This was my first encounter with Burgenland Liga Nord I Ultras. Two hundred fans travel with Halbturn, bringing flares with them!

Fortunately they were mostly harmless, although there was a deliberate nasty tackle on Jozef Sombat. After Sombat scored his goal, Halbturn was worried enough to want to cripple our star for at least that game. In the end it was a hard fought scrappy tie.

Former captain Michael Wernecker ended up in a bit of a battle with Halbturn keeper Rene Summer, who strangely was unable to take his own free kicks, but otherwise was screaming angry most of the game.

Here’s the photos, without titles and descriptions for now.

Continue reading Tight tie with USV Halbturn, Ultras at uncoy.

One of the clearest and yet astonishing policy statements given by a statesman in the last twenty years came from Vladimir Putin:

What is the point of a world without Russia?

or alternatively:

Why would we need a world without Russia?

or even:

What use to us is a world without Russia?

In Russian:

Зачем нам такой мир, если в нём не будет России?

The Russian is even clearer and pointed than the English, although I’ve done my best with the translations. If you read all three English versions, and hold all three in your head, you have a fairly exact understanding of just what Vladimir Putin said. I’d seen the clip in isolation but thought it came from Oliver Stone’s documentary The Putin Interviews (2017).

Continue reading What is the point of a world without Russia? Full quote in context. at uncoy.

The Washington Redskins appear unable to sign their star quarterback. Appear is the key word. The guaranteed money Kirk Cousins wants is high enough to make any sensible GM hesitate. It’s over $50 million. If the Redskins were to sign that deal, Kirk Cousins could heave a sigh of relief and become the good but unspectacular quarterback he’s always been:

After high school, Cousins was set to sign with Toledo or Western Michigan, until Mark Dantonio became the head coach at Michigan State in 2007. After Dantonio failed to sign his top targets at quarterback, he offered a scholarship to Cousins, which he accepted.

Does second team All Big Ten sound like a $50 million quarterback to you? His TD to interception ratio of 25 to 10 in senior year hints at some good judgement and solid underlying talent but that’s about it.

Continue reading Kirk Cousins (non) contract: treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen at uncoy.

In his Fifth TanzGala Graz the director of the Graz Ballet, Darel Toulon decided to finish off dance critics once and for all. At half time, it’s already almost ten o’clock. We’ve seen seven excerpts and one full miniature already. The non-writing public is delighted by this cornocopia of choreography. Animated chat and high spirits reign.

The evening began with a short extract from one of Toulon’s own most ambitious works, Swan Trilogy (Schwanentrilogie). I saw the full piece at its premiere in 2009 and Swan Trilogy has aged well. The giant eggs with cracks in them create impressive atmosphere while Dianne Gray looks fabulous as the Swan princess. Michal Zabavik is in great form. The live orchestra give the performance the feel of one Europe’s great cultural capitals like Moscow or Paris. It’s a pity the excerpt was so short.

Continue reading Swimming in Swan Lake: Fifth International Dance Gala in Graz at uncoy.

The evening opens with Forsythe’s The Second Detail. When we see works like this, it’s clear Forsythe is such a great choreographer and his current strange experiments become even less comprehensible and more astonishing. But few people cared for Stravinski’s music in the 1920 so perhaps it’s we who just don’t understand.

Horecna Contra Clockwise Witness 1

The Second Detail opens up with a huge bright grey rehearsal space with just the words THE at the front. Thin white horizontal lines dividge the strange into precise grids. The dancers are in the same grey as the floor. I’m not quite sure why Apple is getting away with suing Samsung for packaging as Forsythe had the iPhone and MacBook Air boxing under control back in 1991 in Frankfurt. This is an early great work.

Vienna State Ballet company looks great dancing Forsythe these days.

Continue reading Review: Ballett-Hommage Forsythe | Horecna | Lander at Vienna Staatsoper at uncoy.

