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Lux Channel-i Super Star begins
Cultural Correspondent
Lux Channel-i Super Star 2008, a talent hunt programme through a beauty contest, launched its programme for this year on Monday.
Interested participants from across the country can register their names by logging onto luxchannelisuperstar.com or bangladeshinfo.com, said the organisers at a briefing at the Hotel Sheraton.
The last date for registration is September 15, said the organisers.
Twenty five 25 contestants will be selected in the primary rounds...They will undergo vigorous grooming sessions with professionals to develop their intellectual skills, confidence, looks, acting skills and more, said the organisers adding to make the contest more challenging, new categories including fashion, advertisement, fitness and choreography have been included.
'We will shortlist the contestants through a series of contests and the champion will get a chance to play major roles in films,' Brands and Development director of Unilever Bangladesh Naushad Chowdhury said.
'Noted cultural personalities will judge the aspiring contestants from the first round of the competition,' he added.
Managing director of Impress Telefilm Limited, Faridur Reza Sagar and Asiatic Marketing Communications Ltd managing director Aly Zaker attended the briefing, among others.
'Channel-i has been on this journey with Lux for the last three years. We are proud to be a part of this endeavour,' said Sagar.
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Chakshudan delights audience
Cultural Correspondent
On the second-day of an eight-day theatre festival, organised by theatre and music department of Dhaka University, the audience was delighted seeing the presentation of Chakshudan, a nineteenth century Bangla play.
The play written by Ramnarayan Tarkaratna and directed by Subarna Huda was staged at Natmandal Wednesday.
Ramnarayan Tarkaratna, (1822-1886) is respected as one of the earlier playwright in Bengal. He was a contemporary of Vidyasagar and was against child marriage and polygamy. This thirty-minute play, which discourages polygamy, was published first in 1869.
Israt Kabir performed the role Basumati while Nadiya Afrin played the role of Natbou and Mosharraf Hossain as Kumbhabihar, husband of Basumati. Among these three performers, Nadiya Afrin drew the attention of audience more than the others. Israt also deserved special mention while Mosharraf needed more improvement.
Set and lighting of the play, designed by Farzana Akhtar Chowdhury, were simple but interesting. The designer skilfully presented the bedroom with simple materials and the outside of the house just by using lighting.
The play was followed by the presentation of another play titled 'Sabal Meye', a translated from August Strindberg by Kazi Mohammad Idris and directed by Sarmin Akhter.
After seeing the play Chakshudan, audience get little interest in 'Sabal Meye', which is just a conversation between two ladies, one married and the other unmarried, on the eve of Christmas in a coffee shop.
Sonia Rahman played the role of Mrs X and Sumaiya Binte Raihan performed the role of Miss Y. Nilima Sharmin played the role of waitress.
Set and lighting of the play, done by Taslima Jahan, were also simple but interesting.
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Transformed are the poet, farmer's wife
Shahnaz Munni
The fairyland magician
steals into the poet's dream
smiling winsomely
holding the wand of wish fulfilment
Want a different life, Poet?
I can transmute the bed
furniture, linen
food, living, household setting.
Okay then. So be it.
Transformed were the pictures
of the farmer and farmer's wife
at the dead of night
The farmer-husband has awakened
in early morning
He will go to the field.
Missus, bring paddy seeds.
No my dear,
no paddy today
in this season
scatter around the seeds of poetry
on the fields close to the homestead.
True poetry grows in the field
Let poetry bloom in your field today
Sheaves of poetry
I shall lay in my courtyard for drying
Through the whole village
I shall spray poetry
blown by the wind of the paddy-winnower.
Husking the covering of poetry
on the pedal husker
and sifting the grain particles
I shall yearn for life
for dream
unshakable faith
when it is afternoon,
dreary, listless.
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To tree-leaf
Roksana Afreen
O my rustling tree-leaf
Listen, leave your touches here
on the foot
on dew drops
like silvery moonlight
like the rapturous wind
Leave your touches on the
seeds of pain
At your touch, I know
light shall flash
the season of outing shall commence
the month of flowers shall commence
Ended shall be this fiery heat
this ascetic barrenness.
