Quick Takes: Cirque show brief but free

Cirque du Soleil will be giving a free public performance at the official opening of the annual Los Angeles Arts Month festival, taking place from noon to 1:30 p.m. Jan. 5 at the Music Center Plaza in downtown Los Angeles.

The Cirque performance is expected to be brief — about five minutes — and will feature a handstand contortionist from the touring show “Kooza,” a spokeswoman said Tuesday. The event also will feature David Hidalgo and Louie Perez of Los Lobos, the L.A. Chicano rock band.

Los Angeles Arts Month, now in its third year, is a promotional effort by arts organizations around the county to encourage residents and visitors to attend local cultural venues and events.

—David Ng

Buzz Lightyear to be on stamp

Two of America’s favorite spacemen — the cool-headed Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard and the animated Buzz Lightyear of “Toy Story” fame — join movie stars, musicians and artists being honored in 2011 with stamps from the U.S. Postal Service.

Actress Helen Hayes, twice the winner of an Academy Award (1931’s “The Sin of Madelon Claudet” and 1970’s “Airport”), will be honored with a stamp. Joining her is another Oscar winner, actor Gregory Peck (1962’s “To Kill a Mockingbird”).

Actress Carmen Miranda, whose fruit-filled headgear made her an icon of 1940s musical comedies, is being remembered in the five-stamp Latin Music Legends series. Others are Selena, Carlos Gardel, Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.

Animated characters like Buzz Lightyear get their due in a series of Disney Pixar stamps from the movies “Cars,” “Ratatouille,” “Toy Story,” “Up” and “Wall-E.”

—Associated Press

‘Teen Mom’ star arrested

Prosecutors in central Indiana have filed felony domestic battery and child neglect charges against a star of the MTV reality show “Teen Mom.”

Police in Anderson began investigating 20-year-old Amber Portwood after a September episode showed her slapping, choking and kicking the 24-year-old father of her daughter.

Portwood was arrested Monday and jailed under a 24-hour hold until Tuesday afternoon.

Det. Mitch Carroll told the (Anderson, Ind.) Herald Bulletin that the child neglect charges stem from Portwood’s then-year-old daughter being present during two filmed instances of domestic violence.

—Associated Press

‘Winnie the Opera’ due

South African State Theatre will tackle the triumphant and troubled times of the former wife of post-apartheid President Nelson Mandela in a production called “Winnie the Opera.”

The opera about Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, seen as the face of the African National Congress while her then husband was held for years as a political prisoner, will open next year in Pretoria, its producers said.

The opera focuses on when Madikizela-Mandela was summoned in 1997 before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body charged with investigating wrongs committed during apartheid, to probe the murder of one of her supporters.

Madikizela-Mandela was acquitted of the murder of Stompie Seipei but convicted of aiding in the kidnapping of the teenager. Her prison sentence was reduced to a fine on appeal.

She is a member of the country’s ruling African National Congress and a member of parliament. Nelson Mandela and Madikizela-Mandela separated in 1992 and divorced in 1996.

—Reuters

Chef’s book is really cooking

Jamie Oliver, the energetic British chef who won over Americans — and picked up an Emmy — with his television show “Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution,” had the bestselling book in Britain in the weeks leading to Christmas.

From Dec. 15 to 22, “Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals” sold just shy of 150,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan.

The BBC reported that the cookbook is Oliver’s third to top the holiday bestseller list, after “Jamie’s Italy” in 2005 and “Happy Days With the Naked Chef” in 2001.

But “Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals” has moved past those earlier books in popularity. Earlier this month,

it became Britain’s fastest-selling nonfiction book ever.

“Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals” costs about $40 and has now sold more than 1 million copies.

It’s been on sale in Britain since September but is not available in the United States.

—Carolyn Kellogg

Finally

New museum: China on Tuesday began work on a museum in the southwestern province of Sichuan commemorating a massive 2008 earthquake in the region that left nearly 87,000 people dead or missing, state media said.

The project is expected to cost $34.7 million and is due to be completed by May 12, the third anniversary of the disaster.