Latest news with #culturalboycott
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Sally Rooney, fame doesn't give you the right to fund terror
My usual rule is not to hold the morals of the artist against the art. But in Sally Rooney's case, I find myself breaking this rule, largely as it's no great sacrifice to do so. Her self-regarding prose is as conformist and mean-spirited as her politics. But the politics are openly evil. Rooney is one of those haters of Israel who is so dedicated to the cause that she has made it her most talked-about feature, a personal crusade on a level only matched by the equally pale and sour-faced Palestine fanatic Greta Thunberg. In 2021, Rooney stonily refused to let the Hebrew publisher Modin buy and translate her book Beautiful World, Where Are You? out of commitment to the cultural boycott of Israel and Israelis, a campaign that in some jurisdictions is classified as anti-Semitic. Her commitment to Israel's sworn enemies is now being tested by her brazen support of Palestine Action, designated a terror group in July after it broke into RAF base at Brize Norton and did millions of pounds of damage, committing sabotage and posing an aggressive threat to national security. Rooney's insouciant entitlement is quite something. Like the rest of her deranged crew, only when it cracks down on violent criminality in the name of Palestine does she think Britain has a problem with free speech and 'political policing'. Like Thunberg, Rooney is posing as a law-defying martyr for the Palestinian people, standing up to the global conspiracy (as they see it) to gaslight those who truly see (like them) the (non-existent) genocidal Israeli appetite for the blood of innocents. She wrote in the Irish Times this weekend of her decision to send all her earnings from the BBC's adaptations of her novels to Palestine Action. 'If this makes me a 'supporter of terror' under UK law, so be it,' she wrote. 'My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain, and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets. In recent years, the UK's state broadcaster has also televised two fine adaptations of my novels, and therefore regularly pays me residual fees. I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can. If the British state considers this 'terrorism', then perhaps it should investigate the shady organisations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.' What a smug cow. Rooney resides in the Republic of Ireland, not the UK, and is an Irish national. But if she were to land at Heathrow and then proceeded to publicly donate money to Palestine Action, Rooney ought to be fined for all the money she tries to give to the proscribed terrorist organisation, and a lot more beside. That money could then be used to fund the British armed forces, which could do with some of her millions, not least to help repair the damage done at Brize Norton.
Telegraph
5 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Arts centre to overhaul leadership after pro-Palestinian occupation
An arts centre has pledged to appoint new leadership and condemned the 'genocide' in Gaza after it was occupied by pro-Palestinian activists earlier this summer. Glasgow's Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) has been closed since Art Workers for Palestine Scotland occupied the building on June 24 after the venue could not come to a consensus on endorsing their cultural boycott of Israel. The campaign group had planned to host an unofficial week-long programme of workshops and screenings at the centre, but police were called and a violent altercation ensued. The CCA has now issued an apology and announced that plans to 'turnaround' the board would be 'accelerated'. In a statement, a spokesman said the centre 'acknowledges the disruption, confusion and harm experienced over recent weeks' and 'we sincerely regret the outcome of our decisions on 24 June'. He added: 'We recognise that a lack of clarity on our choices had real human consequences, and for this we are deeply sorry.' Art Workers for Palestine Scotland had called on the CCA to back the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). But on June 6, the centre announced on Instagram that its board had not come to a consensus on publicly endorsing the boycott. The CCA has now said it will 'revisit the decision on endorsement of PACBI when the new leadership is in place' and is now working towards adopting 'ethical fundraising and programming policy'. The centre said it 'respects' and recognises the 'urgency' of calls to endorse PACBI and it is 'grateful to those who have challenged us and held us to account', though it will reopen without formal endorsement until the new leadership is in place. It said new diverse board members would be recruited with an intention to 'widen the scope of experience, background and representation, including global majority'. The centre said recruitment would also be launched to replace the current chairman when she completes her term of office in October. The centre, heavily subsided by Creative Scotland, added: 'We condemn the violence of the Israeli state, the ongoing occupation, genocide, and the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. We stand firmly against all forms of oppression and in support of the rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.' The announcement was celebrated by Art Workers for Palestine Scotland, which said: 'CCA's leadership have agreed to almost every demand that has been made of them. 'We understand this statement to mark a vital and momentous change of direction at CCA – a signal towards real institutional decolonisation. It is a huge win, not only for our city of Glasgow's proud and defiant solidarity with Palestine, but also internationally. 'As Glasgow's contemporary art centre, CCA must be a beacon for our city's solidarity with Palestine, for anti-colonialism, and for art to stand on the side of liberation. We urge everyone to use the example and precedent of CCA to apply pressure to publicly funded arts organisations.' The group had previously condemned the centre for calling the police, which led to the arrest of a 63-year-old woman and an injury to a person. 'The illusion has been shattered, all trust is lost, the mask has dropped,' it had said. The CCA hopes to reopen from the week commencing August 25.
