Photo Credit: Dixie Sheridan. Director, playwright, actor and outcast surrealist Antonin Artaud is perhaps best known for the manifestos set forth in his book Theater and Its Double, which envisioned a new form of radical performance he dubbed “The Theater of Cruelty.” Artaud intended to shock audiences out of complacency by replacing the familiar comforts of naturalistic psycho-drama with a surreal, sensually graphic theatricality, one that traded escapism for confrontation and – Artaud theorized –......

LAist listed a top ten list of sorts: things they hope not to see in Los Angeles in 2008. (one example, pictured above). Shanghaiist was surprised to learn that "godless," "atheist," and "commie" China is soon going to be the world's largest supplier of Bibles! Torontoist picked some of their favorite photos of 2007. Londonist was relieved to hear the fire at the Royal Marsden hospital didn't harm any of the patients even though......

Street artist Highraff recently came to the United States for the first time to raise awareness about the culture of his hometown São Paulo, Brazil, where he’s been painting in the streets since 1997. The twenty-nine-year-old artist, whose given name is Rafael Calazans Pierri, currently has work on display here in New York as part of Ruas de São Paulo: A Survey of Brazilian Street Art at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery. If you think his......

Remember last October, when Rivington Street got transformed with a psychadelic paint job? Well this weekend some of New York’s top street artists take on Times Square in Lies 2006, a month-long gallery show at the chashama center gallery. We hoped this would mean the tourist spot would get a similar treatment that Rivington Street got. However, in this case there is no painting storefronts and fire escapes for a movie set, this is an......

New Feature Alert! In a city filled with music, bands and venues we sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed and underenthused. So here's the deal, we are going to write about one NYC band each week. We want to introduce you to some new music that we've heard, and we want you to introduce us to some new music as well (see end of post). We're all listening through cluttered ears, but that's only because we......

The tragedy that has swept across the Indian Ocean from Somalia to Sri Lanka to Thailand has prompted many people to ask Gothamist what they can do to help victims of this horrible natural disaster. The best and most immediate thing you can do is donate money to one of the many service organizations that are currently working to provide medicine, clean water, shelter and other forms of support to victims. While many groups......