earlier than call-time, and I order shrimp and spaghetti from an Italian restaurant and take little bites while I’m putting on my makeup, and the entire dressing room starts smelling like pasta. I spend about a half-hour doing my makeup and another half-hour doing my hair, and then I stretch a bit more. It gets hectic at that point because the dressers start putting our clothes out. About 1:40, I start getting excited because I can begin to hear the crowd coming in. Right before the matinee starts, I like to go on stage and watch the acrobats rehearse and check my marks and maybe run through the beginning of a few dance numbers with some of my cast mates.

INTERMISSION After the matinee, a bunch of us like to walk over to Bryant Park to unwind, even though we’re still in makeup and wearing hats to cover our wig preps. Some days I’ll get ice cream, or I’ll just take my spaghetti and shrimp with me and eat it there. Sometimes we get recognized, and people want to take pictures with us.

KEEP IT LOOSE We get back to the theater by about 5:30, and I take a short nap in the greenroom on a little bed I made using a big lawn cushion from Kmart, a small pillow and a kid’s blanket. By our next call-time, I like to drink a milkshake while I work on my makeup. Then I’ll get loose again by doing some chin-ups or using the elliptical or exercising with some other gadget. They call “Places” at 7:30.

HOME AGAIN After our second show, I catch the 10:30 boat and get home by 11. I like to get into bed and binge-watch “Orange Is the New Black,” which helps settle my nerves before I fall asleep sometime in the middle of the night. International New York Times