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1138 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 11, 2007 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

One Couch Potato, Gently Roasted
BYLINE: By DENNIS LIM
SECTION: Section 2; Column 3; Arts and Leisure Desk; DVD; Pg. 36
LENGTH: 616 words
THROUGH the '80s and '90s, sitcoms grew ever more referential, thanks to the self-conscious likes of Garry Shandling and Jerry Seinfeld. But to the few who saw it, ''Twitch City,'' a short-lived Canadian series that revolved around its main character's crippling attachment to his television, stood out as a bold and perversely literal form of meta-TV.

Produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and created by Don McKellar, a Renaissance man of the Toronto indie film scene who won a Tony last year as a writer of the hit Broadway musical ''The Drowsy Chaperone,'' the comedy ran for a mere 13 episodes over two seasons in 1998 and 2000. But it attained cult status at home and abroad and is the rare television show that also holds up as a work of media scholarship. (It was shown here on Bravo in 2000 and is being released in a two-disc DVD set Feb. 20.)

Its protagonist, a socially challenged shut-in named Curtis (played by Mr. McKellar), spends almost all his time glued to the television, often to a ''Jerry Springer'' -like confessional circus called ''The Rex Reilly Show.'' To watch ''Twitch City,'' in other words, is often to watch someone watch TV. The screen serves as a de facto mirror -- a nifty trick for a show about the vortexlike pull and mind-altering possibilities of television.

On the DVD commentary Mr. McKellar calls ''Twitch City'' an ''anti-sitcom.'' Many of the plot convolutions are indeed satiric variations on the roommate shenanigans that have long been a sitcom staple. (Joyce DeWitt of ''Three's Company'' pops up in a knowing cameo.)

The first episode sets up a classic personality clash between the slovenly Curtis and his fastidious, short-fused roommate Nathan (Daniel MacIvor), who lives by the color-coded ''job wheel'' he has taped to the kitchen wall. After accidentally killing a homeless man with a bag of cat food -- long story -- Nathan winds up in jail, paving the way for a revolving door of eccentric subletters (a cat-hating Wiccan, a pair of possibly gay neo-Nazis). Nathan's girlfriend, Hope (Molly Parker, who went on to ''Deadwood''), moves into the hall closet and, against all odds, falls for Curtis.

Offering an absurdist slow burn in place of punch lines and belly laughs, ''Twitch City'' is an incisive study of slackerdom, a state of mind and way of life that the show portrays with neither condescension nor sentimentality. In Curtis, Mr. McKellar created a sitcom protagonist even more complex and unlikely than the Larry David of ''Curb Your Enthusiasm.'' Committed to an existence of bohemian languor, he's also a cutthroat entrepreneur hellbent on renting out every last square foot of his apartment. He may be truly agoraphobic -- he doesn't venture outside until the sixth episode -- but his couchbound apathy masks a ruthless manipulative streak, as when he cons a Meals on Wheels volunteer into delivering his lunches.

''Twitch City'' is an artifact of the pre-TiVo age -- Curtis shoves a tape into his VHS recorder whenever he's summoned away from the TV -- but its sly, sophisticated take on media saturation hasn't dated a bit. Curtis may be a TV addict (as the hilarious detox episode confirms), but he has turned his addiction into an empowering form of social rebellion.

Curtis is neither a mindless viewer nor a stereotypical pop-culture savant. His obsession is somehow deeper and purer: he watches TV silently, without ironic comment, ''to learn from it and not laugh at it,'' he says. As a case study Curtis supports the contention of his fellow Canadian Marshall McLuhan that the effects of television are more relevant than the content. In ''Twitch City'' the medium truly is the message. DENNIS LIM

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: TELEVISION PROGRAMMING (91%); PUBLIC TELEVISION (77%); CELEBRITIES (76%); BROADCASTING INDUSTRY (76%); PET FOODS (60%); MUSICAL THEATER (55%); HOMELESSNESS (50%); FILM (70%); CATS (87%) Television; Recordings and Downloads (Video)
COMPANY: CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP (72%)
PERSON: JERRY SEINFELD (91%) Dennis Lim
GEOGRAPHIC: TORONTO, ON, CANADA (58%) ONTARIO, CANADA (58%) CANADA (90%)
LOAD-DATE: February 11, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: Photo: Don McKellar, left, and Callum Keith Rennie in the Canadian television series ''Twitch City.''
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

1139 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 11, 2007 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

The Bolshoi Tries Partnering With a Friend From America
BYLINE: By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY
SECTION: Section 2; Column 2; Arts and Leisure Desk; DANCE; Pg. 10
LENGTH: 1073 words
DATELINE: MOSCOW
THE choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is as much in the news here at the moment as he is in New York. His first commission for the Bolshoi Ballet, ''Misericors,'' will have its premiere on Tuesday in the company's ''Evening of American Choreography,'' one of several high-level events celebrating the 200th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Russia and America.

