This year is Korea’s Universal Ballet Company’s 30th anniversary, and the troupe is celebrating it with a bang.The company is throwing a special gala performance this week, featuring its star dancers. Titled “Thank You!,” the program consists of scenes from some of the troupe’s most successful repertoires including “La Bayadere,” “Onegin,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Don Quixote.”“We weren’t sure how much the troupe could accomplish in a country where many people did not know about ballet 30 years ag

Performance Feb. 18, 2014

“So” is how “That Awkward Moment” begins every “awkward moment.” As in “So, what are we doing here?” Or “So, where do you see this relationship going?”That’s the dating man’s lesson of “That Awkward Moment,” that “For girls, nothing good ever comes after ‘So.’” It’s a chatty romantic comedy in the modern mode ― rude, nude and crude ― with some funny, writerly riffs on relationships and how to avoid them.There are laughs, in the lead couple’s “meet cute” moment in a bar, when she (Imogen Poots) t

Film Feb. 14, 2014

This is a different sort of Kate Winslet than we’ve come to expect.In “Labor Day” ― a romance, a drama, and a woman’s fantasy of what men, perhaps, should be ― the British actress plays Adele Wheeler, a fragile, frightened single mother too wary of the outside world to even get in the car and drive to the market.The year is 1987, the place a small New Hampshire town. Adele’s 13-year-old boy (a very good Gattlin Griffith) has assumed many of the domestic responsibilities. There’s even an Oedipal

Film Feb. 7, 2014

After the box-office smash of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Frozen,” Korean theaters are welcoming the arrival of another series of highly anticipated Hollywood films this month.Paul W.S. Anderson’s 3-D disaster thriller “Pompeii,” George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” and slavery saga “12 Years a Slave” are all opening in theaters in February, each offering something different.Among the three, the first to be released here is “Pompeii,” which follows the story of a slave who falls in love with

Film Feb. 6, 2014

It’s hard to believe it’s been six years since the publication of Nancy Horan’s best-selling debut, “Loving Frank,” a riveting tale centered on Frank Lloyd Wright’s lover and muse, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, that remains vividly fresh in my memory.In her new novel, “Under the Wide and Starry Sky,” she once again takes a deep, discerning dive into a famous man’s life by focusing on a significant love interest. Once again, I was enthralled.Horan has been credited with inventing this popular subgenre

Books Feb. 6, 2014

Un-Remarried WidowBy Artis Henderson (Simon & Schuster)There are stories of war we are used to seeing: The soldier as action hero or the wounded warrior returning home. Then there are the war stories that are not so familiar, of the families left behind.Artis Henderson’s “Un-Remarried Widow” is one such story, an exquisitely sensitive portrait of a new bride whose marriage is cut short when her husband is killed in the Iraq War.The book’s title refers to the characteristically dry, bureaucratic

Books Feb. 6, 2014

You may wish, from time to time, that you could feel like a teenager again. “Teenage knees?” you think. “Sign me up!” But then you run into someone like Cressida Mayfield. The delicate heart of Joyce Carol Oates’ moody, marvelous new novel, “Carthage,” 19-year-old Cressida reminds you that those teenage knees come at a price: You’d have to suffer through all those teenage emotions again to get them.Cressida can be cruel. She’ll snip threads on her older sister Juliet’s cashmere sweater, “shiveri

Books Feb. 6, 2014

The world’s most beloved princesses are coming back to life on the silver screen, played by two Australian actresses who are in fact best friends in real-life: Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts.Nicole Kidman plays the legendary Grace Kelly (1929-1982) ― the glamorous American movie star who later became Princess of Monaco as the wife of Prince Rainier III ― while Naomi Watts stars as the iconic British princess Diana (1961-1997) who died in a tragic car crash in Paris. Both films, “Grace of Monaco”

Film Feb. 4, 2014

A collection of poems written by first-generation Korean-Americans has been published in the U.S. It consists of 120 poems delving into their migration experiences, sense of displacement and their daily lives as immigrants in the country they chose as their second home. Titled “I am Homeland,” the collection is edited by Choi Yearn-hong, a scholar who also serves as the founding president of the Korean-American Poets Group. In his introduction, Choi explains why the collection is unique compared

Books Feb. 3, 2014

Major local film house Myung Films’ latest project offers a rare opportunity to watch three of Korea’s most prominent actresses on the silver screen all at once: Uhm Jung-hwa (“Montage,” “Dancing Queen”), Moon So-ri (“HaHaHa,” “Oasis”) and Jo Min-soo (“Pieta”).Titled “Venus Talk,” (a literal English translation of the Korean title is the Law of Sensuality) the film is a screen version of the grand prize winner of the 1st Lotte Entertainment Screenplay Contest. It deals with the love, sex and wor

Film Feb. 2, 2014

A total of 10 Korean authors will be participating in the upcoming London Book Fair Korea Market Focus, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea said.The writers are Hwang Sok-young, Shin Kyung-sook, Kim Young-ha, Yi Mun-yol, Kim In-sook, Han Kang, Lee Seung-woo, Kim Hye-soon, Hwang Sun-mi and Yoon Tae-ho. Kim Hye-soon is a poet, while Hwang Sun-mi is a children’s writer and Yoon is a webtoon writer. The cultural program was jointly organized by the London Book Fair, the Literature Translat

Books Jan. 28, 2014

Vietnamese American film producer and director Charlie Nguyen (left), Vietnamese actor Thai Hoa.(CJ Entertainment)After its successful venture into the Chinese film industry last year, Korea’s CJ E&M Pictures is now set to make a foray into Vietnamese cinema, targeting audiences in the Southeast Asian country. The entertainment company announced on Sunday that it is producing two Korean-Vietnamese joint films, both of which will be released in theaters in Vietnam this year. One of the two films

Film Jan. 27, 2014

Belgian choreographer and dancer Michele Anne De Mey has been with her partner, filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael, for the past 13 years, raising four children together. Their highly ambitious, interdisciplinary performance “Kiss & Cry,” set for its Seoul premiere in March, is the couple’s first professional collaboration together. The result is an emotional account of one’s past, especially ex-lovers, which combines miniature sets, “finger dance,” film, text and theater. The title of the show was take

Film Jan. 26, 2014

Bong Joon-ho’s dystopian sci-fi thriller “Snowpiercer” has been officially invited to this year’s Berlin International Film Festival, according to the film’s producer CJ Entertainment.The film, which is also Bong’s English language debut, will get special gala screenings at the festival’s “Forum” sidebar from Feb. 7 to 8. The International Forum of New Cinema of Berlinale, “Forum” in short, is dedicated to featuring experimental works as well as historically significant films. Kim Tae-yong’s “La

Film Jan. 26, 2014

“Gimme Shelter” is a simplistic, faintly emotional account of a pregnant teen’s desperate search for help, support and compassion with the huge decision she faces. It’s simplistic because the script discounts debate over that decision and glosses over the messy details of the path she chooses. But it’s emotional because we, and plainly some of the characters, know those messy details, even if other characters do not.Agnes (Vanessa Hudgens) is 16 and poor, the daughter of a drug addict (Rosario D

Film Jan. 24, 2014