Al Arabiya
15-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Arabiya
Italy faces calls to cancel concert led by pro-Putin conductor
The wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is urging Italy to cancel a concert by a Russian conductor who has been shunned in the West since the invasion of Ukraine. Valery Gergiev is scheduled to perform on July 27 at a festival in the Reggia di Caserta palace near Naples, leading a local philharmonic orchestra and soloists from the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra in St Petersburg, which he leads. 'There is a big problem' with the festival, Yulia Navalnaya wrote in an op-ed for Tuesday's la Repubblica newspaper, calling Gergiev an 'intimate friend' of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a cultural ambassador for his administration. 'How is it possible that in the summer of 2025, three years after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, Valery Gergiev, Putin's accomplice (...) is suddenly invited to Italy to participate in a festival,' wrote Navalnaya, whose husband died suddenly in 2024 in an Arctic penal colony at the age of 47. Gergiev did not immediately comment on her remarks. In 2022, several Western cultural institutions, including Milan's La Scala, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and New York's Carnegie Hall severed ties with Gergiev over his failure to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The head of the Campania region, which is organizing the festival, said Gergiev had been invited to keep 'channels of communication open even with those who do not think like us.' In this spirit, the festival had also invited Israeli conductor Daniel Oren, regional president and center-left politician Vincenzo De Luca, a critic of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, wrote on Facebook. 'We are not asking these men of culture to answer for the political choices of the leaders of their respective countries,' he said. Italy's right-wing government has supported Ukraine and international sanctions against Moscow. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's office and the Ministry of Culture declined comment on Gergiev's invitation. Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation wrote last week to the Italian interior minister, urging him to deny entry to Gergiev, and to the culture minister and the director of the Reggia di Caserta, asking them to cancel the concert. Navalny had denied the charges against him, including fraud and extremism, saying they were trumped up to silence him. Gergiev, 72, was made director of Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 2023, despite being banished from Western concert halls.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘It will lift the spirits': Kyiv to stage ‘most English of ballets' after Russian repertoire boycott
One of the 'most English of ballets' will be performed for the first time at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv after a boycott of the classic Russian repertoire, including Swan Lake and the Nutcracker. Sir Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, a celebrated romantic comedy, will be performed to a sell-out audience on Thursday after Ukraine turned away from the works of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. The production, which will run for at least five years in Kyiv, was made possible by fundraising in London by the former Ukrainian star of the Royal Ballet, Ivan Putrov, and the sculptor Antony Gormley. The ballet's owner, Jean-Pierre Gasquet, has waived his fee. Originally a French ballet by Jean Dauberval, Ashton's choreography, first staged in 1960, turned La Fille mal gardée into one of the best-loved English ballets, featuring slapstick humour, a maypole and traditional folk dance. The Ukrainian government has asked cultural institutions in the country and abroad to boycott ballet productions by Russian composers and choreographers on the grounds that Vladimir Putin is seeking to use culture 'as a weapon' and justification for the war. The artistic director of ballet at the National Opera of Ukraine, Nobuhiro Terada, said the issue was sensitive, but that the turning point had come when dancers at the Donetsk Opera and Ballet theatre in Russian-occupied Ukraine performed the shape of a Z, a pro-war symbol, in the autumn of 2022. 