Maharaj Wins Toronto Book Award
Rabindranath Maharaj’s The Amazing Absorbing Boy (Knopf Canada ) captured the 2011 Toronto Book Award October 13 at the Toronto Reference Library gala. Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, the Toronto Book Awards honour authors of books of literary or artistic merit that are evocative of Toronto. Maharaj takes the top prize of $11,000 while the other shortlisted authors — James FitzGerald for his memoir What Disturbs Our Blood (Random House Canada), James King for his novel Étienne’s Alphabet (Cormorant Books Inc.), Nicholas Ruddock for his novel The Parabolist (Doubleday Canada) and Alissa York for her novel Fauna (Random House Canada) — each receive $1,000. Jurors noted that Maharaj’s book about the experiences of a Trinidadian immigrant to Canada, “creates a complex, witty and hopeful portrait of an imaginative youth determined to forge his own path in multicultural Toronto.”
Minister Unveils McLuhan Plaque
The Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources (MP for Eglinton-Lawrence), right, was at the University of Toronto this morning to unveil a plaque commemorating the national historic significance of Marshall McLuhan. McLuhan’s son Michael, left, was among the approximately 100 guests who gathered to remember his father’s innovative work, which probed the influence of the printed word on society. As the plaque notes, “The concepts of the ‘global village’ and ‘the medium is the message’ made McLuhan one of the most celebrated scholars in the Western world.”
UofT is planning a major refurbishment of McLuhan’s Coach House; Open File has the story.
Photo Lilie Zendel
A Chinese Triumph Comes to Canada
Tuesday night’s Sony Centre performance of Return on a Snowy Night by China’s Guangzhou Ballet will be a wonderful reunion for Toronto-based, Chinese-Canadian choreographer Xing Bang Fu and his old friend Zhang Dandan, artistic director of the Guangzhou company. In 1980 Xing and Zhang were friends and students in the Guangzhou ballet school but their paths diverged when Xing accepted a scholarship with the Washington Ballet and Zhang went off to Beijing to dance with the National Company.
Zhang founded the Guangzhou Ballet in 1994 and six years later she commissioned Xing to choreograph two short ballets for her company, The Yellow River and The Butterfly Lovers, both of which have become modern Chinese classics and are still danced regularly by the company. In fact, after performing in Toronto this week, the troupe flies to Vancouver where Butterfly Lovers is on the program.
Return on a Snowy Night is a contemporary work danced to music by Fang Ming: a tragic story of forbidden love from the 1940s, it’s a classical ballet but with a distinctly Chinese flavour and Xing’s own hallmark fluid movements. The ballet captured top honours from the Chinese Ministry of Culture in 2010 cementing its reputation as a contemporary cultural touchstone, hence the current tour of Canada.
Marc Chagall Reigns at AGO
Art Gallery of Ontario CEO Matthew Teitelbaum does an interview in front of Marc Chagall’s “Blue Circus”, one of the highlight works in Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Centre Pompidou, Paris, opening at the AGO October 18 (running thru January 15). Featuring 118 works including masterpieces by Wassily Kandinsky, the exhibition “tells a very compelling story about how artistic genius develops,” noted Teitelbaum at yesterday’s press preview. “It’s an extraordinary exhibition that puts the work of a great 20th century artist, Marc Chagall, in the context of his homeland, Russia, and his adopted country, France.”
“The Dance” by Marc Chagall, 1950 – 52
Karen Kain Opens Up
National Ballet of Canada Artistic Director Karen Kain was in the spotlight at the Toronto Reference Library’s Bram & Bluma Appel Salon last night for the latest in an engaging series of Star Talks. In conversation with dance critic Michael Crabb, Kain reminisced about her farewell tour, her transition from prima ballerina to arts administrator — she chaired the Canada Council for the Arts from 2005 to 2008 in addition to directing the ballet — and she looked ahead to this year’s 60 anniversary season of the National Ballet. “I feel like I’ve been training to do this job my entire life,” she told the rapt full house. “I’ve been lucky enough to be given some guardianship of a great cultural institution and I’ll do my very best, just like everyone who came before me in this position, and I worked with them all. ”
Star Talks continue thru December with a range of fascinating speakers, see the full schedule for details; admission is free but tickets must be reserved in advance.
