The Cultural Frontline

As countries around the world face up to the challenge of the coronavirus we hear how life and culture are changing in Milan, Italy. The Italian author and screenwriter Ilaria Bernardini, reflects on how musicians, poets, writers and even chefs, are uniting to bring hope during an uncertain time.

For the Lebanese poet, Zeina Hashem Beck poetry is how she channels her creative energy, her emotions and her questions. She talks to Tina about how a sense of place and particularly the cities of Tripoli and Beirut inform her poetry.

The internationally renowned designer Christian Louboutin talks about how his childhood love for the Parisian institution, the Museum of African and Oceanic Arts, inspired a life in fashion.

Corruption, crime and the seedy underbelly of Warsaw. Features you wouldn’t expect to find included in a ‘love letter’ to your home city. But that’s how novelist Jakub Zulcyzck describes his book, Blinded by the Light which is being made into a TV series for HBO. Jakub Zulcyzck tells The Cultural Frontline why Warsaw is such a special city despite its darker side.

Presented by Tina Daheley

Image: A family making music on an Italian balcony

From selling slippers on the streets of Taipei as a child to running a world class dance company, we meet the new artistic director of Cloud Gate. Choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung tells us how he transformed his childhood experiences into a sensory explosion of sound, neon light and spectacular movement on stage in the latest production 13 Tongues.

Two dancers on a mission to replace caricature with character. Georgina Pazcoguin and Phil Chan of the campaign group Final Bow for Yellowface tell us why they’re working to eliminate offensive stereotypes of East Asians on our stages.

It’s been called Georgia's first LGBTQ+ film, has been critically acclaimed but has also attracted controversy. The actor and dancer Levan Gelbakhiani shares the story of making the new drama “And then We Danced.”

Presented by Tina Daheley

Image: A dancer on stage in 13 Tongues

As the world reacts to the guilty verdicts against the former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein we speak to directors, actors and producers about creating film in the age of #Metoo.

A young woman who works for a media mogul and the degrading climate he's created at the office. That’s the subject of the latest film by the acclaimed Australian writer and director Kitty Green. She talks to Tina Daheley about the challenges and the real life inspirations behind her new drama, The Assistant.

In the 92 year history of the Academy Awards there has only been one female winner of the best director Oscar; Kathryn Bigelow. This year as #OscarsSoMale trended on social media many people asked: Does Hollywood has a problem with female directors? The American director Rachel Feldman and the Bangladeshi film maker Rubaiyat Hossain, share their experiences of working in the film industry and tell us why their films tell the stories of strong women fighting for justice and equality.

How do you direct love scenes in the age of #MeToo? South African actor Nthati Moshesh and film director Sara Blecher tell Megha Mohan how they are working to create a comfortable and safe environment for all actors when filming intimate scenes.

Presented by Megha Mohan

Image: Kitty Green on the set of the Assistant

The working class London kid who became an Oscar winning director, the artistic maverick who became a knight of the realm. Tina Daheley speaks to Sir Steve McQueen about the influences that turned him into one of Britain’s greatest living artists as a career spanning exhibition of his work opens at London’s Tate Modern gallery.

Plus the visionary Iranian film-maker and artist Shirin Neshat talks about her latest work, Land of Dreams. She reveals why she has turned her lens to Trump’s America, to tell the stories of ordinary people, their hopes and dreams and how she hopes art can foster a greater understanding between the United States and Iran.

Presented by Tina Daheley

(Photo: Steve McQueen. Credit: Getty Images/Michael Kovac)

Described as Chile’s answer to Lauryn Hill, Chilean hip hop em cee Ana Tjoux has made her name rapping against inequality. Ana tells Tina about her recent track #cacerolazo, which became an anthem for the 2019 protests in Chile. The soundtrack of the demonstrations, wooden spoons drummed on pans, form the beat beneath her words.

Taking extreme risks for his rhymes, Iraqi rapper Mr Guti continues to make music about his city, Basra, despite several threats to his life. Drawing attention to the dangerous conditions and civil unrest in his country, we hear why Mr Guti filmed a music video in a burning government building.

Move over Outkast, step aside Run the Jewels. There is a new star duo that could be changing the way we think about rap, Hip-Hop Psych. Hip Hop Psych is made up of Dr Akeem Sule and Dr Becky Inkster, a Consultant Psychiatrist and a Clinical Neuroscientist. They reveal how they are using hip-hop to better treat and understand mental illness.

Presented by Tina Daheley

Image: Ana Tijoux

When war broke out in Yemen, Murad Subay began painting murals on the shelled and bullet-marked buildings of his home city of Sana’a.

Photo: A mural by Murad Subay Credit: Murad Subay

Murad Subay is voiced by Fayez Bakhsh

Sell out tours, millions of social media followers and adoring fans across the globe. Welcome to the world of Dimash, Central Asia’s biggest pop star. We find out how he went from a child singer to a pioneer of pop music and why he is trying to change the world’s perception of his home country, Kazakhstan.

Has a song, a book, a work of art ever changed the way you see the world? Zandra Rhodes, one of British fashion’s leading trend setters, reveals why the work of the artist Duggie Fields inspires her.

They have been dubbed “the wildest DJ crew and label in Mexico” and have been credited with revolutionising a dance music scene in Mexico City that has been devastated by the War on Drugs. The BBC’s Emmanuella Kwenortey speaks to the creative minds behind the pioneering artistic collective NAAFI and finds out what drives these cultural mavericks.

Plus we find out why the sky is the limit for Indian statues. The writer Sandip Roy explores the increasingly competitive and record breaking nature of public art and public life in India.

Presented by Tina Daheley

Image: Dimash in concert. Credit: Nikita Basov

House of Kenzo are the underground dance collective revolutionising Texan nightlife. We join Breezy, Roxy, Flo, Gemel and Toni over a weekend, as they perform at the opening of a queer film festival in Austin and in their hometown of San Antonio.

Each performance is a conceptual piece of artwork with built in messages of radical self-expression, body positivity, ecology and community. Constructing a DIY stage on the dancefloor, House of Kenzo blend jaw-dropping dance moves - voguing, krumping, break dancing in ten inch heels - with avant garde club music, shouting explicit mantras at the audience, inviting them to join in a communal, often cathartic, dance battle.

For local artist Ben Aqua, they represent the future of queer culture. Their volatile energy, flamboyant fashion, and total freedom of expression are inspiring a movement in Texas - a traditionally conservative state. Their events are often a springboard for other LGBT artists of colour in the underground nightlife scene.

Local journalist and DJ, Dan Gentile, believes House of Kenzo have a real future not in just music but in performance art, the type of higher end culture that would traditionally be difficult for an underground art collective to break into.

To date, they’ve performed showcases at Austin’s SXSW, Day For Night Festival in Houston, and are beginning to tour all over the US, and will be travelling to Europe for the first time this October.

A Just Radio Production for BBC World Service. Produced by Victoria Ferran.

Image: Roxy and Breezy from underground arts collective House of Kenzo (Credit: Ben Aqua)