Category Arts & Culture

Chua and Rubenfeld attempt to explain success

Jews are the quintessential successful minority group by any economic measure. They are disproportionately represented in the top rankings in business, finance, the arts, scientific research, architecture, medicine and law. Likewise, Mormons and new immigrants to the United States from…

PhD research sparks fiction

Shirley Graetz’s She Wrote on Clay (Hadley Rille Books, 2013) is so intriguing, so mesmerizing, so unique, so well-written, I could not put it down! Graetz was born in Dusseldorf, Germany. She came to study at the Hebrew University of…

Learning from tragedy

It was Aug. 9, 2001. I was in Jerusalem after 19 years absence, to attend a convention and do research on a memoir, Witness to History: Ten Years as a Woman Foreign Correspondent in Israel (still unpublished). I was staying…

VIFF screens humanity’s best/worst

photo - Ilya Kabakov is the subject of Amei Wallach’s lya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here

Ilya Kabakov is the subject of Amei Wallach’s lya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here. (photo from VIFF) This year’s Vancouver International Film Festival (Sept. 25-Oct. 10) will take viewers on a rollercoaster ride, if the films reviewed by the Independent this week…

Artist via camera lens

photo - Michael Seelig is donating the proceeds of his photography exhibit to the Zack Gallery

Michael Seelig is donating the proceeds of his photography exhibit to the Zack Gallery. (photo by Olga Livshin) Every one of Michael Seelig’s photographs reflects a place, its character, its soul. He doesn’t enhance the images in any way. Photoshop’s…

Rounding out Bard season

photo - From left to right, Anousha Alamian, Shawn Macdonald and Anton Lipovetsky in Equivocation

From left to right, Anousha Alamian, Shawn Macdonald and Anton Lipovetsky in Equivocation. (photo by David Blue) From Midsummer Night’s Dream and Cymbeline, reviewed last month, the Independent moves to Bard on the Beach’s other two offerings this season: The…

Milton Berle inspired today’s comedians

photo - Maury Wills, Milton Berle, Jimmy Piersall and Willie Mays in a salute to baseball on the television program The Hollywood Palace in 1967

Maury Wills, Milton Berle, Jimmy Piersall and Willie Mays in a salute to baseball on the television program The Hollywood Palace in 1967. (photo from ABC Television via Wikimedia Commons) Today’s comedy superstars, especially those whose careers are driven by…

Taking pianos to the streets

photo - Sean Pacey dabbles at the keys in Burnaby, near the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts

Sean Pacey dabbles at the keys in Burnaby, near the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts. (photo from Sean Pacey) Keeping a business afloat for more than four decades is accomplishment enough, but to keep it in the family is especially…

Israel trip inspires choreographer

photo - Crystal Wills in rehearsal for The Way They Walked Through the World. The work includes the use of more than 300 pairs of army boots.

Crystal Wills in rehearsal for The Way They Walked Through the World. The work includes the use of more than 300 pairs of army boots. (photo by Christie Wood) The female experience of war. This part of the description of…