In March of 2000, Kim Joo-won was watching French ballet dancer Sylvie Guillem perform at the Royal Opera House in London. Kim, who was the Korean National Ballet’s prima ballerina at the time, was visiting the United Kingdom for a gala performance. She alone decided to check out the tragic ballet she’d never seen before.The ballet was “Marguerite and Armand,” a 1963 piece by renowned choreographer Frederick Ashton. The British artist created the ballet, based on 19th century writer Alexandre Du

A devoted son takes care of his aging, ill father. He clears his father’s mess, strips him naked, washes him and changes his diapers. The son repeats the same cycle every 15 minutes, every time his father spills the contents of his diaper all over the white sofa and the floor of the stage. The audience then has to endure the odor that fills the theater, while watching the son clear the brown liquid on the floor. One of the most controversial European theater pieces in recent years is being stage

Local publishing company Woongjin ThinkBig has been nominated for a prestigious prize by the annual Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy. The company has been nominated for the BOP Bologna Prize for Best Children’s Publishers of the Year, according to the festival’s website. The prize has been newly launched for the upcoming edition as the event celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. A total of 29 publishers have been nominated for the prize in six continental categories: Asia, Africa, Euro

Director Park Chan-wook has been there, and so has director Kim Jee-woon. Hollywood may not be an undiscovered place for Korean directors as of this year: They’ve made their debut films there, released them, and experienced the red-carpet glamour. Hollywood, however, still remains foreign to most local actors. One of the few exceptions is top actor Lee Byung-hun, whose performance in his 2009 Hollywood debut “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” left a mark. The actor is now ahead of the opening of the

Universal Ballet Company’s principals Hwang Hye-min and Ohm Jae-yong have been dancing together for some 10 years, as Romeo and Juliet, Onegin and Tatyana, and Albrecht and Giselle. The two, famous for their chemistry and caliber onstage, in fact tied the knot last year and became husband and wife. The star dancers were featured as prince Siegfried and Odette in the opening show of the troupe’s season opener “Swan Lake” on Friday ― proving why they dance well as a team. UBC performed the piece i

Actor-turned-director Yoo Ji-tae’s first feature film has won the Jury Prize at this year’s Deauville Asian Film Festival, the film’s local promoters said Sunday.Titled “Mai Ratima,” the film features a love affair between a destitute Korean man (played by Bae Soo-bin) and a young Thai woman who moved to Korea as a mail-order bride (played by Park Ji-soo). Both of the characters face discrimination against their social status and ethnicity.  The movie was premiered at last year’s Busan Internati

In the movies’ version of March Madness, Sam Raimi turns out to be a much better Tim Burton than Bryan Singer. Unlike “Giant Slayer” Singer, Sam’s got a sense of humor. Taking on a prequel to the fairytale that frightened generations, Sam does scary. And does it well.“Oz the Great and Powerful” is a winning back-engineering of the Oz fantasy, a “How the Wizard got to be wonderful” romp that is a stunning update “The Wizard of Oz’s” effects, and the most gorgeous use of 3-D since “Alice in Wonder

From Interpretation to Communication: Dreaming of Becoming a Global LeaderBy Choi Jung-wha (HUEBOOKs)Choi Jung-wha, president of Corea Image Communication Institute, has written a new book “From Interpretation to Communication: Dreaming of Becoming a Global Leader.”The book presents life and career tips for aspiring interpreters and professionals. The professor-interpreter also teaches at the Korean-French department of the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation at Hankuk University o

The StorytellerBy Jodi Picoult (Emily Bestler Books/Atria)Sage Singer, the protagonist of Jodi Picoult’s ambitious 20th novel, “The Storyteller,” is a physically and emotionally scarred young woman working as a baker in a small New Hampshire town. She avoids human contact, interacting only with the wise former nun who owns the bakery and a married undertaker with whom she is having an affair.Her quiet existence is shaken, though, when she befriends Josef Weber, an elderly German who frequents th

Don Causey was beginning to plan his retirement, selling off his profitable sporting newsletters, when his life took a horrific turn. While on a safari on a long-anticipated trip to Africa, a tree tumbled onto him, breaking his back. The process of getting a medical transport to take him from a remote village back to Miami proved arduous and costly.Today Causey’s back is healed, and at 70 he finds himself in a post-retirement career ― consulting for a company that sells travel memberships that i

