In 1915 ballet producer Sergei Diaghilev wanted to create a ballet called "La Liturgie". Its background would be the Greek Orthodox Church. Stravinsky was a strong Christian, and did not want to write this ballet. He turned instead to Russian folk songs for "Les Noces". He had started to think about this in 1913. Michel Fokine started the choreography but Vaslav Nijinsky took over. Leonide Massine stepped in for Nijinsky. When Massine left, Bronislava Nijinska designed the dancing.
Design for the ballet (sets and clothing) was done by Natalia Goncharova. Goncharova, an outstanding artist, made two complete designs before her third was accepted. The first two designs were rejected because they did not suit either the dancing or the musical score. The ballet, though based on a folk tale, was modernist in style: Stravinsky and Nijinska thought it was important for its design to be in sympathy with this.
The bride, Nastasia, is having her hair done. She complains that it hurts when pulled. The choir sing to her about how beautiful her life will be with her husband, Fétis. The nightingales will sing to them in the garden. The choir sings to the Virgin Mary. They sing about the husband-to-be and his fair hair. They ask for a blessing for the young couple. The actual marriage ceremony is not seen. In the last of the four scenes, we see the wedding feast. The people are happy and start to get drunk. The husband and wife are led to the bedroom.
The ballet is still in the repertoires of some major ballet companies, such as the Royal Ballet. It was performed in 1936 by Colonel de Basil's "Ballets Russes", one of the successor companies to that of Diaghilev. Its post-WWII revival in London (1966) was personally supervised by Nijinska. Because of this, the ballet is still danced to its original choreography. It was also performed at Stuttgart (1974) and Paris (1976). Jerome Robbins choreographed it in the American Ballet Theatre version of 1965.
Freenet
Freenet is a decentralized (hosted on many machines) network., It is censorship-resistant, which means it is not easy for anyone other than authors to remove content. The data is stored on many machines. Freenet was made by Ian Clarke. Freenet has a goal to provide freedom of speech and Freedom of information through a peer-to-peer network with protection of user's identity. Freenet works by putting together the volunteer bandwidth and storage space of member machines to allow users to anonymously publish (place or upload) or retrieve (get or download) different kinds of information. From a user's perspective, it can be thought of as simply a large storage device.
Freenet has been under continuous development since 2000; a "version 1.0" has not yet been released but current builds are usable. The project has already seen a ground-up rewrite (redoing of programming) for "version 0.7". Freenet is free software.
Fort-Liberté
Fort-Liberté (Kréyòl: "Fòlibète"; English: "Fort Liberty") is a city in northeast Haiti, on the Atlantic coast. It is the capital city of the Nord-Est "Département".
The city is on the "Baie de Fort-Liberté" ("Fort-Liberté Bay") about 56 km east of Cap-Haïtien and to the west of the Dominican Republic. It is also the chief town of an "arrondissement" (a part of a department) with the same name. The "arrondissement" has three "communes" (a "commune" is like a municipality): Fort-Liberté, Ferrier (Kreyòl: "Ferye") and Perches (Kreyòl: "Opèch").
Between 1503 and 1505, Nicolás de Ovando, Spanish governor of the Hispaniola, founded the town of "Puerto Real" (English, "Royal Port") where is the present town of "Caracol", to the west of Fort-Liberté. But soon this town was abandoned and the people moved to the east, founding in 1578 a new town with the Taíno name of the region: Bayajá.
In 1606, those persons living in the old Spanish towns of Bayajá and Yaguana had, by orders of the Spanish king, to move to the eastern part of the island, to a new town called Bayaguana, combining the two old names.
Later, when French people founded a new town in this place, they called it Fort-Dauphin in 1731, named after the "Dauphin" (the "Dolphin", son of the French king Louis XV). When the French Republic was founded, the name was changed to "Fort-Liberté" in 1792. After Henri Christophe became King Henri I of Haiti in 1811, he renamed the city Fort-Royal. In 1820, after the death of Christophe, the name was changed back to Fort Liberté.
There are several forts built around the bay. An important one is "Fort Dauphin", sometimes called "Fort Saint Joseph" (Patron Saint of the city) or "Fort Liberté". Other forts in the area are "Fort de la Bouque", "Batterie de l'Anse", "Fort Saint Charles" and "Fort Saint Frédérique".
Fort-Liberté has a small port that also receives international products and serves as a fishing port. Local agricultural products include sugarcane and citrus fruits.
Montrichard
Montrichard is a town and former commune in the Loir-et-Cher "département" (county), in France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Montrichard-Val-de-Cher.
The town is on the north bank of the Cher river. south of Blois, west of Vierzon and east of Tours. The countryside is mainly used to grow grapes and has woods, cattle and cereals.
Dan Tyminski
Daniel "Dan" Tyminski (born 1967) is an American bluegrass musician. He is famous for being a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station. He has released two solo albums: "Carry Me Across the Mountain" (2000) and "Wheels" (2008).
Tyminski was born in Rutland, Vermont.
Deepdale
Deepdale is a football stadium in Preston, Lancashire, England.
It is the stadium of Preston North End F.C. and it is the site of the National Football Museum in England. Preston North End are one of the first teams to play in England's football league and they have played at Deepdale since they first started. Deepdale is the oldest league stadium in the world.
Since 1995 Deepdale has changed a lot, the old stands have been knocked down and now it has brand new all-seater stands. Now that the changes are finished, the stadium has 23,408 seats. Other changes made include a new big screen TV to show highlights of the match and new executive boxes where Preston North End's owners and their guests sit.
Convolvulaceae
The Convolvulaceae, known commonly as the bindweed or morning glory family, is a group of about 60 genera and more than 1,650 species of mostly herbaceous vines, but also trees, shrubs and herbs.
John Gilbert (naturalist)
John Gilbert (1812? – 28 June 1845) was an English naturalist and explorer. He collected animal specimens for English naturalist John Gould. Australia's rarest animal, Gilbert's Potoroo, "Potorous gilberti", and the Gilbert-Einasleigh River were named after him.
Gilbert was born on 14 March, but the exact year is not known. It must have been between 1810 and 1815 and so most books use 1812. Gilbert was a taxidermist for the Zoological Society of London. He met English naturalist John Gould and went to Australia in 1838 with Gould. Gould paid him £100 a year to collect and preserve animals and birds for him
Gould and Gilbert arrived in Hobart on the ship "Parsee" on 19 September 1838. They were going to collect animal and bird specimens for Gould's books. Both worked in Tasmania for a few months. On 4 February 1839, Gilbert went to the Swan River settlement. He worked there for a year, mainly around Perth, collecting for Gould. Gilbert then sailed for Sydney, and in June 1840 took a ship to Port Essington in the north of Australia. In March 1841 he sailed to Singapore, stopping at Timor on the way. From there he sailed for London and arrived at the end of September. He had collected a very large number of birds for Gould, and made many notes on their habits.