Mr. Wheeldon, 33, was initially invited several years ago to stage a full-length version of ''Cinderella,'' he said at a press preview last week, but he ''politely declined'' the offer. Instead he arrived in December for his first visit to Moscow for the Bolshoi intending to stage a condensed version of ''Hamlet,'' set to the eerie, moving music of Arvo Part's Third Symphony. But the idea did not come together, he said, and he chose to create a smaller work with a ''medieval, liturgical'' atmosphere, set to the same score.

The production has garnered particular attention here not only as part of an unusual American program but also because of Mr. Wheeldon's growing stature and the news last month that he is leaving his position as resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet, founded by the Russian-born George Balanchine, to create his own company. Mr. Wheeldon has been hailed in some quarters as the next Balanchine, and the Bolshoi program will include Balanchine's ''Serenade'' as well as Twyla Tharp's ''In the Upper Room.''

Mr. Wheeldon cheerfully played down the fuss when asked if he expected ''Misericors'' to become the start of a collaboration with the Bolshoi. ''I'm sure Alexei wants to see how this works out,'' he said of Alexei Ratmansky, the Bolshoi's artistic director. ''It could just be a big flop, and people may not like it, and I wouldn't be surprised by that. If it's successful, then he might consider it to be a good investment to have me back, and I would certainly consider it, although my time is going to be pretty fully consumed once we get this new company going.''

He went on to suggest that his collaboration with the Bolshoi could plant seeds of cooperation with his new company, Metamorphoses. ''I would like to invite Ratmansky to go and do something for me,'' Mr. Wheeldon said, although he had yet to raise the subject with Mr. Ratmansky.

The Wheeldon commission is part of Mr. Ratmansky's policy of integrating the Bolshoi's repertory with contemporary international choreography. An Americanization of sorts had already begun before his arrival in 2004, notably an evening devoted to Balanchine in 1999. ''Agon,'' ''Concerto Barocco'' and other Balanchine ballets have since become part of its repertory.

The role of new, international choreography at the Bolshoi, a theater with a reputation built on the grandeur of its productions, is controversial in Russia's dance world. Valeria Uralskaya, the editor of Ballet magazine, said she was intrigued by the adagio from Mr. Wheeldon's work presented at the press preview but worried about the general tendency of the Bolshoi repertory.

''If we show very actively only that we are translating work, we won't be interesting to the world,'' Ms. Uralskaya said. ''The Bolshoi Theater is not just the Bolshoi Theater but the Bolshoi Theater of Russia. It is interesting to the world as Russian theater. We're interesting when we show each other what we have.''

But such concerns were nowhere in evidence at a Wheeldon rehearsal later in the day. Valery Lagunov, who danced at the Bolshoi in the 1960s and '70s and has served as a ballet master there since 1996, took evident pleasure in the process, interjecting encouragement and suggestions to the dancers. During his performing days, he said, choreography at the Bolshoi was in a double vise between ideology and the dominating personality of Yuri Grigorovich.

''We dreamed of this,'' he said of Mr. Wheeldon's method. ''His foundation is classical movement. Balanchine studied in Russia. I don't know where Wheeldon studied, but his foundation is also classical. He unites movement, heart, soul and school of dance.''

Mr. Wheeldon sought to instill those qualities in dancers he had handpicked from the Bolshoi troupe.

Coaching Dmitry Gudanov in a solo, he used metaphors and images to ease the dancer out of the Russian tradition of formal poses and into fluid motion. Explaining how he wanted Mr. Gudanov to push his hand off the floor, Mr. Wheeldon said, ''It's like the painting on the side of a Greek vase.''

As he showed Mr. Gudanov another combination, he said: ''Think of being a piece of elastic. As soon as you get to this position, start with the legs. Your legs are a continuation of your arms.''

A few minutes later, illustrating an arm movement, he said, ''It's better like a stretch, like a cat stretching in the sun.''

Mr. Wheeldon, full of enthusiasm, conducted the rehearsal through an interpreter but constantly demonstrated jetes and arabesques. As the day wore on, he jumped up more and more to illustrate and map out his steps.

After rehearsal Mr. Gudanov spoke articulately of Mr. Wheeldon's approach. ''His choreography is very graphic,'' he said. ''It's like a picture. You have to draw with your hands and legs. It's difficult. You have to search a lot with your body.''

