Lena Dunham performs interpretative dance as Sia sings 'Chandelier' on US TV – watch

June 10, 2014 8:48

'Girls' actress was special guest for 'Late Night with Seth Myers' performance

Lena Dunham joined Sia for a performance of the singer-songwriter's new single 'Chandelier' on US TV last night (June 9). See above to watch now.

The Girls writer and actress donned Sia's blonde bob wig and danced as she sang the song face down in a pillow on top of bunk beds. During the dance Dunham smashes into objects around the mocked up bedroom, throws toilet paper around before climbing into the bed with Sia as the performance ends.

The Late Night performance is based on the official 'Chandelier' video, which features 11 year old dancer Maddie Ziegler.

Sia recently claimed that she could have given 'Chandelier' to Beyonce or Rihanna but chose to keep it for herself. The former Zero 7 singer has enjoyed huge success in recent years as a songwriter for hire, penning hits for Beyoncé and Rihanna as well as Katy Perry, Britney Spears and Eminem. Most recently she contributed a number of songs to Kylie Minogue's new album 'Kiss Me Once.'

However, 'Chandelier' is the first track to be heard from Sia's forthcoming solo album '1000 Forms Of Fear', her first since 'We Are Born' in 2010.

Please login to add your comment.

View the original article here

Rapper Psy wows Harvard with global appeal, dance moves

South Korean singer PSY speaks at Harvard University's Memorial Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts May 9, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi

By Ross Kerber

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts | Thu May 9, 2013 10:31pm EDT

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - South Korean rapper Psy said he "partied hard" when his dance number drew its first 10 million views on YouTube last summer. Little did he know "Gangnam Style" would become the most-viewed video in the online service's history, with a global following and nearly 1.6 billion views as of Thursday.

"I partied hard to celebrate 10 million views!" Psy told about 1,000 people at Harvard University on Thursday evening, as he recalled his reaction when the song took off, making him a cultural phenomenon and leading to meetings with Los Angeles record producers.

"This is so unrealistic!" he recalled thinking.

Formally dressed and speaking in sometimes-halting English, Psy spoke for more than an hour and occasionally lapsed into signature dance moves such as grasping the reins of an imaginary trotting horse.

Psy's talk was partly a homecoming as he recalled his days as a student in Boston in the mid-1990s. But it was also a seminar about the star's surprise worldwide cultural appeal and the economic influence of East Asian culture.

Harvard professor Alexander Zahlten introduced Psy, whose real name is Park Jae-sang, as a global figure who has shown the ability of Korean music stars, video-game programmers and other entertainment figures to find overseas popularity through Internet channels.

"He's a global citizen, and in turn influences people all over the world," Zahlten said. "He's deeply connected to digital culture."

After "Gangnam Style" set records, the video for Psy's follow-up song "Gentleman" received more than 20 million hits in the first 24 hours after its release last month, easily beating the previous record of 8 million views for Justin Bieber's "Boyfriend" in the first 24 hours.

Psy, 35, told the audience at the Ivy League school that music trumps national divides. "Music makes everyone united," he said. "Something beyond language." At some performances, he said, "I'm so proud. The crowd doesn't know what the lyrics are about, but they look so happy!"

Later he said the word for "style" conveyed similar meanings in all languages, and that he wrote the lyrics for "Gentleman" hoping they would find a similar worldwide resonance. "Really , it was linguistics," he said.

Psy also poked fun at his own less-than-stellar academic record. He said his nickname in college was "WWF" for his grades, "withdraw, withdraw, fail." He said he kept thinking big and poked fun at his robust midsection.

"I dreamed someday, some Korean artist would be well-known in the U.S.," he said. "I dreamed about it but didn't dream that was me, because as you see I have a very special body type."

(Editing by Paul Simao)

View the original article here

Media mogul seeks to build U.S. electronic dance music empire

1 of 2. Robert F.X. Sillerman, CEO and chairman of CKX Inc. (L), thanks Priscilla Presley for her participation during a news conference for Cirque du Soleil's new show 'Viva Elvis' inside the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 15, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/David Becker

By Zachary Fagenson

MIAMI | Fri Mar 8, 2013 7:07am EST

MIAMI (Reuters) - New York media mogul Robert F.X. Sillerman is the new entertainment king of Miami Beach after taking over almost all of the famous South Florida island-city's glitzy, over-the-top nightclubs in a push to consolidate the fast-growing electronic dance music (EDM) industry.

Two Miami companies, The Opium Group and Miami Marketing Group, which own eight nightclubs, including LIV inside the historic, art deco Fontainebleau Hotel, were recently purchased by Sillerman, according to a spokesman.

