The Oscar-winning French actress Juliette Binoche, is to appear in a contemporary dance performance at the Emirates Palace hotel next month.

Binoche will appear with Akram Khan, an internationally acclaimed contemporary dancer and choreographer.

The Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor has joined the team as set designer and the composer Philip Sheppard has created an original score for the piece.

Its creators claim it will take the audience on “an emotional journey tracing the themes of longing, love, disappointment, anger and forgiveness between a man and a woman”.

There will be two performances of Two Artists on Stage – One Daring Adventure, which has been brought to the UAE by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, on January 28 and 29. The show had its world premiere in London in September as part of the European Cultural Season.

Binoche said: “With Akram, I felt that we could confront and share new desires, hopes and visions through our respective arts by inventing a common language. I never know what I’m capable of before I do it. I secretly hope that faith will take over.

“Any artistic expression is a means to an opening which doesn’t belong to anyone but links us to each other in a mysterious and necessary way.”

Khan said the project had pushed him “in unexpected directions and has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life”.

Abdulla Salim al Amri, the director of arts and culture at the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, said: “We are delighted to be able to welcome to the capital two of the world’s most acclaimed artists, one from the realm of film, the other from the realm of dance.”

He said Binoche, star of The English Patient and Chocolat, was famous for her “brave and sensitive rendition of every character she has portrayed on screen” and added Khan’s “fusion of an Eastern, Asian dance heritage with western contemporary forms resonates with our very own wish to bridge cultures through the arts”.

Tickets will be on sale from Jan 4 at www.timeouttickets.com, or free phone within the UAE 800-4669.

The Village Voice’s Michael Musto has revealed the potential starry Broadway dream cast for the unfinished Tennessee Williams play ‘In Masks Outrageous and Austere’.

It has been reported that Williams’ confidant and old friend Gore Vidal has been at work on finishing the play for a production to be directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

The play centers on a billionairess and is described as “a dark look at the masks that are worn by corporations and society,” according an informed insider.

The cast the creative team is trying to line up reports Michael Musto is none other than Bogdanovich’s ex, Cybill Shepherd; dreamy Josh Hartnett; grown-up Macaulay Culkin; and Oscar winner Juliette Binoche.

The ambitious project is being backed by the Halcyon Company, with an eye to turning it into a film. A rep for the company said an opening date for the play has not yet been set.

Musto gives his informed take on the production as “It doesn’t sound that austere, but hey, it definitely sounds outrageous, and I will surely be there. After some of the weird revivals of Tennessee’s classics in the last few years (the last Streetcar totally derailed, to name one example), it’s a godsend to have a whole new work of his to play with!”

Hartnett is currently starring in the West End production of Rain Man.

source: broadwayworld.com