As for ''Serenade,'' Suki Schorer, a teacher at the School of American Ballet and former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet, came to Moscow for two weeks to help prepare it and teach classes in Balanchine technique. She had to revert temporarily to her given name -- Suzanne, which she never uses professionally -- since her familiar name translates as a common Russian expletive.

Ms. Schorer encouraged the ballerinas to come to class in point shoes, not common practice in Russia. ''He wanted the shoes to be like a second skin,'' she said of Balanchine in a follow-up e-mail message. ''So, many of the steps he gave in class were designed to be danced on point in order to develop strength, skill and more articulation of the feet.''

Anastasia Yatsenko, a Bolshoi soloist, still mourns the loss of her teacher, Raisa Struchkova, who died in 2005. But when her work with Ms. Schorer and Mr. Wheeldon ended last week, she felt a new pang.

''When Suzanne left, I became very sad,'' she said. ''I love my teachers, but this doesn't infringe on them. And Chris is totally the choreography that I love. We don't have this. We have one week left. I'm very sad.''

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: MUSIC (78%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (77%); ANNIVERSARIES (76%); DIPLOMATIC SERVICES (71%); INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (71%); ARTISTS & PERFORMERS (90%); BALLET (91%); FOREIGN RELATIONS (71%) Dancing
ORGANIZATION: New York City Ballet; Bolshoi Ballet
PERSON: Sophia Kishkovsky; Christopher Wheeldon
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (88%); MOSCOW, RUSSIA (88%) NEW YORK, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (96%); RUSSIA (88%)
LOAD-DATE: February 11, 2007
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: Photos: Above, the Bolshoi dancers in Balanchine's ''Serenade.'' Suki Schorer, below, a teacher at the School of American Ballet, leading classes in Moscow in Balanchine technique. (Photographs by James Hill for The New York Times)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

1140 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
February 11, 2007 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

In India, the Golden Age of Television Is Now
BYLINE: By VIKAS BAJAJ
SECTION: Section 3; Column 2; Money and Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 2480 words
DATELINE: MUMBAI, India
GHANSHYAM P. SHAH, an 82-year-old widower, spends up to eight hours a day in front of his television watching prayer services, soap operas and financial news. But one afternoon last December, he was completely disconnected from his favorite pastime -- and visibly unsettled -- because his new digital set-top box was not working.

''I'll become really agitated if I can't watch,'' Mr. Shah said as Rumy M. Bhagat, the owner of a small cable company, gave up and plugged the wire directly into the television until he could return with another box. The image was no longer digital, but that did not matter to Mr. Shah, a retired gold and silver dealer, whose face lit up as CNBC India reported that the price of gold was up in afternoon trading.

Mr. Bhagat explained that some set-top boxes, which had been sitting in warehouses for months in advance of a government-mandated change to digital television, had proved a weak match for the heat and humidity of Mumbai. ''Sometimes we have teething problems,'' he said.

Growing pains like these are common throughout India's booming television industry. Deregulation and new technology have combined to produce an explosion of new offerings. Before the early 1990s, a single government broadcaster provided a handful of channels. Now a crowded field of domestic and global media companies, including the News Corporation, Sony Entertainment and Walt Disney, offer hundreds of channels.

Indian films, especially the flashy musicals and dramas of Bollywood, have grabbed plenty of attention in the West. But the country's lesser-known television business is more than twice as big, with an estimated $3.4 billion in revenue in 2005, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. It is also starting to exert greater cultural influence.

Television ownership is growing fast here, and it has plenty more room to expand. There are roughly 105 million homes with televisions in India, up from 88 million in 2000. The current number of television households is about the same as in the United States, though for India that amounts to only about half of the country's households, compared with 98 percent in the United States.

Advertising spending on Indian television increased by 21 percent a year, on average, from 1995 to 2005, when it reached $1.6 billion, according to ZenithOptimedia, which tracks advertising globally. Double-digit growth rates are expected to continue for years.

Such numbers are very tempting to companies like the News Corporation, Disney, Time Warner and Viacom, which are losing viewers and advertisers in their core Western markets. (In addition to the domestic market, Indian television is also delivered via satellite and cable to the global South Asian diaspora.)

The pace of change in India is supercharged because the country is catching up to, and in some cases leapfrogging, developments that took decades to play out elsewhere.

''Everything that happened in the rest of the world in 10 years, is happening here in two years,'' said Vikram Kaushik, the chief executive of Tata Sky, a satellite-TV company that is jointly owned by the News Corporation and the Tata Group, the Indian industrial conglomerate.