The deals, in which terms were not disclosed, are the latest move by Sillerman to corner the EDM market, after saying in June last year that he was willing to spend more than $1 billion buying up EDM promoters and event organizers.

EDM is rapidly growing in popularity in the U.S. and abroad, popularized by nightclub DJs featuring acts by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Pitbull.

Sillerman's stake in the Miami club scene gives him a presence in a major EDM market and home of the Ultra Music Festival, one of the biggest in the world, with eight stages and more than 230,000 attendees last year.

This year's Ultra event in Miami promises to be even bigger, and has expanded to two consecutive 3-day weekends later this month. Sillerman has no ties to the event.

Sillerman's quest echoes his business strategy from the late 1990s when his company, SFX Entertainment, consolidated a large number of concert promoters, producers and venues and was bought by Clear Channel in 2000 for $4.4 billion.

In January, Sillerman's revived SFX Entertainment purchased the North American division of Holland-based ID&T Entertainment, the world's largest dance music concert promoter. ID&T runs a three-day festival in Belgium called Tomorrowland and Sensation White, an EDM concert series held across Europe that made its U.S. debut at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last October.

Tomorrowland producers plan to hold their first festival outside of Belgium, called Tomorrow World, somewhere in North America in late September.

SFX has also acquired several other EDM assets in recent weeks, including New Orleans-based EDM promoter Donnie Disco Presents and Life in Color, which puts on day-glow-paint-soaked EDM concerts across the U.S. Last week, SFX took over the Denver-based music site Beatport, a major download store for EDM with a catalog of more than one million tracks, the New York Times reported.

"He's the entrepreneurial type, looking for different avenues to bring in his management aggregation strategy," said Mark Fratrik, vice president and chief economist for media consultancy BIA/Kelsey. "I imagine he could do the same thing [now]... it seems like this is another combining of the events with the music."

SFX, LIVE NATION EXPAND EDM REACH

Sillerman first began buying radio stations in the late 1970s and sold a block of 10 stations to Westinghouse Broadcasting for $400 million in 1989. He later launched SFX Broadcasting which went public in 1993 and grew even larger when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 lifted the cap on the number of stations a company could own in a single market. In 1997, the company was sold for $2.1 billion to Capstar Broadcasting Corp, a company formed by the Hicks brothers.

Sillerman then started a new public company called Marquee Group Inc, which bought up agencies that represented professional sports and music stars, and SFX Entertainment through which he acquired concert venues and promoters.

SFX Entertainment was sold to Clear Channel in 2000 for $4.4 billion and was widely recognized as the precursor to the now massive concert promoter and producer Live Nation.

Sillerman went on to form CKX Inc, which bought 85 percent of Elvis Presley Enterprises, including the rock-and-roll legend's Graceland mansion, and 100 percent of Simon Fuller's 19 Entertainment, producer of American Idol.

"He's been extremely successful in consolidating fragmented industries which have untapped growth potential that generally have excellent marketing opportunities attached to them," said Mike Principe, a former SFX attorney who is now CEO of The Legacy Agency. "He goes in, acquires en masse, and enjoys a leading position."

Sillerman isn't the only one trying to bring the booming slice of the music industry under one flag. In May 2012, Live Nation purchased Cream Holdings Limited, which produces EDM events in the U.K. and Australia.

Cream Founder and CEO James Barton became head of Live Nation Electronic Music tasked with expanding the company's reach in EDM around the world. Both SFX and Live Nation have been reportedly courting Los Angeles-based Insomniac.

The company's signature event, Electric Daisy Carnival, drew more than 230,000 revelers to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the summer of 2012 and has spawned satellite festivals in cities around the U.S.

(Editing by David Adams, Bernard Orr)

View the original article here

Stravinsky feted in top London dance house season

By Michael Roddy

LONDON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:05pm EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - London dance house Sadler's Wells will mark the centenary of the riotous premiere of Russian composer Igor Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" with a commission that uses neither the original music or scandalous choreography, opting instead for a piece inspired by it.

Olympics opening ceremony choreographer Akram Khan's "ITMOi (in the mind of Igor)", with music by three composers that will in part draw on Stravinsky's groundbreaking work of musical brutalism, will have its first public performance on May 29, 2013, Sadler's Wells said on Tuesday.

That will be 100 years to the day after a near-riot broke out at the premiere of the ballet, choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris.

Sadler's Wells will also revive a modern choreography by Michael Keegan-Dolan of Stravinsky's rhythmically ferocious and paganistic ballet that changed the course of 20th century music, the venue said at a news conference announcing its new season.

Other venues around the world will mark the centenary, including 14 performances of various versions and tributes to the work at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, starting on the anniversary day with the Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre and conductor Valery Gergiev in a re-creation of Nijinsky's original.

