- Title: ITALY: MUSIC TELEVISION (MTV) HOLDS IT FIRST PARTY AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
- Date: 7th September 2000
- Summary: (ARSENALE DI VENEZIA, VENICE) (7TH SEPT. 2000) (REUTERS SLV BOAT ARRIVALS AT PARTY VENUE AT NIGHT VARIOUS, MTV LOGO SMV WATER BUSES BRING GUESTS CLOSE UP, FLAMING TORCHES CLOSE UP MTV LOGO ON WALL VARIOUS, MTV PRESENTER 'CHRIS' SLV , GUESTS ARRIVE SMV BAR-TENDERS SERVING VARIOUS, MORE GUESTS ARRIVE AND START DANCING (7 SHOTS) SMV US DJ DAVID MORALES ON STAGE VARIOUS, GUES
- Embargoed: 22nd September 2000 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: VENICE, ITALY
- Country: Italy
- Reuters ID: LVA5ELP912XE0EMEW0G4PXNKXAFN
- Story Text: Music Television better known as MTV have staged their first ever 'party' at the Venice Film Festival. Talent boated-in included top-liner Kylie Minogue, David Morales and Group Armada, but the event very nearly proved to be a wash-out in more ways than one. Perhaps it was the work of Casanova's ghost! MTV, never slow in spotting a promotional opportunity, descended on Venice this year to stage their first-ever 'party' amidst the beautiful canals and lagoons and the assembled international media busily covering the on-going film festival.
Setting up shop in the 16th century ship-building yard and arsenal for the Venetian navy, the Arsenale di Venezia, MTV invited over twelve-hundred guests to the revels and planned to have the performing talent arrive by gondola.
But a major thunderstorm put paid to those plans and the event threatened to be a wash-out.
British dance-meisters Group Armada declined to risk playing their set leaving the night clear for born-again disco queen Kylie Minogue to take to the sodden stage and belt-out a quick set reprising something old and unveiling something new.
Unfortunately Miss Minogue declined to speak to the waiting media waiting until 0245 for promised interviews and was said to have quit the gig upset amidst suggestions that her boyfriend had been denied special access back-stage.
She also declined Reuters permission to air pictures of her performance.
Major US producer and DJ talent David Morales lept to centre-stage after Kylie departed, for a blitzing session on the turntable that had the five-hundred-year-old walls of the Arsenale shaking.
Morales clearly prefers performing in Europe, current home to dance music.
"I think it's very fresh you know," he told Reuters.
"Compared with what I come from in the American market where dance music is the bastard child of music and I like Europe because is a culture for it you know.
"There's a lot of magazines, a lot of radio stations, even TV programs - your MTV out in Europe is better than MTV in America because it crosses over and you get a lot of dance from techno to trance to r & b to hip-hop to house - to everything which I think is very important because you expose your listeners to more your viewers to more things which is important."
In his time Morales as produced anybody who's anybody from Whitney Houston to Michael Jackson. He loves breaking new talent in too.
"I get the same energy whether you're Whitney Houston - the biggest pop singer on the planet or you're an unknown new artist that's got an incredible amount of talent. I look at you the same way, you're a person with great talent you know and I choose who I want to work with based on their music and based on their talent not because of their name."
Mozart resided in Venice for a while writing some of the world's great music and it was home too to the world's greatest lover Casanova.
The haunting alleyways and canals of the city have long been reputed to be haunted and right on cue Casanova's ghost put an appearance in at the MTV gig not clad in a sheet but instead cutting his way through one before joining the revelers and treating them to some baroque castrato! There were jugglers and street artists and the party rocked on till dawn.
MTV have long staged a party at Cannes, during the film festival there, but it now seems they're set to become a regular feature at Venice's film biennale. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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