There’s a subtle arc to Jim Gavin’s first book, “Middle Men” (Simon & Schuster). Gathering seven stories largely set in Southern California, it opens with a high school basketball player and ends with Marty Costello, a plumbing supply salesman who “averages 50,000 miles per year, vast territories, circles of latitude, Inglewood to Barstow, sailing across SoCal, all day every day.”In between, we meet men of different ages, from Costello’s adult son Matt, also trying to make it in the plumbing sup

The Korea Herald is publishing “Korea’s Cultural Pride,” a 10-part series on the country’s cultural and natural heritage. A total of nine tangible and 14 intangible examples of heritage in Korea have already been designated UNESCO World Heritage items for international preservation. This year,15 cultural properties are on the tentative list, awaiting designation. This installment explores the Naganeupseong, Town Fortress and Village, in Suncheon, South Jeolla Province, which boast 600 years of h

Ballet dancer Kang Ye-na enjoyed drawing cartoons while growing up, always featuring dancers as her protagonists. But she never knew she’d be designing ballet leotards decades later. The 39-year-old has debuted as a designer, after many years of dancing as a principal in the Universal Ballet Company (UBC). She launched her own dancewear brand “Yenaline” last month, introducing style-conscious leotards with vivid patterns and exuding a luster of colors.“For the last 10 years, I thought about what

Kim Eun-ho, the head of local publishing house Hangilsa Publishing, has been appointed as the new chairman of Bookcity Culture Foundation, the organization said.Kim, who graduated from ChungAng University, worked as a reporter for major local daily Dong-A Ilbo from 1968 to 1975. He founded his publishing house Hangilsa Publishing in 1976, and has served a number of significant positions in the publishing industry ever since. In 2011, he served as the head of the Paju BookSori Festival’s organizi

’Our Homeland’ gets Korean releaseBy Claire LeeA Japanese-born director’s award-winning film is being released in Korea in March, according to the film’s promoters.Director Yang Yong-hi, who was born and grew up in Osaka and obtained her South Korean citizenship in 2004, has been making documentaries based on her family history of ethnic Koreans living in Japan. “Our Homeland,” which is Yang’s feature debut, was premiered in Korea at last year’s Busan International Film Festival and received pos

For architects, it is like a huge, automated machine. For dancers and performers, it’s where they present their works and meet the audience. And for the rest of us, it is a place to enjoy stage entertainment. While most theatergoers focus on the performance rather than the venue itself, theaters can be seen and interpreted differently by those who work behind the scenes. Aside from the stage, the audience seats, the lobby and the ticket box, the property houses a number of closed spaces that ena

The month of March opens here with the March 1 Independence Movement Day, a national holiday dedicated to commemorating the 1919 nationwide uprising against Japan’s colonization. The uprising, known as the March 1st Independence Movement, was one of the earliest public displays of Korean resistance against Japanese rule ― which ended in 1945 at the end of World War II.This month, Seoul’s theater scene is presenting a number of plays featuring the turbulent period of Korean history. One of them i

“Jack the Giant Slayer,” the latest phantasmagorical big-budget, special-effects film from “X-Men” director Bryan Singer, first got under way about three years ago. But back then it had a different director ― Singer replaced D.J. Caruso ― different writers (Singer brought in Christopher McQuarrie to rework the existing script) and even a different title: Somewhere along the line “Jack the Giant Killer” became “Jack the Giant Slayer,” and while “Fee, fi, fo, fum” is still in the script, no one sa

Liberal arts and leadership education are crucial in today’s rapidly changing world, said the president of Claremont McKenna College, a prestigious liberal arts college in Claremont, California, noted for its leadership development programs.“Liberal arts is teaching you life-time skills,” said Pamela Brooks Gann, the president of CMC, during an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul. “It’s teaching you critical thinking. Most of the hard problems that have to be solved today are interdisciplin

Fox International Productions’ first locally produced film was finally unveiled on Tuesday, featuring Park Chan-wook’s “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” star Shin Ha-gyun in the lead.An international production umbrella unit of America’s major film production house Fox Filmed Entertainment, FIP produces and distributes local language films around the globe. Known as one of the world’s largest producers and distributors of motion pictures, Fox blockbusters include “Avatar,” “Titanic” and “Star Wars.”T