Latest news with #NoMan'sLand
Straits Times
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
The Necessary Stage's No Man's Land asks how masculinity works today
The Necessary Stage's No Man's Land follows four men as they navigate the landscape of contemporary manhood. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY SINGAPORE – A quartet of inter-disciplinary artists with a shared curiosity about masculinity are collaborating for a live performance in six acts. The Necessary Stage's No Man's Land, which plays at the Esplanade Theatre Studio from June 12 to 15, is a devised work incorporating theatre and dance elements. It follows four men as they navigate the landscape of contemporary manhood. The four actors reflect a diverse range of bodies and experiences, as co-directors Alvin Tan and Sim Yan Ying (also known as 'YY') insist that 'meaningful change requires multiplicity'. One of the cast members is 76-year-old actor Michael Tan, who plays a paternal role in the show and expresses a form of emotional repression in his relationship with his son. Sim says of Tan's role: 'Though mostly a wordless role, his presence brings out the weight of a father's expectations on his sons.' Sim – who also conceptualised (2024) which looked at the lives of four women at watershed ages – says: 'Over time, I grew curious about the other side as well – while obviously acknowledging that gender is not a binary. In all my attempts to advocate for gender equality, I feel like you can't really achieve that without addressing masculinity.' The 80-minute performance, Sim says, will run the gamut from realism to abstraction. The other cast members are performance-maker Neo Hai Bin; dancer and choreographer Shahizman Sulaiman; actor Vishnucharan Naidu, who is trained in Bharatanatyam dance; and actress-musician Suhaili Safari. While writer Danial Matin wrote the text for the performance, working with a choreographer helped him realise his ideas more fully , he says. 'Sometimes the text is inadequate. Sometimes text is not enough to express some of the more embodied elements, especially when it comes to a topic like masculinity.' His formative experiences with masculinity were shaped by being in all-male environments such as a boys' school and during National Service: 'I think there are certain boundaries that can disappear in an all-male environment – such as personal boundaries.' The team for No Man's Land includes (from left) writer Danial Matin, co-director Sim Yan Ying, choreographer Hafeez Hassan and co-director Alvin Tan. ST PHOTO: GIN TAY Choreographer Hafeez Hassan – who also runs The Brothers Circle, a space for men to express themselves authentically – will tap on his early years learning silat to choreograph the movement for the show, which also blends 'contemporary dance and human biomechanics'. 'When I practice silat, I feel like I get to reclaim my Malay body,' says Hassan, who adds that the movements will also build on the cast's familiarity with dance genres such as Bharatanatyam and street dance. Co-director Tan grew up in a household where the housework was split between his parents. 'I thought every family was like that, only to realise later it was divided into gender roles.' The cast, as expected, are cognisant about how gender dynamics play out in the rehearsal room. They acknowledge that Sim, for example, is the one keeping track of the various changes in the show – which leads to discussions of whether her style is more 'top-down' or if she is performing a kind of 'feminised labour'. Tan says, however, that the work is not an attack on masculinity: 'It's not masculinity. My problem is with patriarchy and matriarchy.' To effect change, he is starting small. 'I don't want to go and try and change big policies – I'm tired of that. Just to change in small ways in the rehearsal rooms.' Book It/No Man's Land Where: Esplanade Theatre Studio, 1 Esplanade Drive When: June 12 to 14, 8pm; June 14 and 15, 3pm Admission: $38 Info: Go to Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Axios
28-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
7 Charlotte festivals to check out this spring
Charlotte has come out of hibernation, and with it, festival season has sprung. Driving the news: No Man's Land, a festival celebrating women and women entrepreneurs, is taking place along Camden Road in South End from 11am-5pm today. It's free to attend. Here are several other local spring festivals to get on your radar. March March 27-April 6: Charlotte Spring Fair at Route 29 Pavilion in Concord. March 29th: South End Wine and Hops Festival at Lenny Boy Brewing. April April 4-20: Charlotte SHOUT! in Uptown. April 25-27: Tuck Fest at The Whitewater Center. May
Axios
11-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
This free festival will close down Camden Road for a day in celebration of women
No Man's Land, a street festival celebrating women and women-owned businesses, will take over Camden Road in South End Saturday, March 22. Why it matters: It's an all-day event for women to connect, support and celebrate with one another, fittingly during Women's History Month. What to expect: The free, outdoor festival will close Camden Road for the day and showcase over 80 women-owned businesses to shop from. It'll also host creative workshops like button-making, writing love letters to your future self and additional classes hosted by SkillPop. There'll be breakout sessions and networking opportunities. You can participate in activations like a digital scavenger hunt with prizes like Mood House massages. DJs will play all-women artists and there'll be a hip hop line dancing class. The vibe: It'll be a high-energy, judgement-free celebration that's open to all, says Jordan Dollard, founder of Esther & Elsa, the Charlotte event company behind No Man's Land. " If you love women and want a reason to celebrate them, this is the event for you," she says. Zoom in: At its core, No Man's Land is designed to support women entrepreneurs. Some of this year's retailers include Honeybear Bake Shop, Kicks & Fros, Two Chicks Candles, and charm bar 11 and Thoms. Food vendors will also be mostly women-owned, like A Shot of Flava, a dessert truck whose menu includes the viral Dubai Strawberry Cup. Between the lines: Esther & Elsa is also behind some of the city's most popular vendor markets, like Front Porch Sundays and Nebel's Alley Night Market. No Man's Land inaugural festival was last year inside the Ford Building at Camp North End. The big picture: Camden Road doesn't shut down often — typically only for Charlotte Center City Partners' Camden Commons and Shop Small Saturdays, which Esther & Elsa has also helped produce. If you go: No Man's Land will run 11am-5pm along the 1900 block of Camden Road in South End. General admission is free and ticketless. VIP tickets are available for $50. They include guaranteed access to activations before 2pm and a swag bag. What's next: Front Porch Sundays will return to Atherton Mill Sunday, April 6. Nebel's Alley Night Market will kick off Saturday, April 12.
