This month we re-cap the Pentagon performances of The Great Game,release a study comparing immigration integration policies across the US, Canada and Europe; and bring leaders of the UK's top film academies to Los Angeles.
Pentagon Views The Great Game
Last month, London Tricycle Theatre's marathon series of plays on Afghanistan, The Great Game, returned to Washington, DC for a private Pentagon performance.
The Bob Woodruff Foundation, Shakespeare Theatre Company, and British Council presented The Great Game to soldiers, vets, policymakers, and members of the local Afghani community, following an acclaimed US tour last fall.
US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Doug Wilson attended the plays and said, "There is an assumption that the arts and our men and women in uniform are from different planets. It's not the case. We're all in this together."
Maureen Dowd reflected on the special day in her New York Times column: "Our 3,413th day at war in Afghanistan seemed like a good day to learn about Afghanistan. I signed up with the Pentagon for time travel, flying through history watching a remarkable seven-hour marathon of a 12-play series."
Our CEO Martin Davidson also travelled to Washington, DC for the performances and remarked, "I visited the British Council offices in Kabul but in many ways I got a greater sense of what perhaps was happening on the ground in Afghanistan from the plays."
Read more about the February 10 and 11 performances in the Economist, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, BBC, WNYC's The Takeaway, and Foreign Policy.
New Study on Immigration Integration Compares US, Canada and Europe
In cooperation with the Immigration Policy Center, the British Council and the Migration Policy Group released a new study this week which reviews and ranks U.S. immigrant integration policies against other countries.
The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) contrasts and compares integration policies for legal immigrants across 31 countries in Europe and North America. Although this is the third edition of MIPEX, this is the first year the United States has been part of the study.
The MIPEX compares and ranks countries across 148 policy indicators, presenting data in a reference guide and an interactive online tool to help policymakers, advocates and researchers assess and compare integration policies around the globe.
Overall the US ranked ninth in terms of integration policies, and first in terms of its strong anti-discrimination laws and protections.
British Theatre Fills New York this Spring
Contemporary British drama fills New York this spring as both established and emerging artists journey across the Pond.
Punchdrunk makes their New York debut with the Hitchcock/Macbeth mash-up Sleep No More, while the National Theatre of Scotland (of Black Watch fame) and Frantic Assembly return with Beautiful Burnout, a high-intensity look at the world of amateur boxing. War Horse, the National Theatre's magnificent musical drama about a boy who cannot forget his beloved horse, also makes its US premiere.
You can also catch some of the UK's contemporary theater titans with three distinct interpretations of Shakespearean classics, including Cheek by Jowl, Propeller and the seminal Royal Shakespeare Company on stages across the city.
View our event listings below for more information on production dates and venues.
UK Film Schools to Visit Los Angeles
Leaders of the UK's top three film academies will be travelling to Los Angeles this month to further develop connections with the LA film industry and schools.
In partnership with Skillset, the lead organization with responsibility for supporting the skills and needs of the UK creative media and fashion and textile industries, we are bringing the directors of the National Film and Television School, the London Film School, and Screen Academy Scotland stateside for a film education seminar, graduate film screenings and university visits.
TN2020 Member Wins Red Carpet Green Dress Contest
Samata Angel, a fashion entrepreneur and member of the British Council's Transatlantic Network 2020 (TN2020) based in London, recently walked the red carpet as a guest of Suzy Amis Cameron and Director James Cameron at the Global Green pre-Oscar party in Hollywood.
Samata won the Red Carpet Green Dress Contest, a competition to design an eco-friendly dress for the red carpet. View Samata's winning dress design.
The World in 2020
Today our Berlin office and Transatlantic Network 2020 program are partnering with the Future Agenda to launch a new publication entitled The World in 2020.
As part of the launch, members of TN2020 from across the Atlantic will explore Future Agenda's global research and network to inspire ideas for future transatlantic cooperation.
Future Agenda is a global open foresight initiative supported by Vodafone.
Our partner KS12 is also conducting interviews with TN2020 members Ben Hammersley and Zadi Diaz.
You can view the videos, including a discussion on the future of cities in a networked world, and join the conversation at http://quora.com/Transatlantic-Network and http://vimeo.com/channels/tn2020.
BRITISH COUNCIL AROUND THE WORLD
Teaching English in Southern Iraq
Bobby Pathak, one of two British Council staff teaching English in southern Iraq along the Kuwait border, blogs about the challenges and rewards of working in "a flat, repetitive, desert moonscape, punctuated with burning gas flares and scattered with the remnants of military hardware...our compound sits in the middle of minefields that stretch for miles."
