This is a picture of the Taj Mahal that i built in SL. It took me over 4 months to build this and it has around 4500 prims including the Taj Mahal garden area and as you can see i also built the taj gatehouse. I built this with inspiration after looking at pictures of the real Taj Mahal and i hope that other people will enjoy this Taj Mahal as much as i enjoyed making it.

It is available for purchase although i don't have a fixed price yet. It can not be copied or modified so that it will be unique.

Posted by james8170

On June 1, Ballet Pixelle (formerly Second Life Ballet) premiered their fifth ballet "Shuzenji". Set in Edo era Japan, "Shuzenji" tells the story of two lovers, Sakura and Tokai, who are separated from each other when Tokai is murdered by four jealous courtesans, or Oirans at the shrine of Shuzenji. Because Tokai died violently, he became a Yurei, a spirit who is trapped at the place where his life was taken. The faithful Sakura continued to visit Tokai at the shrine and because of her devotion Tokai's spirit was released and he was able to wander the world. Sakura, fearful of losing him again, commits suicide so that she can be with him forever, and they are joined together in the spirit world, along with the countless spirits of others, the Obake.

This is a very ambitious ballet, one that took almost five months to create. The story and choreography, both created by the director and founder of Ballet Pixelle Inarra Saarinen, help to explore "the geographic and cultural diversity of Second Life by dancing about the unique Edo era of Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate in the 1700's" as well as "the universal feelings of love, commitment and loss.", according to Saarinen. The music was written for the ballet by popular Japanese composer and performer Solary Clary (rl Sora Izumikawa, www. sorasora.com), who was present at the premiere. The Edo era is convincingly and beautifully brought to the stage by the use of the gorgeous and elaborate costumes, which contrast with the simplicity of the sets created by Mark Cassini.
According to Saarinen, Ballet Pixelle is "dancing into the digital future", by exploring the intersection of the real and virtual world. Saarinen creates the animations used in the performances; there are no poseballs or looping, no artificial synchronizing devices, each dancer is actually dancing live during each performance. I was invited to watch a rehearsal for "Shuzenji" and while it is strikingly similar to a real rehearsal, the dancers must learn to deal with challenges specific to Second Life. Of course there are the things you would expect, such as lag, but also just imagine that the dancers must find the correct spot up in the air, so that altogether they present the particular vision of the choreographer. As well, the dancers and others involved with the ballet are scattered all over the world from Japan to Europe to the United States. This requires a lot of coordination and commitment from everyone, complicated by the different time zones.
The name of the company was recently changed to Ballet Pixelle, from Second Life Ballet, Saarinen said "to better represent that we are a unique company with a virtual base" with the word "Pixelle" used "to keep the digital element clear."
"Shuzenji" will be performed on Wednesdays and Sundays at 5 pm throughout June at the Ballet Pixelle IBM theatre, IBM 10 (14, 179, 25) Join the Ballet Pixelle group to receive updates and information.

Tokai is murdered at the shrine of Shuzenji (act 1)
Sakura visits Tokai at the shrine (act 2)
Tokai and Sakura are re-united in the spirit world (act 3)
Cast and Crew of Shuzenji Mark Cassini (+MC+), Neena Botanical (+Obake+), Tatianna Kurri (+Obake+), Amelie Dibou (+Sakura+), Tik Merlin (+Tokai+), Lina Lageos (+Obake+), Pyper Dollinger (+Obake+), in front, Inarra Saarinen (founder and director)

Posted by HibiscusH

iReport.com: Watch the video >>
The renowned Second Life artist Ravenelle Zugzwang has been exploring machinima in Second Life, and along the way she has created a visual buffet of 19 video shorts, a series revolving around Ducky. These shorts are being very well received by the Second Life community. You may find them either on Flikr or on YouTube. All but one run under one minute thirty seconds in length. Most of them also highlight a creator or location to check out in Second Life. The Ducky series quickly spoils your senses with color, movement and sound. Who is this Duck that is not a Duck? http://www.youtube.com/user/Ravenellea
Posted by Ravenelle Zugzwang

iReport.com: Watch video of the performance
Phorkyad Acropolis Greek Theater (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Cookie/59/28/33) Director Phoryad Acropolis (right) looks on as Tiresias Messenger dances to honor Dionysus in the upcoming SL theatre production of Euripides' THE BACCHAE. As imagined for SL by Acropolis, the show has dancing, godlike powers, and of course cross-dressing! The show also features familiar names from SL theatre as well as some newcomers. For more info, see: http://musofyr.com/bacchae.html. Seating will be limited for each showing. The performance dates and times are SAT, May 3; 3pm SL time SUN, June 1; 3pm SL time WED, June 4; 5pm SL time SAT, June 7; 3pm SL time
Visit Cookie (25, 28, 21)
Posted by Phorkyad Acropolis