How governments allocate and manage arts projects is a mysterious science.

splash image for pourquoi je danse – see video at bottom of post

This week the Ontario Arts Council announced OntarioDances.ca a program to connect dance companies with dance presenters.

For some reason there are only nine theatres included:

• Burlington Performing Arts Centre (Burlington)
• Capitol Centre (North Bay)
• Centre for the Arts – Brock University (St. Catharines)
• Flato Markham Theatre (Markham)
• The Grand Theatre (Kingston)
• Living Arts Centre (Mississauga)
• Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts (Oakville)
• The Registry Theatre (Kitchener)
• River Run Centre (Guelph)

Why just these nine? Where are the other theatres who get money from the Ontario Arts Council or Canada Council?

Continue reading OntarioDances.ca but no website at uncoy.

Imagine being a world famous artist. Imagine designing national monuments. Imagine thinking that you are invulnerable to repression. Imagine speaking out against human rights abuses at your country’s Olympics (Olympics for which you designed stadiums). Imagine being warned to shut your fat trap. Imagine you keep talking. Imagine that a few months later they come to arrest you and lock you away for 81 days. Imagine you come back with the strict warning that if you continue to make an international media spectacle damaging to the regime which is buttering your bread, you will go away not for three months but forever.

If your imagination is rich, you will have just lived the three years of artist Ai Weiwei’s life who for many years had a blessed position as Lear’s fool in Beijing. His nonsense answers and ironic commentary on the regime probably even amused the higher party bosses.

Continue reading Ai Weiwei Never Sorry – Assange’s Chinese Shadow at uncoy.

Bratislava Castle in Fog

Little did I know just 18 hours later, the Euro was to fall under its watchful walls. Despite, Bratislava’s castle’s air of history, the castle was in ruins for over a hundred years in Pressburg before the Slovaks rebuilt it in Bratislava.

I’m still astonished that Radicova foolishly linked her government AGAIN (this is about time number five) to a vote in Parliament. While she has been a very good prime minister, this death wish in the form of votes of confidence is an absurd game of Russian roulette.

Well now we’ll have an election. Hopefully the bailout package will still not pass. This EU becomes troublesome: a plaything of the international banks, like Congress in the United States. The majority of the European population is against these unlimited bailouts.

Continue reading Bratislava Castle in the Fog, the Night before the Euro Fell at uncoy.

There’s a bar you’ll never find in Vienna filled with people you may never meet. Particularly visual artists. It’s called the Wünderbar. I was taken there after the MAK nite.

It’s somewhere near Alt Wien in the first district. The light is very distinctive and dark. Service is Mad Hatter-like from Alice in Wonderland. The waiter comes three times to ask you what you like to order but you never get your drinks. But’s always well-spoken and friendly.

Wunderbar post-MAK nite actress Jaschka Lämmert and photographer Rita Nowak

Wunderbar post MAK nite Jaschka Lämmert, Rita Nowak, and Irina Gabich

Wunderbar post MAK nite Jaschka Lämmert, Rita Nowak, Irina Gabich, Christoph some musician who stepped out of the original Shaft

Jaschka Lämmert can be seen now at Künsthistorisches Museum in the project 

Continue reading Wünderbar Vienna at uncoy.

I was twice in Film Museum this weekend. Once for the rather poor Out 1: Spectre. I amused myself to read the German subtitles and check them against the spoken French and try to learn a few new words.

Juliet Berto as Frederique, Jacques Doniol Valcroze at Etienne:
Life is just a giant chess game but for keeps

The problem with the film Out 1: Spectre is that it is all on the spot improvisation. If you’ve ever done much improvisation, you know that even when it goes well it usually takes some time longer to develop. There is a lot of going in circles to get the plane off the ground. Spectre One documents those circles. For the twenty five minutes of successful drama you are forced to sit through four and a half hours of film, three hours of which are actors warming up to their subject and another half hour just extraneous long shots.

Continue reading Jacques Rivette’s Out 1 Spectre Film Review at uncoy.