Latest news with #GALA
Evening Standard
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
GALA 2025 review: officially London's coolest dance music festival
Elsewhere, a slime-esque plastic installation floats in the air in the Cornerstone tent during Club Are's Saturday takeover, which is swapped for vinyl records and a disco ball on Sunday as local Hi-Fi institution JUMBI takes the reins. The Cause and Chapter 10 also host their own takeovers across the festival, proving that GALA's organisers have their fingers on the pulse when it comes to the who's who of the city's parties.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Prep talk: DeAuna Louis of GALA is athlete to watch in the hurdles
When it comes to going over hurdles, DeAuna Louis of GALA is the best in the City Section. She will try to defend her City titles in the 100 and 300-meter hurdles on Thursday at the City Section track and field championships at Birmingham. Equally important is her goal to do well at next weekend's state championships at Buchanan High in Clovis. Advertisement She has become one of the most successful athletes in the history of the Girls Academic Leadership Academy, which is the first and only all-girls STEM school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Running events are scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. weather permitting (there's a heat wave coming this week) ... The City Section will hold an Open Division baseball semifinal doubleheader on Tuesday at Cal State Northridge, with El Camino Real playing Birmingham at 3 p.m., followed by Venice taking on Sylmar at 6 p.m. The winners advance to Saturday's 1 p.m. final at Dodger Stadium. This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email Advertisement Sign up for the L.A. Times SoCal high school sports newsletter to get scores, stories and a behind-the-scenes look at what makes prep sports so popular. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
20-05-2025
- Sport
- Los Angeles Times
Prep talk: DeAuna Louis of GALA is athlete to watch in the hurdles
When it comes to going over hurdles, DeAuna Louis of GALA is the best in the City Section. She will try to defend her City titles in the 100 and 300-meter hurdles on Thursday at the City Section track and field championships at Birmingham. Equally important is her goal to do well at next weekend's state championships at Buchanan High in Clovis. She has become one of the most successful athletes in the history of the Girls Academic Leadership Academy, which is the first and only all-girls STEM school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Running events are scheduled to begin at 4 p.m. weather permitting (there's a heat wave coming this week) ... The City Section will hold an Open Division baseball semifinal doubleheader on Tuesday at Cal State Northridge, with El Camino Real playing Birmingham at 3 p.m., followed by Venice taking on Sylmar at 6 p.m. The winners advance to Saturday's 1 p.m. final at Dodger Stadium. This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email
Business Journals
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Journals
GALA Hispanic Theatre thrives as it enters its 50th season
GALA Hispanic Theatre has put on some of the seminal works of theater in Spanish, from 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' to the first ever production of 'On Your Feet!' in Spanish over its 50-year lifespan. But where the D.C. theater also shines is debuting new work or updating the classics to be relevant to local and modern audiences. Take 'Choke: Sucede hasta en las mejores familias,' a play by Emilio Infante that artistic director Gustavo Ott knew he wanted to put on even before he arrived at GALA in the winter of 2024. He discovered the play in Texas, where it told the multigenerational story of a family whose health is plagued by the oil refinery where its patriarch worked for years. When staged at GALA, it depicts a Hispanic family living in the shadow of a factory in Baltimore, one whose wages helped the family's children move out and up in the world. It portrays the same themes of environmental justice, and family, as the original. The show runs through May 18 and tickets are available on GALA's website. 'There's a very interesting parallel between the struggle within the family and the struggle of the family with the corporation,' Ott said. 'So it's about family, but it's also a political play and that's why we thought that it would be a very good selection for the season — which we already thought would have to be a political season because of what's going on.' That season included 'Fuenteovejuna,' a play about the people uprising against a military dictator in 15th-century Spain; and 'Once Upon a Time…And Two Are Three!', a Dominican folk tale that tells the history of the culture we now call 'Latin American.' expand Opening night of 'Choke' at GALA Hispanic Theatre. Courtesy GALA Even 'Botiquín de Boleros de Columbia Heights,' a musical planned for later this season that will celebrate the quintessential Spanish language ballads, touches on issues of the day by setting the historic play in a bar in GALA's home neighborhood of Columbia Heights that is trying to reopen after COVID-19. The play breaks the fourth wall by opening the 'auditions' for bolero singers for the bar to audience members — and also creating a call and response between the singers and the crowd. 'It's about Covid, but it's also about letting people have a good time,' Medrano said. 'It's a show. It's theater but it's also karaoke.' The show runs June 11-29 and tickets are available here. The company that Medrano co-founded all those years ago with her late husband Hugo Medrano — who died suddenly in 2023 and had been GALA's only artistic director — will take that energy into its 50th season; Rebecca Medrano notes ruefully that she always expected Hugo to be around for. To honor him, they are putting on some of the most iconic shows GALA has ever produced, including 'Kiss of the Spider Woman,' which portrays two inmates in a Buenos Aires prison, including one who is a political prisoner. The play, which Hugo starred in as Molina, was the first Spanish language play to win a local theater association Helen Hayes award in 1994. Next up is 'The House of Bernarda Alba,' another tale of persecution — are you picking up on the theme — which GALA previously staged in 1984 and 1997. The season will move onto new, modern works, including one called 'Aguardiente' that GALA commissioned from director and choreographer Luis Salgado. The play explores the identity of Puerto Rico, as well as Colombia, as Caribbean nations and their relationship to the U.S., seen through the lens of two struggling writers who are in New York. Those shows and others will run alongside several others, as well as the near-constant children's programming at GALA; they put on shows for children called Galita, and also host Paso Nuevo, which is a free after-school theater program for D.C. children. Medrano and Ott, whose partner, Heather McKay, runs the education programs, see those programs as critical to shoring up GALA's future — which is why potential budget cuts in D.C. could be so devastating. 'I think we're going to need individuals to step up,' Medrano said. The theater company will host its annual gala June 2; Noche de Estrellas will honor screen and theater actor Fernanda Castillo; tickets here. As far as the longer-term future goes, Ott hopes to eventually create more space for GALA to operate — a second building that can host more educational programs and events, maybe even a whole Hispanic Cultural Center for the Arts. 'We're not going to disappear. In the down times, that's when we thrive. People are committed to the theater.' he said. We treat theater as a church because it's faith that moves us, nothing else. We're the faithful, and you won't find anybody better than us at building community.'
Arab Times
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab Times
27 people arrested in protest in Gambia over sale of former dictator's assets
BANJUL, Gambia, May 10, (AP): Protests in Gambia over the sale of a former dictator's assets led to the arrests of at least 27 demonstrators and two journalists, who were later released, police said Monday. The protests in the West African country's capital of Banjul began after an investigative report by local media that accused the government of selling former dictator Yahya Jammeh 's assets at below market value. A group called the Gambians Against Looted Assets, or GALA, led the protest. According to a government statement Monday, the sale went through a "legally grounded process.' "At all times, the government acted within the confines of the law and in the public interest,' the Ministry of Justice said. "We condemn the (Inspector General of the Police) denial of our rights to protest and we will take none of it. We call on all Gambians to stand in opposition to this unlawful behavior of the police and come out in the thousands to take to the streets,' GALA spokesperson Omar Saibo Camara said at a news conference earlier this week. Camara was responding to the government's announcement that it had denied their request to protest. A government commission was created in 2017 with the goal of looking into the financial dealings of former President Jammeh and his advisers. The commission concluded on Sept. 13, 2019 with a report indicating that the former president had stolen up to $362 million from the country. His two-decade-long rule was marked by arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, according to rights activists. Along with political opponents, Jammeh also targeted journalists and members of the gay community. Jammeh now resides in Equatorial Guinea.
