Mamma Mia!
August 4, 2008 · Written by Heather Juma
I went to see “Mamma Mia” the other night.
I had a blast! This must be a chickflick because the theater was
full of women! (NOTE: always, always take business cards)
This movie was so much fun to watch and I’d have to say that was the general impression in the entire theatre I was at. The audience was laughing, singing, clapping and dancing in their seats!
Meryl Streep and the rest of the cast were absolutely wonderful, and listening to Pierce Brosnan sing was hilarious.
The gals in the movie were like so many of us: single women and single
moms out in the world doing the best we can and living life on our own
terms! That’s what is so cool about being a woman entrepreneur, we
get to create the life we want! And just like Donna in “Mamma Mia”
when life hands us lemons we make lemonade!
“Mamma Mia” is the collaborative effort of three women (writer, screenwriter and producer).
Since making it’s musical premiere in London in 1999, the show has earned $2 billion dollars!
This is a perfect example of masterminding ladies!
Posted in I Love Jason Bourne!
January 27, 2008 · Written by Heather Juma
I love Jason Bourne! No, I don’t mean I really “love” him, after all he is an international assassin, but I love the Bourne Movies. The Bourne Identity is a 1980 spy fiction thriller novel by Robert Ludlum. It is the first in a series of novels written by Ludlum, and later Eric Van Lustbader. The Bourne Identity was voted the second best spy novel of all-time, right behind John le Carré’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by Publishers Weekly.
A sequel to The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Identity and the third film of the Bourne Trilogy, The Bourne Ultimatum was released in 2007.
I love Jason because he has laser focus and determination. Jason achieves his goals, he has the “whatever it takes” attitude and always finds a way no matter the obstacles that he faces. Jason doesn’t try, Jason does. I think this is what makes the movies so powerful, you see a man with the drive, ambition and determination to face the odds and win. The soundtrack is pretty awesome too!
You may be saying well, it’s just a movie … well, it is just a movie but watch … learn the lessons the movie will teach you and then go out and create the life of your dreams. Real “live” people do it everday!
Metropolitan Museum of Art
January 27, 2008 · Written by Heather Juma
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, often referred to simply as “the Met”, is one of the world’s largest and most important art museums.. The main building is located on Central Park in New York city, along what is known as Museum Mile. The Met is a designated Natural Historic Landmark.
The Met’s permanent collection contains more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe from the twelfth through the fifteenth century. The building and its cloistered gardens—located in Upper Manhattan—are treasures in themselves, effectively part of the collection housed there.
Represented in the permanent collection are works of art from classical antiquity and Ancient Egypt, paintings and sculptures from nearly all the European masters, and an extensive collection of American and modern art. The Met also maintains extensive holdings of African, Asian, Oceanic, Byzantine and Islamic art. The museum is also home to encyclopedic collections of musical instruments, costumes and accessories, and antique weapons and armor from around the world. A number of notable interiors, ranging from 1st century Rome through modern American design, are permanently installed in the Met’s galleries.
In addition to its permanent exhibitions, the Met organizes and hosts special exhibitions and free events.
The Met Store is a fabulous place to buy gifts; you’ll find publications based on past and present exhibits, stationary, puzzles, jewelry, educational toys and other reproductions produced by the Museum. They also offer a wide variety of home decor items including art reproductions.
Cirque de Soleil
January 24, 2008 · Written by Heather Juma
Cirque du Soleil (French for “Circus of the Sun”) is an entertainment empire based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada founded by two former street performers, Guy Laliberté and Daniel Gauthier in 1984.
Le Grand Tour du Cirque du Soleil was a success in 1984 and after securing a second year of funding Laliberté hired Guy Caron from the National Circus School to recreate it as a “proper circus”. No ring and no animals helped make Cirque du Soleil the modern circus that it is today.
Each show is a synthesis of circus styles from around the world and has its own central theme and storyline which brings the audience into the performance by having no curtains, continuous live music and performers change the props. After critical and financial successes (Los Angeles Arts Festival) and failures in the late 1980s, Nouvelle Expérience was created with the direction of Franco Dragone that not only made Cirque profitable by 1990, but allowed it to create new shows.
Cirque’s creations have been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, including Bambi, Rose d’Or, three Gemini Awards and four Primetime Emmy Awards.
Cortéo is a Cirque du Soleil touring production that premiered in North America in 2005. Cortéo, which means “cortège” in Italian, is a festive parade imagined by a clown.
The show brings together the passion of the actor with the grace and power of the acrobat to plunge the audience into a theatrical world of fun, comedy and spontaneity situated in a mysterious space between heaven and earth.
The clown pictures his own funeral taking place in a carnival atmosphere, watched over by quietly caring angels. Juxtaposing the large with the small, the ridiculous with the tragic and the magic of perfection with the charm of imperfection, the show highlights the strength and fragility of the clown, as well as his wisdom and kindness, to illustrate the portion of humanity that is within each of us. The music, by turns lyrical and playful, carries Corteo through a timeless celebration in which illusion teases reality.
In September of 2003, Cirque du Soleil unveiled Zumanity. This new production was a resident cabaret-style show at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino on Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip). It is the first “adult-themed” Cirque du Soleil show, billed as “The Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil”. Created by Dominic Champagne, Zumanity is a departure from the standard Cirque format. Intended to be for mature adult audiences only, this show is centered around erotic song, dance and acrobatics.
Laliberté admits that the biggest reason to produce this show was the chance to create something with riskier subject matter. He was interested in the idea of creating a show that explored human sexuality, something that was at complete odds from the other more family-oriented Cirque shows. “Our previous shows have all been family-oriented and ‘politically correct.’ Laliberté said, “which is great. But we’re human beings, we won’t hide it. We’re a bunch of happy campers. We like to live new experiences. Zumanity deals with some of those experiences.”
