Nuit Blanche

Nuit Blanche (French pronunciation: ​[nɥi ˈblɑ̃ʃ]; All-Nighter, is an annual all-night or night-time arts festival. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.

History

The Nuit Blanche concept came from Jean Blaise, who founded the Centre de recherche pour le développement culturel (Research Center for Cultural Development) in Nantes, France, in 1984. In 1989, the Helsinki Festival established its Night of the Arts, "when every gallery, museum and bookshop is open until midnight or later and the whole city becomes one giant performance and carnival venue". That same year, Jean-Marc Ayrault became mayor of Nantes, and his program included renovating the central city and establishing a "contemporary patrimony", which led Blaise to create a late-night cultural festival, "Les Allumées" ("The Lighted Up"). His concept was to have an arts festival in Nantes, 6 p.m. till 6 am, over six years with artists from six cities.

Vive la Fête

Vive la Fête (English: Long live the party) are a Belgian music duo from Ghent, East Flanders, formed in 1997 by Danny Mommens (guitar, vocals) and Els Pynoo (vocals).

History

Vive la Fête was founded in 1997 when Mommens (then still playing in his former band dEUS) met Els at a party hosted by or for her sister. He had previously been an acquaintance of Pynoo's sister whom photographed Els naked and showed it to Mommens. As Els stated in a 2005 interview; Mommens had approached her in a normal fashion and said randomly: "Hey I saw you naked!" Mommen's recorded a few demos with Pynoo on his 8-track recorder. These demos were released on the EP Je ne veux pas (sometimes also referred to as Paris) which gathered some attention for its resemblance to '80s new wave music. Their first success came with their debut Attaque Surprise (2000). Later records such as République Populaire (2001) and Nuit Blanche (2003) made them popular, especially in the fashion world, where Karl Lagerfeld is one of their fans, and has enlisted them to perform at a number of his big shows in New York City and Paris. In 2005 they released Grand Prix and toured all over Europe and played some shows in Brazil and Mexico.

Cyrille Aimée

Cyrille Aimée (pron: SUR-real M-A) is a French jazz singer based in Brooklyn known for rhythmic songs with roots in jazz and gypsy styles. She won the Montreux Jazz Festival Competition in 2007, was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2010, and won the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Competition in 2012. She grew up in the French town of Samois-sur-Seine, in Fontainebleau, France. Her father was French and her mother was from the Dominican Republic.New York Times music reviewer Stephen Holden described Aimée as a blend of Michael Jackson and Sarah Vaughan and wrote that the "saucy, curly-haired jazz singer with one foot in tradition and the other in electronics," and wrote that her voice had a "tart, girlish chirp" and that her Surreal Band fused traditional and futuristic electronics with textures mixing jazz and funk.New York Times reviewer Nate Chinen wrote that she had a "sweet, girlish voice that she controls with a sniper's precision".Star-Ledger reviewer Ronni Reich described her sound as "instantly recognizable" with a "soft, girlish buzz with a touch of an Edith Piaf-like quaver." Reviewer John Fordham in The Guardian wrote that she is a "subtle and articulate vocalist" who is "light-stepping, casually fluent and persuasive" and sometimes "coolly understated in a soft glide."Classicalite reviewer Mike Greenblatt described Aimée as "beautiful, talented, precocious, funny, cultured, with the kind of instantly-recognizable voice that has no known precedent."

Inigo Montoya

Inigo Montoya is a fictional character in William Goldman's 1973 novel The Princess Bride. In Rob Reiner's 1987 film adaptation he was portrayed by Mandy Patinkin. In both the book and the movie, he resided in the fictional country of Florin but came from Spain.

Character background

In The Princess Bride, Inigo Montoya is portrayed as a Spanish fencer and henchman to the Sicilian criminal Vizzini. Inigo's father Domingo was a great swordcrafter, but he remained obscure because he disliked dealing with the stupid rich and privileged. When Count Rugen, a nobleman with a six-fingered right hand, asked him to forge a sword to accommodate his unusual grip, Domingo labored over the sword for a year. When Rugen returned, he reneged on his promised price. Thus, Domingo refused to sell him the sword, not as a matter of money, but because Count Rugen could not appreciate the great work of the sword. He proclaimed that the sword would now belong to Inigo. Rugen then promptly killed Domingo. Eleven-year-old Inigo witnessed the crime and challenged Rugen to a fight, wherein Rugen disarmed Inigo within about fifteen seconds; recognizing Inigo's talent, Rugen spared his life and allowed him to keep the sword, but gave him two scars, one on each cheek.