Coyne-Operated Culture: Lady Gaga X Terry Richardson

 

I am a huge Lady Gaga fan so when Ryan surprised me with this book for my birthday I was over the moon. I had heard there was an official book being released but I wasn't 100% sure what it would be like, but this gorgeous collection of photography did not disappoint. It charts a year in Lady Gaga's life and gives an intimate insight into her life, from performing on stage to exercise to what she eats for dinner, this book has everything.

I know Terry Richardson is quite notorious (I don't know too much about him) but he is an amazing photographer and these images just feel stunning and expensive.

There are more than 400 photos in this book, so above is just a snippet of what it's like and you can buy it from Amazon here. 

Coyne-Operated Culture: Beauty and the Beast

Photo by Bill Cooper from northernballet.com

Last week I headed off to the Grand Opera House in Leeds to watch the Northern Ballet perform Beauty and the Beast. As I have previously mentioned, I am a big fan of ballet, and it was great to see a production I haven't seen before, either live or on television.

I really really enjoyed the evening, the set and costumes trod a fine line between modern and traditional which really complimented the slightly more contemporary style of dance. I recently watched some of Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake and personally, I dislike how modern the choreography is, Beauty and the Beast maintained the beauty of traditional ballet while adding modern twists which I felt made it more accessible to the modern audience.

This was my first Northern Ballet experience, but it hopefully won't be my last, I had a great time and felt very Christmassy afterwards!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, I'm still off work so I'm now just savouring the huge amounts of sleep I can have and all the time I can spend with Ryan.

P.S. It's a week until my birthday! Eek!

Coyne-Operated Culture: Sonisphere

As you may or may not have realised I disappeared from civilisation last week and entered the 'festival bubble', a place where I often wear hairbands, denim shorts and wellies while eating too many carbs, and oh how I love it. I haven't been to a festival in a few years mainly because I haven't been able to justify the every increasing prices, but this year Sonisphere held at Knebworth tempted me, and I'm very glad it did.

Sonisphere is regarded as a Metal/Rock festival and headliners in previous years have included Metallica, Rammstein and Iron Maiden. Thinking about it, it's really not my 'thing', I love a lot of Rock music but Metal? Nuh-uh. It's all a bit too loud and chuggy for my liking, but Ryan is a big fan so I end up listening to quite a bit in his car. I decided to go to Sonisphere this year because Biffy Clyro (my all time favourite band) were headlining and a few of my other faves including Bill Bailey and Weezer were announced to further justify the ticket price. One thing that concerned me though, is that I'm not the typical attendee of a Metal festival and I wondered if people would people look at me funny? Would I feel like the odd one out?  But, no, I felt more than welcome whichever band I was watching, whether it was one of my favourites or someone I'd never heard of before and the whole weekend was really enjoyable. So I would like to tell you all about the highlights of my weekend:

My Top 3 Bands of Sonisphere

Biffy Clyro

I guess from what I just said you could guess they would be number one, and they definitely didn't disappoint me, I really enjoyed their set, it was a good mix of songs from the new album and amazing older songs as well. They had some AMAZING pyro which helped cement them as a British band who are good enough and successful enough to headline any festival.

Song of the set: Machines - a chandelier of light-bulbs descended around Simon Neil while he sang Machines by himself, it was a pretty magical way to hear one of my favourite songs.

Weezer

I've always liked Weezer, and was looking forward to seeing them live, they performed a set of songs everyone knows and it was a great singalong in the sunshine! They seemed to really enjoy the set and I always think it's important to see a band enjoying themselves on set.

Song of the set: Say It Ain't So - everyone was singing along with the booming chorus of this fantastic festival tune. Loved every minute.

Bill Bailey

I have rewatched every Bill Bailey DVD multiple times and have been able to see him live once and he is one of the funniest comedians working at the moment. He did a good mix of songs and stand up with a couple of videos thrown in for the fun.

Song of the set: A cover of Gary Numan's Cars sung in French with an accompanying video. Utterly perfect, despite the heavy downpours.

So, as I'm sure you can tell I loved every minute of Sonisphere - did you go? Have you been to a festival this year? Tell me all about it!

Images all from Sonisphere Festival on Facebook

Coyne-Operated Culture: Swan Lake

I have been hit by ballet-fever ever since I saw Black Swan in January this year, now don't get me wrong, I'm no stranger to ballet, I had lessons from age 8 to 14 and my Nana took me to see Swan Lake in Covent Garden when I was 12. I also saw Romeo and Juliet not so long ago, but being at Uni I just kind of forgot that I loved it. Then I saw Black Swan and I fell in love again, so when my Mum told me about the Bolshoi Ballet broadcasting performances from their 2010-11 in cinemas across the world I knew I had to try and go.

York Picturehouse was the nearest cinema for us to go to to see Swan Lake, and for £30 I thought the price was really reasonable, it's a really great and affordable way to watch ballet, especially when your other half doesn't even know if he likes ballet! I didn't mind spending £15 on him seeing Swan Lake with me, especially when afterwards he said he really enjoyed it.

The performance includes some interviews and backstage footage, which to us seemed a bit unnecessary, but the ballet was absolutely beautiful and more than made up for watching interviews translated into different languages in the interval. Now, Swan Lake is a pretty simple story (typical of any ballet, really) about a Prince and a girl (who is a swan) who fall in love, but then he declares his eternal love for her double (um, also a swan) and they end up dying/heartbroken (this tends to change dependent on which company you see perform). Yes, from an outsiders perspective it does sound pretty crazy due to a lot of loving going on between a human and a were-swan, but it does result in absolutely stunning costumes and some gorgeous dancing.

We saw Mariya Aleksandrova as Odette/Odil (the white and black swans) and Ruslan Skvortsov as Prince Seigfried, and I have to say I was completely blown away by Mariya, she encapsulated both characters perfectly and her Black Swan Coda was spot on. I loved the costumes and the set was very simple and quite modern (I'm not sure my Nana would have liked it) but I thought that it gave the dancers a lot of space and really let them show off without an intricate set taking away from that. Tchaikovsky's music gives me goosebumps anyway, and this was no exception, if you've seen Black Swan you will also notice how much of the original composition is used to soundtrack the film, although I am sure the instrumentation is different to give the film an altogether darker tone.

I had an absolutely lovely time watching Swan Lake yesterday, and I'd highly recommend going if you're interested in ballet, as for not much more than the price of a cinema ticket you can see a world class ballet company perform.

Images are not mine and are not necessarily the Bolshoi Ballet. They are from various sources.