'After that, Putin claimed that Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, all of them, belong to the Russian world and Russian people,' he said. 'After this story, the minister of culture of Ukraine at that moment, said 'no more'. Politics and culture are different things. But at that moment, there were a lot of victims of this war, and we realised relatives of these victims, they don't want to hear Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. 'It's a very sensitive question. I'm not a politician, I have to accept an opinion of Ukrainian people. Tchaikovsky, he was in Kyiv, he lived in Kyiv, and Prokofiev was even born in Donetsk. 'Of course, we want to perform Tchaikovsky and a lot of performers they want it, and it needs to happen for the next generation, in my opinion. But today it's not a good time to perform.' The boycott is controversial even among the cast of the La Fille mal gardée, which tells the story of a young woman named Lise who is determined to be with a young farmer rather than her mother's choice of dim-witted Alain, the son of a wealthy landowner. Daniil Silkin, 29, worked as a combat medic in the Ukrainian army for the first 18 months of the war but will perform as Alain in the production thanks to a time-limited exemption on service for performers. He said he did not agree with the boycott of the seminal works, which he described as a 'big part of world ballet'. 'I don't think the Ukrainian government was right,' he said. 'I think they should say to the people that Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev do not belong to Putin. They were of a very different time.' Andrianna Shabaeva, 20, whose role is as one of the friends of the main female character, said she had not had the opportunity to perform the Russian classics because of the full-scale invasion three years ago. 'Maybe one day. But not before the Russians go away,' she said. Terada, who came to live permanently in Ukraine without his parents in 1986 as an 11-year-old boy as part of a cultural exchange between ballet schools in Japan and the Soviet Union, said the boycott of Russian works had forced the opera house to look more widely for productions. With international assistance, it has since performed 5 Tango's by the Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen, Spring and Fall by John Neumeier and Alexei Ratmansky's Wartime elegy. Terada, who was appointed director in 2022, said: 'Before the war, we didn't have any opportunity to work with these famous names. They decided to help Ukraine and National theatre and ballet because of war. Related: The Reckoning review – shattering stories of invasion in Ukraine 'And thanks to Ivan Putrov and the other sponsors, we've got this production, La Fille mal gardée. It was impossible to get the choreography of Frederick Ashton. You need to pay. That is the reason that this Ukrainian theatre during last 50 years have had the same productions: Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Spartacus. 'I clearly understand – it's not popular, what I'm going to say – but when war is happening, we need to use this opportunity and to get the best from the world, because all world is going to help Ukraine.' The audience in Kyiv will have access to the coat room as a shelter during Russian air raids, but other inconveniences of putting on a show during a war are more difficult to overcome. Putrov, whose Dance for Ukraine event in London has helped finance the new production, said: 'I think it was 60 men who were called up from the stage crew. I think they only have 19 left. 'La Fille mal gardée is a beautiful blockbuster, a classic that is sunny, that is the most English of the ballets, with a grand dame, pantomime, maypole, clog dance. It will lift the spirits. What are Ukrainians fighting for? They're fighting for the way of life they want to live, and it's very important that the spirit is sustained.'