Translated by
Zakeria Shirazi
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DeGeneres, De Rossi wed in LA
BBC News
US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has married her long-time partner, actress Portia de Rossi, according to the Associated Press new agency.
DeGeneres' publicist confirmed reports that the couple tied the knot at their Beverly Hills home on Saturday.
The presenter, 50, and De Rossi, 35, exchanged handwritten vows in a private ceremony attended by 19 guests, reported People and US magazine. The couple have been dating since December 2004. DeGeneres announced plans to wed on her talk show in May after the California Supreme Court overturned a state ban on same-sex marriage.
A month later, while picking up her fourth consecutive Daytime Emmy, she said she would show 'a tiny bit' of the ceremony on her daytime show.
US Magazine said De Rossi wore a backless, light pink dress, while DeGeneres dressed in trousers, button-up shirt and vest - all in white.
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Göteborgs dance festival begins
in Sweden
Anisur Rahman in Stockholm
US singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes has died at his home in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 65, police said. Police were called to Hayes' home after his wife found him unconscious. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead on Sunday. Hayes, a flamboyant, deep-voiced performer, won an Oscar for the 1971 hit Theme From Shaft. He was perhaps better known to a younger audience as the voice of Chef from the hit cartoon show, South Park. The cause of death was not immediately known. 'Family members believe at this point it is a medical condition that might have led to his death,' a police spokesman said, adding Hayes was being treated for 'a number of medical issues.' Hayes suffered a stroke in 2006. Isaac Hayes - along with Al Green, James Brown and Stevie Wonder - was one of the dominant black artists of the early 1970s. Hayes, a self-taught musician, was hired in 1964 by Stax Records as a pianist and saxophonist, working as a session musician for big names such as Otis Redding. He established a songwriting partnership with David Porter, and in the 1960s, writing hits for Sam and Dave such as Hold On, I'm Coming and Soul Man. This success led on to a recording contract, and in 1969 he shot to fame with the release of the groundbreaking album Hot Buttered Soul. The theme from the film Shaft was a number one hit in 1971. He won an Academy Award for the song and was nominated for another one for the score. The song and score also won him two Grammys. When he was elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, he put his success down to good chance. "I knew nothing about the business, or trends and things like that," he said. "I think it was a matter of timing. I didn't know what was unfolding." Isaac Hayes was also in several movies, including It Could Happen to You with Nicolas Cage, and Ninth Street with Martin SheenSweden's most renowned international festival in the performing art called the Göteborgs Dans and Teater Festival began in the country's one of the big cities Goteborg on August 15. The festival is presenting some interesting international performing arts for the eighth time in Göteborg.
The festival this year is all about telling stories. And when it comes down to it, what art is always about. The means of expression may vary, but people are still very alike. The artistic genre you work in becomes increasingly irrelevant, something clearly visible in this year's programme where dance becomes drama becomes film becomes music becomes performance.
Listening to a story being told is inspiring. It makes you want to tell your own and we're happy that for the first time our international festival can present a Swedish programme of performing arts, an example being at Göteborgs Operan where Lilla Scenen will be dedicated to new Swedish choreography.
The festival will include dance show, theatre presentations, discussion, workshop and many more interactions and will conclude on August 24. Performing artists, students and academics from different countries are participating in this festival. The mega event will end on August 24, 2008.
Wedding at Globe arena
To celebrate day, Malin Alexandersson and Leif Lundgren climbed to the roof of the Stockholm Globe arena to tie the knot.
The couple climbed to the top of the 80 metre higher Stockholm landmark with the help of safety harnesses. However, their guests enjoyed the wedding ceremony from a nearby balcony.
It is to be noted that the couple won the right to matrimony on the Globe's roof in a shopping centre competition on Valentine's Day.
Areas across Sweden saw an unusually large number of couples racing to get the church on time.
A convicted rapist in Sweden has recently been refused compensation for an alleged rights violation when he was denied access to pornography in his prison cell, country's online journal The Local reported.
The Chancellor of Justice ruled in the first week of August that to be denied access to pornographic magazines in a prison cell cannot be considered a rights violation. The precedent was set in a ruling which denied the convicted rapist's claim to 200,000 kronor ($32,598).
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