‘Henry IV’ returns to Seoul stage after 14 years

In honor of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, the Seoul Metropolitan Theatre is opening its 2016 season with a production of “Henry IV: Part I and II.”　“We are bringing back ‘Henry IV’ to the Seoul stage for the first time in 14 years,” said the play’s director Kim Gwang-bo, during a press conference at Sejong Arts Center in Seoul on Wednesday. 　“The plot is about having an unrelenting appetite for power. I think it is a story that still fits and can be related to in today’s

PerformanceMarch 10, 2016

The science of conservation

Since 1964, some 120 pottery pieces have been kept in national artifact storage with other relics excavated from Geumgangsa Temple in Buyeo, South Chungcheong Province.　For 46 years, they were filed under the label “unidentified artifact,” without any records pointing their original form, until Hwang Hyun-seong, conservator at the National Museum of Korea, started to put the pieces together in 2011. 　It took about a year to assemble the hundreds of pieces and discover that they formed a 1.5-mete

CultureMarch 10, 2016

Milwaukeeans‘ struggle to find affordable housing

“Evicted”　By Matthew Desmond　Crown (432 pages, $28)　For nearly a decade, Matthew Desmond has studied the relationship between eviction and poverty in a single American city: Milwaukee. The MacArthur Foundation awarded him a “genius” grant last year for his research, including the Milwaukee Area Renters Study he designed and supervised, which yielded this sobering conclusion: “Among Milwaukee renters, over 1 in 5 black women report having been evicted in their adult life, compared to 1 in 12 Hisp

BooksMarch 10, 2016

Sarah Bakewell on Sartre, de Beauvoir and existential philosophy

“At the Existentialist Cafe”　By Sarah Bakewell　Other Press (439 pages, $25)　Here’s a startling thought. Consider what you are doing right now without realizing you’re doing it. For example, you are reading the English language written in the Roman alphabet, even though thousands of languages and writing systems have existed, and you would just as easily use one of them instead if you had been born in a different time or place. You are probably flipping pages of a newspaper or clicking through a

BooksMarch 10, 2016

Pulling back the curtain on Paul Kagame’s Rwanda

“Bad News: Last Journalists in a Dictatorship”　By Anjan Sundaram　Doubleday Books (208 pages, $25.95)In the early 1990s, the world watched in horror as Hutus and Tutsis slaughtered each other in Rwanda. When it ended, Paul Kagame was heralded as one of the leaders of forces that ended the bloodshed.　As president since 2000, President Kagame has fooled much of the world into thinking his country is a happy democracy and has received tons of international funding because on the surface Rwanda shine

BooksMarch 10, 2016

Kennedy Center taps Q-Tip as first hip-hop director

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Kennedy Center, the prolific Washington concert hall led by the US government, has tapped Q-Tip to a new position of artistic director for hip-hop culture.   Q-Tip -- whose former group, A Tribe Called Quest, was at the vanguard of art-house hip-hop in the 1980s and 1990s -- will take the role for the Kennedy Center's 2016-2017 season.   The 45-year-old New York rapper and DJ, whose real name is Jonathan Davis, will curate a series of hip-hop events in the upcoming season.

PerformanceMarch 10, 2016

Korean works, writers to be featured at Paris Book Fair

Korea will be spotlighted as the guest of honor at the Paris Book Fair, to be held March 16-20 at the Paris Expo Porte de Versaille exhibition center, where a selection of Korean works will be displayed and some of the country’s most influential writers will be holding talks, the Korean Publishers Association said in a statement Wednesday. 　Some 60 works by 30 Korean authors will be featured, including the esteemed Hwang Sok-yong, who wrote the novel “Evening Star,” and Han Kang, whose novel “Th

BooksMarch 10, 2016

AOA to release fourth Japanese single

K-pop girl group AOA will release its fourth Japanese single “Give Me the Love” on April 20, the group’s agency FNC Entertainment announced Wednesday.　The track depicts the story of a woman who cannot help but keep falling in love. K-pop girl group AOA (FNC Entertainment)　The group’s new single is garnering attention as a Korea-Japan crossover featuring a famous Japanese solo musician Takanori Nishikawa, who performs under the name T.M Revolution. Nishikawa, who debuted in 1996, presents a uniqu

PerformanceMarch 10, 2016

‘Renegade’ rule mom Heather Shumaker is back with new book

NEW YORK (AP) -- Homework? Ban it! Circle time? It’s not for every kindergartner. Forced sharing? How about letting a kid play with a toy until she’s done?　Those are just a few of the ideas that Heather Shumaker advocates as “renegade” in a new book, “It’s OK to Go Up the Slide,” an extension of her first parenting guide, “It’s OK Not to Share.”　Shumaker is the mom of two boys, ages 11 and 8, in Traverse City, Michigan. As a youngster, she was a student where her mother taught for 40 years in Co

BooksMarch 10, 2016

SNSD’s Yoona to release first solo track

Yoona, a member of popular K-pop girl group Girls’ Generation, will release her first solo track since debuting with the group nine years ago, the group’s agency SM Entertainment said Wednesday.　“Deoksugung Stonewall Walkway,” the fifth song to be introduced on digital music channel Station, was set to be released at midnight. K-pop girl group Girls’ Generation member Yoona (SM Entertainment)　The song, urban pop music featuring the gentle sound of piano and acoustic guitar, concerns the lore tha

PerformanceMarch 10, 2016

‘Missing’ Rembrandt to go on show at global art fair: reports

THE HAGUE (AFP) - A recently discovered painting by 17th-century Dutch master Rembrandt will be the star attraction at one of the world’s leading art fairs opening this week, Dutch media reported Wednesday. 　“The Fainted Patient,” also known as “Smell,” a small paperback-sized panel believed to have been painted by Rembrandt in his late teens, was uncovered last September when it was put up for sale by a small auction house in New Jersey.　“It was peeling at the edges and covered with a layer of

PerformanceMarch 10, 2016

Oyeyemi's original stories pay weird, wonderful homage to reading

“What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours: Stories”　 By Helen Oyeyemi　Riverheard Books (336 pages, $27)　Midway through the third and strongest of the nine stories in Helen Oyeyemi’s breathtakingly bold and original “What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours” -- unlike any short story collection I've read -- one meets a girl reading a book on a plane.　Because the plane is going “through a terrifyingly long tunnel of turbulence,” everyone else is “freaking out.”　Asked if she’d noticed “we might be about to crash,” the

BooksMarch 10, 2016