Pictured: The fireworks display that kicked off the Feynman's 90th Birthday Bash.

SciArt Media holds 90th Birthday Bash and Science Conference for Richard Feynman This weekend, May 10th and 11th, SciArt Media is holding a two-day astronomy and physics conference to celebrate both National Astronomy Day Saturday, as well as a 90th birthday celebration for the late Richard Feynman. The real-life company with an office in Second Life is presenting speakers, a plenary session and a fireworks display to celebrate the occasion. Free Feynman T-Shirts are also available throughout the center. The weekend will feature George Djorgovski of CalTech, talking about the makeup of the Universe, as well as Gus Rosania of the American Chemical Society leading students on an “Amazing Journey” through the human body, like that dreamt up by Isaac Asimov. Admission to the event is free. SL URL re-direct is: http://secondlife.sciartmedia.com. More info at: http://www.sciartmedia.com/Dicks90th.
Submitted by Sciartmedia Sands

The Rasmuson Gallery of Alaskan Artists officially open Monday, May 12 with a gala reception. Located on the University of Alaska Fairbanks sim Rhetorica, the project features a growing exhibit of art by artists based in Alaska. Each artist is a grantee of the Rasmuson Foundation. There will be music, video, and virtual food at the opening for all Second Life residents to enjoy. Jeffronius Criss, VP of Rasmuson Foundation, announced the 2008 Individual Artists Award recipients and unveiled art in the gallery. The Individual Artist Awards is a program of the Arts and Culture Initiative, a ten-year $20 million investment to increase the impact of arts in Alaska.
Visit Rhetorica (223, 243, 55)
Posted by Cybergrrl Oh

Caption: Playboy Managers Kimberly Laughton and Kattatonic Yates discuss how to handle the latest violation.

At Belle Belle Furniture and More (171, 126, 21), customers can pick up a free animated sunbathing towel with the Playboy logo. But is it legal? Not this time. On May 2, two managers from the officially-licensed sim teleported to the Belle Belle store to investigate the free towel display. Trademark infringement is still a major problem in Second Life, especially for real life companies that don't have an in-world presence to police the situation. Many RL businesses are fed up with the blatant logo theft, including one of the biggest RL players in SL, Playboy Enterprises.
Posted by MincedMedia Clip

