Newsletter London for fun

Welcome to the London For Fun regular newsletter keeping you up to date with what's new in London`s events.

LONDON FOR FUN Newsletter: 28 July 2009 Issue No.177

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http://www.londonforfun.com
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1.) Top 10 London events
2.) Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries
3.) How to unsubscribe

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1. Top 10 London events
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1 - Chun Yi : The Legend of Kung Fu - After 4 years of wowing over 2 million theatre-goers in Beijing, Japan, Russia and Canada, Chun Yi: The Legend of Kung Fu, comes to The London Coliseum for just 27 performances, from July 29 to August 16. In a truly dazzling spectacle, Chun Yi: The Legend of Kung Fu combines unbelievable athletic feats of King Fu artistry with dance and acrobatics set to an epic musical score by Zheng Bing, principle composer for the2008 Beijing Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. In this new show, specially created for London an ensemble of 50 performers bring to life this exhilarating fusion of East meets West. www.eno.org

2 - Walking in My Mind - Walking in My Mind explores the inner working of the artist's imagination through dramatic, large-scale installation art. Ten international artists - Charles Avery, Thomas Hirschhorn, Yayoi Kusama, Bo Christian Larsson, Mark Manders, Yoshitomo Nara, Jason Rhoades, Pipilotti Rist, Chiharu Shiota and Keith Tyson - transform the Hayward Gallery's indoor galleries and outdoor sculpture terraces into a series of gigantic sculptural environments, each of which represents an individual mindscape. Interior worlds of emotions, thoughts, memories and dreams collide with exterior reality, blurring the boundaries between inner and outer space. Until 6 September. www.hayward.org.uk

3 - Peter Pan - (Family entertainment) - This summer, Kensington Gardens plays host to a unique and remarkable theatre event - a spectacular new stage production of J. M. Barrie's classic story, performed in a specially commissioned, state-of-the-art Theatre Pavilion. For the first time in 100 years, Peter Pan is coming home... Peter Pan Kensington Gardens promises to be a dramatic and truly magical summer experience in the park. Conceived and staged by an award-winning creative team, the production will include a breathtaking 360-degree projected scenic design. Picnic in the theatre pavilion garden, soaking up the atmosphere, take a Royal Parks' Peter Pan tour culminating at the show or just make your way through the Kensington Gardens to Neverland. Until 13 September. Buy tickets

4 - BP Portrait Awards 2009 - Following a record number of entries, three artists have been short-listed for the BP Portrait Award, one of Britain's most prestigious art prizes. This year the prize received 1,901 entries, an increase of over 10% on last year. For the third year running, the competition has been open to all aged 18 or over. 56 portraits have been selected for the exhibition which will be shown until 14 September. www.npg.org.uk

5 - Peter Newman: Skystation - Based on the form of Le Corbusier's classic LC4 chaise-longue, British artist Peter Newman’s Skystation is a circular, spaceship-like sculpture that also acts as a piece of public seating - a resting place for weary office workers, a romantic spot for star-crossed lovers and a new way for homeward bound clubbers to experience the city. In addition to this large scale work, Newman shows a series of his photographs in Concrete, the Hayward Gallery’s cafe bar. Until 14 September. www.southbankcentre.co.uk

6 - Futurism - This exhibition will be the first large-scale showing of Futurism in Britain in thirty years. The movement set out to modernise Italian art and social attitudes and its influence spread across Europe and beyond, revolutionising the response to the dynamism of modern life. Its master of ceremonies was the poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and this exhibition celebrates the centenary of his publication of The Founding and First Manifesto of Futurism in 1909. A core group of artists – Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, Giacomo Balla and Gino Severini – pledged its enthusiastic adherence to Futurism and abandoned the art and culture from the past. The Futurists embraced a celebration of modern technology, speed, and city life and they often painted urban and industrial scenes. The fascination and experience of cars, trams and airplanes is frequently represented in their subject matter together with the use of bold and strident colours on the canvas. Until 20 September. www.tate.org.uk/modern

7 - Francis Alys: Fabiola - Created by the internationally acclaimed artist Francis Alÿs, Fabiola is an installation of over 300 portraits of a fourth-century Christian saint collected by the artist from flea markets and antique shops throughout Europe and the Americas. These seemingly identical portraits, including paintings, embroideries and miniatures are all copies of a lost original of Fabiola by the French nineteenth-century painter, Jean-Jacques Henner. The stylistic differences between the portraits offer a window onto changing aesthetic, social and religious values over the past century. This collection of Fabiolas could be viewed as either an ensemble of academic and amateur copies or a trove of religious artefacts, and as Alÿs has stated, the phenomenon of assiduous copying 'indicates a different criterion of what a masterwork could be.' Until 20 September. www.npg.org.uk

8 - Raqs Media Collective: Escapement - Escapement, Raqs Media Collective’s forthcoming installation at the Frith Street Gallery, invokes clockwork, emotions, geography, fantasy and time zones to ask: What is contemporaneity? What does it mean to be living in these times, in these precipitating hours, these accumulating minutes, these multiplying seconds, here, now? Until 30 September. www.frithstreetgallery.com

9 - Bounce`s Insane in the Brain - Bounce’s explosive hip hop version of Ken Kesey’s classic novel and Dale Wasserman’s play, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, returns to the Peacock Theatre by popular demand for a second year! In the confines of a psychiatric hospital, breakdance becomes a way of expressing freedom and rebelling against the iron rule of Nurse Ratched – who happens to be a ballet fan… From 15 September until 3 October. www.sadlerswells.com

10 - Roger Hiorns: SEIZURE - British artist Roger Hiorns uses unusual materials to effect surprising transformations on found objects and urban situations. Fire emerges from storm drains, perfume permeates metal surfaces, and copper sulphate crystals colonise industrial objects. SEIZURE was Hiorns’ most ambitious work to date and his first major sculptural project within an urban site, and it marked a radical shift in scale and context in his work. The artist encouraged the growth of an unexpected crystal form within a low-rise late-modernist development near the Elephant & Castle in south London. 75,000 litres of copper sulphate solution were pumped into the council flat to create a strangely beautiful and somewhat menacing crystalline growth on the walls, floor, ceiling and bath of this abandoned dwelling. Until 18 October. www.artangel.org.uk

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2. Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries:

Events listing:
http://www.londonforfun.com/events-in-London.htm

Theatre listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/London-theatres.htm

Museum listing:
http://www.londonforfun.com/London-museums.htm

Galleries listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/galleries-in-London.htm

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