In the 1990s, media companies seized on new opportunities in India after the government, which had controlled broadcasting for nearly 50 years, began releasing its grip. The first big changes in Indian television came in the early part of that decade, when cable operators used satellite dishes, illegal but tolerated at the time, to give subscribers access to news on CNN, as well as American soap operas and movies. Viewers could also watch Indian movies and music on Zee TV, then a fledgling joint venture between the News Corporation and an Indian entrepreneur.

Previously, India's ruling elite had a dual and somewhat contradictory view of broadcasting. On the one hand, politicians considered it too powerful a force to be left to the private sector, especially in the years after independence in 1947, when the nation's unity and secularism were considered vulnerable. On the other hand, television was seen as too frivolous to merit much investment at a time when politicians were focused on turning India into an industrial power.

Those attitudes began to change after a financial crisis in the early '90s forced the Indian government to devalue its currency, the rupee, and to start relinquishing its tight control over the economy. Then, in 1995, the country's highest court declared the government's monopoly over broadcasting unconstitutional.

When it did yield, India went further in deregulating television than it did in other sectors of the economy. It also gave up far more control when compared with China, the country against which it is most often measured. Foreign media companies can fully own entertainment networks here; they cannot in China. (India does, however, limit foreign ownership to 26 percent of television news channels and newspapers.)

THE open environment attracted the News Corporation, which entered the market in 1993 by acquiring Star TV. Star has the highest-rated shows among the private networks in Hindi-speaking parts of the country. Sony started its flagship channel here in 1995 and now has seven channels; the company owns about 61 percent of the business, with Indian investors owning the rest. The biggest Indian broadcasters are Zee and Sun TV, which dominates ratings in non-Hindi-speaking southern India.

Still, Doordarshan, the public broadcaster, remains the most widely available network, especially in rural areas, where a majority of the population lives.

To keep up with changing times, Doordarshan has retooled its programming, adding genres like soap operas and musical contests to a lineup that is still dominated by more high-minded -- and what some critics would call staid -- cultural programming. It has also started a satellite-TV service that has no subscription fees but also does not include the most popular private channels.

Star has been one of the few consistently profitable businesses in Indian television. Although the News Corporation does not disclose financial details of its operations here, Merrill Lynch estimates that Star accounts for 3 percent of the company's total operating income, or about $116 million in the 2006 fiscal year.

Zee, which started by offering a few hours of programming a day, now has more than two dozen channels; it started a satellite-TV service, DishTV, in 2004. ''We offered an alternative to a broadcaster, Doordarshan, from which urban audiences felt disconnected,'' said Ashish Kaul, a senior vice president at Zee. ''You cannot blame Doordarshan; it had a national obligation.''

About 60 percent of the nation's television households subscribe to the cable or satellite services that carry private channels. Though Indians theoretically have dozens of channels to choose from, a handful dominate the ratings and earn most of the profits. A fragmented cable business is straining to reshape itself in response to new regulations and competition from satellite television services.

The transition to digital cable, meanwhile, has so far occurred only in parts of India's four most populous cities. The changeover has been troubled by technical problems, weak enforcement of a Jan. 1 deadline and a shortage of set-top boxes.

At the same time, the newest technology operates alongside the often stark economic and social realities of India. Black-and-white televisions still account for an estimated 40 percent of all TV's in use, and about 56 percent of rural households do not have electricity, according to India's 2001 census. And because most homes in India that have a television havejust one set, watching TV can be a communal activity that brings together the entire family, and often the neighbors, too.

Perhaps the most striking of the changes in Indian television is what is starting to show up on the screen.

''Dhoom Machaoo Dhoom'' (Hindi for ''Let's have a blast'') is a Disney show aimed at teenagers, and it might look at home on the Disney Channel in the United States. It is about four teenage girls, one of them from New York, who want to start a band so they can represent their school in a talent contest. They face a number of challenges, including an arrogant classmate who is determined to derail their plans.

But the show, which went on the air last month, has an Indian twist. Priyanka, the New Yorker who has returned to her family's native land, wants the girls to perform a song they have created, rather than using a tune from a popular Bollywood movie, as the local norms dictate. In one episode, Kajal, played by Sriti Jha, complains that Priyanka doesn't understand India. ''Only Bollywood works here,'' she insists.

The girls do not dwell on the issue, but it is an important consideration for television executives and media companies here. Indian television has a strong partnership with the film industry, whose stars appear on its shows as guests, contestants and hosts. Movies and music videos from Bollywood remain staples on television here.