Second Life is becoming more and more a virtual stage that fits for promotion and diffusing on the web of music in all its aspects, but :it’s quite unespected that an RL production starts debuting in SL prior to RL. That's the case of the musical "Odissea"a work by Marco e Massimo Grieco;whose debut will happen before inworld ( May 9th at 12:30 slt, in the land Italia Vera (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Italia%2010%20Milano/19/23/86) followed by the Real Life debut in the summer 2008 . The aim of this performance inworld is to take advantage of SL potential in order to promoting both the RL work and to raise funds for a benefit association A.M.R.E.F.African Medical Research Foundation http://www.amref.it/index.cfm This project actually affects for his smartness so we decided to make some questions to the authors, Marco and Massimo Grieco,who kindly accepted to meet us and reveal what drived them to start this project. Marco and Massimo told me about themeselves and their passions , explaining their concept of musical composition , based on research and experimentation . Their rediscovery of ancient myths together with the love for traveling in the greek lands roused the desire of putting in music the story of Ulysses and his " nostos" ,a kind of coming back to the common roots of Mediterranean civilisation. The musical is above all a teamwork: behind the scenes many people worked to this project: some international companies have been charged with the developing of the gestures tin order to give naturalness to avatars overacting.Furthermore some of the best sl developers worked to this produstion :the virtual director ”, Dario de Judicibus,the audio supervisor Claudio Crocetti, Franca Olivieri who made the avatars and their costumes, Rolando Ferri PR handler, Jeremy R. Cooper the English translator:to this team it’s necessary to add dozen of people with the task of moving the avatars . It comes spontaneous asking Marco which has been the motivation that caused him to use a pop genre as musical for the stage play of Homer's masterpiece, wich is one of the cornerstone of western civilisation.He states that the idea is the result of the friendly talk with his brother and Ciro Caravano (of Neri per caso), the three friends have ben taken by the need of both doing a musical and giving voice to a sort of reflection upon Homeric myth:the captivation of human being resides in the never ending contradiction between the strength of his mind and the weakness of his passions:this is the ultimate meaning of Ulysses adventures. The musical panoply of the work draws on a well recognizable leit motif "La Partenza di Telemaco", and I asked Marco which has been his source of inspiration:" All the flavours, the sensations and emotions -he says- that I felt year after year during my travels all around in Greek islands ,as Itaca and Cefalonia , enriched me with sounds and colors that suddendly became a part of my souls; these boosts joined my personal backgound : in fact, Hyonic Greece musical instruments and its traditional prosody are really so similar to the ones which is possible to find in southern Italy:("bouzouki" is realy similar to guitar mandolin):it seemed so natural ,for me, to let them flow into music.!" This kind of traditional roots have been the cue for an happy contamination with pop, rap and even rock, in order to incline contemporary audience towards the great Homeric work.This natural and spontaneous plot gave life to arrangements that go back over world music and classical tradition arising a very enjoyable mixing! Actually a musical is not only made by... music so we asked Massimo about which kind of specific work did it require the Odissea's "mise en scene ". "Rather than isolating single episodes-he answers- we preferred cutting it down through the music in order to evoke the pathos aroused by Odissea. We decided therefore to synthesize the feelings of characters in a few drawings." At this point I asked the authors about the kind of troubles found in the fullfillment of the project: "Well we had to solve a lot of technical problems,- Massimo says- as the realisation of scenes (as Polyphemos and the monster of Scilla) , the continous changes of setting and the complex interaction between virtual environment and real dancers: the choice has been to keep virtual the set designs in order to let the "real" artists express themselves singing and dancing. " The enthusiastic way of present their creature explains how it's been possible for them to gather supports around the project : "Everyone who listened to the musical offered himself completely for this cause, starting from actors, dancers choreographers and so on."hte authors say. As a last question I asked who are the persons who have helped the most fotr the fullfillment of this project and they answered:"In RL the promoter of Premio Charlot who strongly wanted the performance of Odissea in the archeological area of Paestum (SA) and in SecondLife Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia who decided to host the musical inworld in his lands(Italia Vera). Ulysses story,after 3200 years, is still up to date and it's definetly able to move deeply and make everyone dream: this is a good reason to wait the debut of "Odissea he musical" even in our Second Life.
Posted by Simona Dawes

his is the virtual Paestum amphiteater built for the debut of the musical "Odissea"
Submitter Comments Friday May 9th, Italia Vera and his creator Carlo Biscaretti di Ruffia will present in Second Life the musical"Odissey",a work by Marco e Massimo Grieco;it's the first musical whose debut will happen before inworld and then in Real Life: in the summer 2008 this work will be performed in the ancient theater in Paestum. Ulysses story is a cornerstone for the development of western man:the musical transposition of the homeric hero's adventures,aware both of his weakness and of his intellectual power, will carry away the watchers into a travel through time and memory. A short version of RL musical will be performed inSL: Italia Vera 's buiders are setting up a virtual copy of Paestum amphiteatre, laying above four lands,one of which is entirely dedicated to actors, that will be able to gather hundreds of spectators . In order to bring the musical inworld it's been necessary to find some advanced tecnichal solutions concerning both the avatars creation with animations and costumes and the set design: this project is currently involving several people, whose technical and artistic skills have been tried out in a really challenging way. The aim of this performance inworld is to take advantage of SL potential in order to promoting both the RL work and to raise funds for a benefit association A.M.R.E.F.African Medical Research Foundation http://www.amref.it/index.cfm
Posted by Simona Dawes