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘It will lift the spirits': Kyiv to stage ‘most English of ballets' after Russian repertoire boycott
One of the 'most English of ballets' will be performed for the first time at the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv after a boycott of the classic Russian repertoire, including Swan Lake and the Nutcracker. Sir Frederick Ashton's La Fille mal gardée, a celebrated romantic comedy, will be performed to a sell-out audience on Thursday after Ukraine turned away from the works of Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. The production, which will run for at least five years in Kyiv, was made possible by fundraising in London by the former Ukrainian star of the Royal Ballet, Ivan Putrov, and the sculptor Antony Gormley. The ballet's owner, Jean-Pierre Gasquet, has waived his fee. Originally a French ballet by Jean Dauberval, Ashton's choreography, first staged in 1960, turned La Fille mal gardée into one of the best-loved English ballets, featuring slapstick humour, a maypole and traditional folk dance. The Ukrainian government has asked cultural institutions in the country and abroad to boycott ballet productions by Russian composers and choreographers on the grounds that Vladimir Putin is seeking to use culture 'as a weapon' and justification for the war. The artistic director of ballet at the National Opera of Ukraine, Nobuhiro Terada, said the issue was sensitive, but that the turning point had come when dancers at the Donetsk Opera and Ballet theatre in Russian-occupied Ukraine performed the shape of a Z, a pro-war symbol, in the autumn of 2022. 'After that, Putin claimed that Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, all of them, belong to the Russian world and Russian people,' he said. 'After this story, the minister of culture of Ukraine at that moment, said 'no more'. Politics and culture are different things. But at that moment, there were a lot of victims of this war, and we realised relatives of these victims, they don't want to hear Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev. 'It's a very sensitive question. I'm not a politician, I have to accept an opinion of Ukrainian people. Tchaikovsky, he was in Kyiv, he lived in Kyiv, and Prokofiev was even born in Donetsk. 'Of course, we want to perform Tchaikovsky and a lot of performers they want it, and it needs to happen for the next generation, in my opinion. But today it's not a good time to perform.' The boycott is controversial even among the cast of the La Fille mal gardée, which tells the story of a young woman named Lise who is determined to be with a young farmer rather than her mother's choice of dim-witted Alain, the son of a wealthy landowner. Daniil Silkin, 29, worked as a combat medic in the Ukrainian army for the first 18 months of the war but will perform as Alain in the production thanks to a time-limited exemption on service for performers. He said he did not agree with the boycott of the seminal works, which he described as a 'big part of world ballet'. 'I don't think the Ukrainian government was right,' he said. 'I think they should say to the people that Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev do not belong to Putin. They were of a very different time.' Andrianna Shabaeva, 20, whose role is as one of the friends of the main female character, said she had not had the opportunity to perform the Russian classics because of the full-scale invasion three years ago. 'Maybe one day. But not before the Russians go away,' she said. Terada, who came to live permanently in Ukraine without his parents in 1986 as an 11-year-old boy as part of a cultural exchange between ballet schools in Japan and the Soviet Union, said the boycott of Russian works had forced the opera house to look more widely for productions. With international assistance, it has since performed 5 Tango's by the Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen, Spring and Fall by John Neumeier and Alexei Ratmansky's Wartime elegy. Terada, who was appointed director in 2022, said: 'Before the war, we didn't have any opportunity to work with these famous names. They decided to help Ukraine and National theatre and ballet because of war. 'And thanks to Ivan Putrov and the other sponsors, we've got this production, La Fille mal gardée. It was impossible to get the choreography of Frederick Ashton. You need to pay. That is the reason that this Ukrainian theatre during last 50 years have had the same productions: Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Spartacus. 'I clearly understand – it's not popular, what I'm going to say – but when war is happening, we need to use this opportunity and to get the best from the world, because all world is going to help Ukraine.' The audience in Kyiv will have access to the coat room as a shelter during Russian air raids, but other inconveniences of putting on a show during a war are more difficult to overcome. Putrov, whose Dance for Ukraine event in London has helped finance the new production, said: 'I think it was 60 men who were called up from the stage crew. I think they only have 19 left. 'La Fille mal gardée is a beautiful blockbuster, a classic that is sunny, that is the most English of the ballets, with a grand dame, pantomime, maypole, clog dance. It will lift the spirits. What are Ukrainians fighting for? They're fighting for the way of life they want to live, and it's very important that the spirit is sustained.'