Khan, whose dance piece for the 2012 Summer Olympics was intended as a tribute to the 52 victims of bombing attacks on the London public transport system in July 2005, said that given the brilliance of Nijinsky's work, and a more recent version by Pina Bausch, he had decided to go in a different direction.

"It's not really a piece about Stravinsky, it's inspired by his concepts...but it's still about the story of the 'Rite of Spring'," the British-Bangladeshi choreographer said.

He said he had asked three composers to provide the music because "I just wanted to make things more difficult" - partly in the spirit of paying homage to the sense of rhythmical and musical rupture that he senses in Stravinsky's score.

He said that one of the vivid memories Stravinsky recalled from his youth was the sound of ice breaking on the river in St. Petersburg: "He would never forget the sound so the idea of rupture fascinated me."

Sadler's Wells executives said the venue had presented 677 performances in its 2011/12 season, an increase of 53 shows on the previous year.

Artistic Director Alistair Spalding decried recent proposals by the Conservative-led government to drop dance from the core curriculum under a sweeping revamp of the British education system, saying the move would likely reverse a trend of more young people learning dance in school and choosing dance as a profession.

"The predominance of dance in the Olympic ceremonies shows how rewarding and involving it can be," Spalding said. "It will be deeply damaging to reverse this investment."

He said dance was the second most popular activity in British schools, after football, and ranked first for girls.

(Editing by Stephanie Pett and Paul Casciato)

View the original article here

Jennifer Lopez's Sexed-Up 'Dance Again' Video: Watch

by Sarah Maloy, N.Y.  |   April 06, 2012 4:10 EDT

Jennifer Lopez's just-released video for "Dance Again" has body glitter, random choreographed dance numbers, poles and sex -- lots of sex. Oh and Pitbull's there too, hanging out on the sidelines while J.Lo gets dirty, dabbling in orgies and bondage.

The sexed-up video shows Lopez writhing in a pile of half-naked bodies and getting tied up with a "love is blind" blindfold by a shirtless man -- who just so happens to be her real-life love interest, Casper Smart. Watch as the on and off-screen pair get covered in body glitter and dance together, taking advantage of nearby stripper poles.

J-Lo's "Dance Again" video premiered Thursday night (April 6) on "American Idol," with an introduction by Ryan Seacrest in which the host asked Lopez if there was any special chemistry between her and the dancers. The too-hot-for-TV video certainly answered that question.

View the original article here

Jackson children dance to his music at tribute gig (Reuters)

CARDIFF (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of fans rocked to the hits of Michael Jackson on Saturday at a tribute concert his brothers hoped would put the spotlight on his musical legacy after so much controversy.

The late singer's children -- Prince, 14, Paris, 13 and "Blanket," 9 -- appeared on stage briefly to address the crowd and at the end joined other family members dancing to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough."

"We're very happy to be here on this special night to honor our father," said Paris, dressed in a red jacket similar to the one worn by Jackson in his groundbreaking "Thriller" music video.

The "Beat It" star, one of the most successful yet troubled artists of the pop era, died in 2009 aged 50 while rehearsing for a series of comeback concerts.

The "Michael Forever" tribute in Cardiff, Wales, coincides with the involuntary manslaughter trial of the singer's doctor in Los Angeles, drawing criticism from some fans and members of his family.

Brothers Jermaine and Randy boycotted the event because of the timing, while sister Janet said it would be too painful to perform in Cardiff during the trial.

But it had the blessing of his mother Katherine, who was at the gig, and Michael's older brother Marlon said it should be seen as a celebration of Jackson's music.

"They (the fans) have the right to (protest)," he said backstage. "I think they have the right to do whatever they feel, but we're celebrating the positive side of our brother's life.

"We know our brother better than anybody else and he would love that we are doing this for him and remembering him in that way."

"MICHAEL SUFFERED"

U.S. musician Ne-Yo kicked off the four-hour extravaganza at the Millennium Stadium with the tight beats of "Billie Jean" before slowing the tempo in "The Lady In My Life."

"It's not about the controversy, it's not about the trial, it's not about his death. It's about celebrating his life, it's about celebrating his music," Ne-Yo said from a stage shaped like a giant glove.

British boy band JLS sang "The Way You Make Me Feel" before being joined by three of the original Jackson 5 -- Marlon, Tito and Jackie -- in a rendition of "Blame it on the Boogie."

"Can you feel his spirit in the room tonight?" called out Marlon, and the mostly young crowd screamed "Yes!"

Jackson's sister La Toya performed live in public for the first time in nearly 20 years, while three of his nephews appeared in their band 3T.

"I had absolutely no intention of performing," La Toya told Reuters. "I was hesitant about this and at the last minute I said you have to do it for him ... and I did, so I'm happy that I did. It's worth honouring him this way."

