Arts & Culture
Originally published on Tuesday, 3rd March 2009
March
Dave Waters has been tending March’s budding flora to gather only those fragrant artistic bouquets worthy of our deep inhalation. And it is his sincerest opinion that we really can’t get through the month without…
… getting your sap to rise, checking out Turner-nominated Rebecca Warren’s shape-shifting sculptures at the Serpentine. What better excuse to visit London’s most beautifully situated gallery than the Springtime? Guaranteeing that if Warren’s gloopy, loopy figures don’t get you thinking about bodies, sex and all that lovely spring-time sticky stuff, then all the wildlife shagging in the park outside should. Lead in your pencil pretty much guaranteed either way.
Rebecca Warren, March 10–April 19
Free entry
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
… last chance to see (albeit by bagging returns only) Duet For One at the Almeida. Tom Kempinski’s play from 1980 is loosely based on the real life story of Jacqueline du Pre, the brilliant English cellist whose career was struck tragically short by MS. Using imagined therapy sessions between a young musician facing a terminal disease and her psychiatrist, the play is both a profound meditation on loss as well as an homage to music.
Duet For One , until Saturday March 14
Box Office: 0207 359 4404 (returns only)
Almeida, Almeida Street, N1 1TA
… being able to resist a night of music called ‘This Isn’t for You ’. Curated by Matt Fretton, these weekly hour-long programmes at King’s Place will get your synapses crackling. Tonight the American cellist, Bartholomew La Folette, and the dynamic O Duo percussion ensemble are performing works by Reich, Sciarrino, Bach and Ligeti. And if that really isn’t for you, then you need your ears seeing to.
This Isn’t for You , every Tuesday at 8pm
Tickets from £9.50
Kings Place, 90 York Way, N1 9AG
… grab a date (and a second mortgage) to catch Bellini’s relentlessly romantic I Capuleti e I Montecchi (Romeo and Juliet, to you at the back) at the ROH. With a starry line up of Anna Netrebko, Dario Schmunck and Eli-na Garan?a reaching the dizzying heights of bel canto’s transcendent peaks, this isn’t so much opera as vocal pyrotechnics. Oh, it’s also a tale of tragic love of course, so keep the Kleenex handy.
I Capuleti e I Montecchi, March 2–April 11
Tickets £8-£680
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, WC2E 9DD
… getting pixilated along Carnaby Street. The Grok Institute is currently hosting a series of popup galleries and temporary spaces around Newburgh and Marshall Streets – an area that used to be called West Soho (which actually sort of works, so let’s dust it off). If your start to see dots before your eyes, you’re probably in the right place. On 5th March, three of the exhibition’s key artists will be talking about their work at the Protein Forum.
Protein Forum at Grok, March 5, 7-11pm
Free entry, but RSVP essential
Grok, 12-13 Kingly Street, W1B 5PP