He is part of a team working with BP to roll out an English language teaching program in the Rumaila oilfields region.
Learn more about our English program in southern Iraq and read the full blog post at http://blog.britishcouncil.org/.
BRITISH CULTURAL EVENTS IN THE US
BRITISH COUNCIL SUPPORTED EVENTS
Graham Hudson: Arthouse at the Jones Center
Supported by Grants-to-Artists, British artist Graham Hudson transforms Arthouse in Austin into a monumental sculpture inspired by London's famous music venue, The Astoria Theatre. For this project - his first in the United States - Hudson creates a collaborative artwork that connects London's past with Austin's present through a multi-layered sculptural and musical experience.
February 4 - April 10
Arthouse at the Jones Center
Austin, TX
OTHER EVENTS
At any given time, there are a large number of British cultural events taking place across the US. The following are a small selection of non-British Council events. Please contact the venues listed for more information.
Talking Pictures
Welsh celebrity photographer Cambridge Jones captures creative personalities in poses that surprise, delight, and go against type. In order that visitors can closely connect with each image, Cambridge asked each of his subjects to deliver a short audio message. Accompanying each image is a spontaneous answer to the question he posed at the end of each shoot: "Tell me who or what inspired you."
March 3 - April 24
Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery
Los Angeles, California
Sleep No More
The ghosts of Shakespeare and Hitchcock will haunt New York in Sleep No More, the New York debut from British theater company Punchdrunk. Punchdrunk are acknowledged pioneers of a new form of "immersive theater" where roaming audiences guide themselves through deeply atmospheric worlds. Blending classic texts, award-winning design installation and extraordinary sites, Punchdrunk transports viewers from the traditionally passive form of conventional theater to a state of active imagination and engagement. The New York performance follows the US premiere in Boston last fall, which was supported by the British Council.
March 7 - April 16
Emursive at the McKittrick Hotel
New York, NY
The Comedy of Errors
Imagine you're on an island, unaware that your twin brother is there as well. Imagine further that your brother's wife mistakes you for him-but not before you've tried to seduce his wife's sister. Add to this marvelously byzantine mix the gender-bending antics of UK Director Edward Hall's inimitable all-male Shakespeare troupe, Propeller, and you have The Comedy of Errors for the ages: effervescent, irreverent, and deliciously convoluted.
Mar 16-27
BAM Harvey Theater
New York, NY
War Horse
The National Theatre's War Horse travels from the verdant English countryside to the fields of France and Germany at the outbreak of World War I. A boy's beloved horse has been sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. Caught up in enemy fire, the horse serves on both sides of the war, and survives an odyssey that leaves him alone in no-man's land. The boy, now a young man, cannot forget his horse, and embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.
March 15 - June 26
Lincoln Center Theater-Vivian Beaumont
New York, NY
Black Watch
The National Theatre of Scotland's critically-acclaimed production Black Watch returns to the US for the third time. Black Watch is based on interviews with former Scottish soldiers who recently served in Iraq. Viewed through the eyes of those on the ground, this powerful piece of theatre tells the story of Scotland's legendary 300 year-old Black Watch regiment, whose disbandment was announced in 2004 just before its 800-man battalion replaced some 4,000 US Marines in one of the bloodiest areas of Iraq.
March 29 - April 10
Broadway Armory
Chicago, IL
Macbeth
From Olivier Award-winning UK company Cheek by Jowl comes a scintillating take on Shakespeare's Macbeth that is physical, psychologically taut, and unsettling to the bone. Declan Donnellan directs, Nick Ormerod provides the elegantly restrained sets, and the exceptional Will Keen delivers a wrenching account of the title role, conveying the doomed general's emotional turmoil with chilling authenticity.
April 5-16
BAM Harvey Theater
New York, NY
Howard Jacobson Returns to Washington, DC
Howard Jacobson, author of the 2010 Man Booker Prize winning novel The Finkler Question, returns to Washington, DC next month for a reading at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue. Jacobson spent a month in Washington last winter as a UK Writer-in-Residence at George Washington University, teaching a one-credit course and participating in a range of public events.
April 7
Sixth & I Historic Synagogue
Washington, DC
King Lear
UK Director Michael Grandage's interpretation of the Shakespearean classic was called "The finest King Lear I have ever seen" by the UK's Daily Telegraph and the UK's Observer acclaimed, "'Grandage's production...remakes the idea of what Shakespeare can be."
April 28 - June 5
Donmar Warehouse
New York, NY
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