The lineup also featured Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Beyonce on video and Jamie Foxx, and among British stars appearing were Leona Lewis and Diversity.

Toward the end, pictures of Jackson were beamed on to giant screens as "empress of soul" Gladys Knight, accompanied by a gospel choir, sang "Gone Too Soon."

Earlier, her powerful rendition of "Believe in Yourself" was a highlight, and she was joined in a duet of "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" by Motown great Smokey Robinson.

Robinson told Reuters: "There will be many mimics, but there will never be another Michael Jackson.

"He got to the point where he had no private life whatsoever," he added.

"When you are in a business that you love and you are doing what you love, however you can't go out and just get in your car or go to the store or go to the movies -- that's got to be rough. That's what he suffered."

Reaction was mixed among people streaming out of the arena after the gig, with many ecstatic but some underwhelmed by "under-rehearsed" numbers and long gaps between some songs.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

View the original article here

Jackson children dance to his music at tribute gig

1 of 7. LaToya Jackson (2nd L), sister of the late pop star Michael Jackson, his children Prince Michael Joseph Jackson Jr. (3rd L), Prince Michael Jackson II (Blanket) and Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson (3rd R) perform on stage during the ''Michael Forever'' tribute concert, which honours late pop icon Michael Jackson, at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales October 8, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Eddie Keogh

By Mike Collett-White

CARDIFF | Sat Oct 8, 2011 6:01pm EDT

CARDIFF (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of fans rocked to the hits of Michael Jackson on Saturday at a tribute concert his brothers hoped would put the spotlight on his musical legacy after so much controversy.

The late singer's children -- Prince, 14, Paris, 13 and "Blanket," 9 -- appeared on stage briefly to address the crowd and at the end joined other family members dancing to "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough."

"We're very happy to be here on this special night to honor our father," said Paris, dressed in a red jacket similar to the one worn by Jackson in his groundbreaking "Thriller" music video.

The "Beat It" star, one of the most successful yet troubled artists of the pop era, died in 2009 aged 50 while rehearsing for a series of comeback concerts.

The "Michael Forever" tribute in Cardiff, Wales, coincides with the involuntary manslaughter trial of the singer's doctor in Los Angeles, drawing criticism from some fans and members of his family.

Brothers Jermaine and Randy boycotted the event because of the timing, while sister Janet said it would be too painful to perform in Cardiff during the trial.

But it had the blessing of his mother Katherine, who was at the gig, and Michael's older brother Marlon said it should be seen as a celebration of Jackson's music.

"They (the fans) have the right to (protest)," he said backstage. "I think they have the right to do whatever they feel, but we're celebrating the positive side of our brother's life.

"We know our brother better than anybody else and he would love that we are doing this for him and remembering him in that way."

"MICHAEL SUFFERED"

U.S. musician Ne-Yo kicked off the four-hour extravaganza at the Millennium Stadium with the tight beats of "Billie Jean" before slowing the tempo in "The Lady In My Life."

"It's not about the controversy, it's not about the trial, it's not about his death. It's about celebrating his life, it's about celebrating his music," Ne-Yo said from a stage shaped like a giant glove.

British boy band JLS sang "The Way You Make Me Feel" before being joined by three of the original Jackson 5 -- Marlon, Tito and Jackie -- in a rendition of "Blame it on the Boogie."

"Can you feel his spirit in the room tonight?" called out Marlon, and the mostly young crowd screamed "Yes!"

Jackson's sister La Toya performed live in public for the first time in nearly 20 years, while three of his nephews appeared in their band 3T.

"I had absolutely no intention of performing," La Toya told Reuters. "I was hesitant about this and at the last minute I said you have to do it for him ... and I did, so I'm happy that I did. It's worth honouring him this way."

The lineup also featured Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Beyonce on video and Jamie Foxx, and among British stars appearing were Leona Lewis and Diversity.

Toward the end, pictures of Jackson were beamed on to giant screens as "empress of soul" Gladys Knight, accompanied by a gospel choir, sang "Gone Too Soon."

Earlier, her powerful rendition of "Believe in Yourself" was a highlight, and she was joined in a duet of "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" by Motown great Smokey Robinson.

Robinson told Reuters: "There will be many mimics, but there will never be another Michael Jackson.

"He got to the point where he had no private life whatsoever," he added.

"When you are in a business that you love and you are doing what you love, however you can't go out and just get in your car or go to the store or go to the movies -- that's got to be rough. That's what he suffered."

Reaction was mixed among people streaming out of the arena after the gig, with many ecstatic but some underwhelmed by "under-rehearsed" numbers and long gaps between some songs.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

View the original article here