Vox
03-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Vox
4 winners and 3 losers from a madcap Oscars
It won't go down as the most exciting Oscars on record — there was no slap or envelope mix-up after all — but for this year's Academy Awards, ending an unexpectedly cacophonous awards season with a smooth, calamity-free ceremony clocking in at under four hours was arguably the best of all possible outcomes. The big winner of the evening, Anora , scooped up five of its six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Mikey Madison (sorry, Demi!). The Brutalist also flexed several wins, including one for actor-slash-gum-thrower Adrien Brody, while several more overtly political films, like Palestinian-Israeli documentary No Man's Land and the anti-authoritarian Brazilian film I'm Still Here , picked up some trophies. Overall, the vibe was markedly upbeat — a series of solid comedy bits outshone politics, with amusing appearances from Adam Sandler, Bowen Yang, Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, and June Squibb. Inside the Dolby Theatre, the atmosphere was chill, the music was decent, most of the speeches were short (no thanks to Brody), and best of all? We weren't stuck watching until well after midnight. Can we do it like this every year? Still, as always, not everyone came through the night unscathed, and some attendees went home happier than others. Check out our winners and losers below! From his slightly too-gross entrance clawing his way out of Demi Moore's back to his cheeky song-and-dance routine promising not to let the telecast go on too long, Conan O'Brien took the most thankless gig in show business this year and played it just a little weirder than you'd think he could. We, for one, are thankful. Over the course of his monologue, O'Brien affably roasted himself for not having had enough work done, Karla Sofía Gascón for her many offensive tweets, and Timothée Chalamet for his baby face. He also got in a truly delightful bit about showing John Lithgow's disappointed face to anyone who took too long with their acceptance speech, plus another long shaggy-dog one with a belligerently be-hoodied Adam Sandler. (Sandler didn't bother to put on a tux because he's too good of a person to care about his clothes, he boasted.) Making the Oscars funny is a feat in and of itself, but at the end of his monologue, O'Brien one-upped himself with a genuinely heartfelt tribute to what the Oscars mean in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires. Award shows for wealthy celebrities can feel shallow after so much devastation, he acknowledged — but the Oscars also offer an incredible platform for the below-the-line talent that is not so famous. That the awards also lavished the nominees of the technical categories with the kind of praise they normally save for the actors? Well, that's the icing on the cake. — Constance Grady Early on in awards season, trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón was hailed as a Best Actress frontrunner for her turn as the titular character in splashy musical Emilia Pérez . But things quickly spiraled for the film: Not only did audiences critique the storyline for regressive and inauthentic storytelling, but Gasćon drew negative attention for shading her fellow nominee Fernanda Torres — and then the real mine fields detonated: Twitter users dug up Gascón's old tweets. It turns out Gascón had a long history of making racist, Islamaphobic, antisemitic, homophobic, and other offensive comments, arguably culminating in her musing in public that Hitler 'simply had his opinion about the Jews.' Though Gascón soon apologized and deleted her Twitter account, the scandal prompted many onlookers to wonder why on earth someone with such views had been cast to begin with, especially in a role that, for all the script's flaws, was a groundbreaking trans character. At the very least, the question of why no one deleted her tweets before awards season should haunt Hollywood PR staff for years to come. The Emilia Pérez production distanced itself hard from Gascón and threw itself into supporting its other nominated actress, Zoe Saldaña, who picked up a win for Best Supporting Actress. (Saldaña did not mention Gasćon in her acceptance speech, though she did thank the cast in general). The Academy Awards also seemed eager to distance itself from Gasćon during the ceremony; some preview clips of the film barely referenced her, and despite Emilia Perez being a musical, nominated for Best Picture in a heavily musical Oscars year, the cast was absent from the stage. Ultimately, the film, which originally led the pack with 13 nominations, picked up just 2 wins, and Gasćon went home empty-handed. — Aja Romano When it was announced that this year's Oscars ceremony wouldn't include performances of the Best Original Song nominees, it seemed like both a blessing and curse. This musical showcase has long been a crucial part of the ceremony, punctuating the awards and keeping audiences stimulated. However, this year's list of nominees included two songs from Emilia Pérez , with songs that have been excessively mocked online. Nevertheless, one number, 'El Mal,' took home Best Original Song. That was all the recognition the Academy seemingly wanted to give the film's music during the ceremony, though, and it was ultimately a good choice. Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande opened the show, with a celebration of the cinematic legacy of The Wizard of Oz and a tribute to Los Angeles following the catastrophic wildfires this past January. Grande performed 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' from The Wizard of Oz , while Cynthia Erivo sang 'Home' from The Wiz , ending with her show-stopping 'Defying Gravity' riff. Then there was a delightfully random James Bond tribute (perhaps a eulogy, given its recent Amazon acquisition?) featuring pop stars Lisa, Doja Cat, and Raye with a slightly shaky but amusing medley of 'Skyfall,' 'Diamonds Are Forever,' and 'Live and Let Die.' Lastly, Queen Latifah offered a spirited tribute to Quincy Jones, performing 'Ease on Down the Road' from his production The Wiz . The Oscars seem to have taken notes from the Grammys, putting as many divas as they could onstage. In a ceremony defined by lackluster nominees, it was a welcome distraction. — Kyndall Cunningham For the second year in a row, Hollywood's Biggest Night™ was actually late afternoon — the ceremony started at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. And you know what? Good! For Academy Award watchers on the East Coast, the show going over means getting to bed closer to midnight. It's a school night — not everyone can stay up that late. Starting an hour earlier also makes the viewing experience more pleasurable. The time cushion makes everything feel a little less stressful (especially when the acceptance speeches go long) because there's essentially an extra hour. Host Conan O'Brien even had an entire musical number/a promise that he 'won't waste time.' Praise ABC and the powers that be, Sunday's show ended before 11! — Alex Abad-Santos Blame it on the vibe shift, blame it on the LA fires shaking up Hollywood, blame it on who knows what, but there was, frankly, a lot of Hollywood's private business happening in front of the cameras on the movies' biggest night. Kiernan Culkin, accepting his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, told a long and admittedly funny story about his wife whose punchline was that she only agreed to have a third and a fourth child if he won an Emmy and an Oscar, respectively — because she didn't think he ever would. Meanwhile, Andrew Garfield tried to make an unimpressed Goldie Hawn cry by telling her impromptu that she was his recently deceased mother's favorite actor while they were supposed to be presenting the awards in the two animated categories. None of this is necessarily bad, but it is traditionally the sort of thing you take care of when you are not being broadcast live across the world. Hollywood decided to tear down the boundaries tonight. — Constance Grady The winner for Best Documentary Feature — the result of a collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian activists — was something of an upset, if only because its lack of a US distributor hurt it at some Oscar-predicting awards, including both the Producers and Directors Guild Awards. The film's creators are also its subjects: Basel Adra, a displaced Palestinian activist, navigates the destruction of Gaza, while his friend and creative partner Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, lives in relative security and stability. While the Oscars largely skirted political speech (no one referenced President Donald Trump by name), these directors succeeded in making an unusually direct address. In an uncompromising speech, Adra said, 'We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.' Abraham, echoed this sentiment, saying, 'We see each other, the destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed,' before pointing directly to US foreign policy as blocking the path to peace. — Meredith Haggerty One of the most beloved recurring features at the Oscars is what's known as the 'Fab Five' format in the acting categories. The gist: five previous winners of each category — Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress — are brought on stage to present and praise the nominees and announce the winner. It's a touching way to honor the history and importance of the award. The Fab Five was supposed to be used again this year but, likely due to the impossibly thorny optics of introducing Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón and the controversy surrounding her Islamophobic and anti-Black tweets, the format was nixed. Instead, the Oscars consolidated. Three of last year's winners — Robert Downey Jr., Da'vine Joy Randolph, Cillian Murphy — said something about each of the nominees in their respective categories. Meanwhile, Emma Stone, who presented Best Actress, more or less just introduced the category and didn't say anything specific about the actresses nominated, who besides Gascón included Demi Moore, Fernanda Torres, Cynthia Erivo, and winner Mikey Madison. The result felt a little less personal and a bit more awkward. Downey Jr.'s casual glibness wasn't a really good fit for giving other actors their moment in the sun, and there was no way for Stone to elegantly avoid the elephant in the room. Just one more way the Gascón blowup impacted the vibe at this year's show. — Alex Abad-Santos See More: Awards Shows Celebrity Culture Culture Oscars