Yet in the last decade television has attained influence over the popular culture that is starting to rival that of the film business. And whereas filmmakers have traditionally worked in close-knit networks that operate in a single language, media companies have been exploiting the large and growing capacity of cable and satellite networks to cheaply develop customized channels and shows for different parts of the country. Zee, for instance, operates several regional-language entertainment and news channels.

''We have a vibrant TV industry,'' said Rama Bijapurkar, a business consultant whose clients include Disney and who also writes a column for The Economic Times. ''When talking about the hinterland, TV is what Bollywood would like to be.''

Nachiket Pantvaidya, an executive director at Disney's Indian operations, predicted that ''Dhoom'' would be a breakthrough for Indian television because it was one of the few shows produced for teenagers, and specifically for girls. He said that more than 90 percent of what Indian youths watch on TV are family dramas and other shows created for their parents.

''This is a story of kids who are trying to do something out of the ordinary,'' Mr. Pantvaidya said. ''Nobody makes TV for the real world. This kind of TV is rare.''

Ms. Jha, the 20-year-old who plays one of the girls on ''Dhoom,'' added: ''This can't be compared to the whole lot of family serials. This is much more real and close to the lives of kids.''

''Dhoom'' is Disney's sophomore effort at producing TV shows in India -- its first, ''Vicky Aur Vetaal,'' was based on an Indian myth about a prince and a genie-like figure. The company sees television as the first step in a broader India strategy that includes films, merchandising and possibly a theme park. Last year, Disney spent $44.5 million to acquire a 15 percent stake in UTV, a production company based in Mumbai, and to buy Hungama, a television channel of children's programming created by UTV.

''We decided early on that this had to be driven locally,'' said Gary Marsh, president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide in Burbank, Calif. ''If we were to truly become a global company, we had to let our regional organizations create their own programming.'' India was the first country where the company developed local Disney Channel shows, something it is now doing in Britain and Japan, too.

Many of Disney's competitors have built their businesses on a similar strategy. Time Warner, which operates the Pogo and Cartoon Network channels here, is offering an Indian version of ''Sesame Street'' called ''Galli Galli Sim Sim.'' The show uses some material from the popular American show, but it is set on an Indian streetscape and is anchored by four local Muppets. A large orange-and-red lion named Boombah replaces Big Bird.

Television executives say the ventures by Disney and others aimed at youths and various niche markets are a welcome break from the way business has been done in India. A handful of channels -- which carry soap operas, reality shows, music shows and important cricket tournaments -- receive the bulk of the advertising. Yet entrepreneurs continue spending millions of dollars starting copycat networks. India has more than 40 cable news channels, for example.

''Here it is, we have 200 channels of the same stuff, and people are saying let's do more of it,'' said Sameer Nair, chief executive of Star Entertainment, a News Corporation subsidiary. ''That will churn and change.'' (In an indication that competition is intensifying, Mr. Nair announced last month that he would be leaving Star in March. According to news reports, he will be helping a rival Indian-owned TV company start a new entertainment channel.)

AS media executives try to introduce innovative programming, exactly what can go on the air in India remains fluid. There is no overt censorship of television content, but most media companies say they aggressively police themselves to avoid running afoul of political and cultural mores.

Several movie channels were forced to go off the air for more than a week last summer when a court in Mumbai ruled in favor of a schoolteacher who had argued that films that had been rated for adult viewing only in their cinematic release could not be shown on television without being edited and recertified for a wider audience.

In some ways, television fare in India today is far more adventurous than it was even five years ago. A recent adaptation of ''Big Brother,'' known here as ''Bigg Boss,'' for instance, has stirred the pot by showing minor celebrities behaving badly. Though it may seem insignificant, the show has let viewers see famous people as human beings, said Kunal Dasgupta, who heads Sony's Indian television operations, which broadcasts the show.

Still, Mr. Dasgupta knows that social customs evolve slowly here. He said he was considering ''with kid gloves'' a proposal from an Italian company to help produce a miniseries that would be based loosely on the life of Sonia Gandhi, the Italian-born leader of India's ruling Congress Party who is the widow of the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

The proposal calls for an Indian cast, but the series would take an ''Italian perspective,'' Mr. Dasgupta said. ''I find it very exciting and challenging,'' he said. ''At the same time, knowing our own media, we could be ripped apart.'' He said he was ''trying to see if we can get people who are really in power to accept that if we do such a thing it will be O.K.''

The fact that he is even considering such a proposal is a sign of how far television has come in India. And as the country continues to experience major economic and social changes, the shape of Indian television is likely to keep evolving.

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