Howard Shalwitz, longtime artistic director of the DC company Woolly Mammoth, writes about his recent visit to the Hungarian capital, reporting that, despite constant political pressure on funding and programming, “there’s still plenty of social and political kick on Budapest’s stages.” — HowlRound
Tag: 01.03.19
#MeToo Sweeps Argentina After Young Actress Accuses Star Actor Of Rape
Last month, Thelma Fardin posted a video to Instagram in which she tearfully recounted how Juan Darthés allegedly raped her while they were touring Nicaragua for a telenovela. She was 16; he was 45. Fardin’s million followers sent the video viral, with the hashtag #Miracomonosponemos (roughly, “#LookWhatYouveDoneToUs”), and the effect has been as big as that of the Harvey Weinstein accusations in the US. — Public Radio International
In Brazil, Female Readers Band Together To Support Female Writers (And They’re All Going To Need Each Other Now)
Book clubs with names such as “Read Women” have been growing in Brazilian cities, pushing for including more work by women authors in publishers’ lists, bookstores’ inventory, and even school curricula. Now those writers and their supporters worry about whether the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, and his far-right followers will undo the progress of recent years. — Public Radio International
The Year in CultureGrrl: Impolitic About Art & Politics
Once again, art-lings, let me offer you my Best Wishes for an Art-Full New Year, along with CultureGrrl’s Top 20 Stories for 2018. And I’ll end this post with a postlude about an issue that I’ve largely ducked this year — the vexing question of whether museums should be “political” and if so, in what ways. — Lee Rosenbaum
Recent Listening: O Canada
Let’s mention just a few recent recordings by Canadians whose work has caught the ears of the Rifftides staff. — Doug Ramsay
Lewis Carroll’s ‘Hunting Of The Snark’: Nonsense Poem? Or Meditation On The Nature Of Reality?
Lit scholar Nina Lyon makes the case that it’s both: Carroll was, by profession, a mathematical logician, and he saw the corner into which the field of logic and metaphysics was backing itself during his lifetime. — Aeon
The Oscar Niemeyer Modernist Landmark That ‘Could Collapse At Any Time’
There are 15 buildings designed by the Brazilian architect in the 1960s for what was meant to be a permanent international expo in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli. The civil war that started in the ’70s forced planners to abandon the project, and it’s been more or less abandoned ever since. But now that Tripoli is finally reviving, there’s a campaign to revive and rebuild Niemeyer’s complex. — The Guardian
The Most Influential Person In British Theatre Is Now An Architect: The Stage 100 For 2019
“Steve Tompkins, the Stirling Prize-winning architect behind the recently completed redevelopments of Battersea Arts Centre and Bristol Old Vic, … has claimed the number one spot in The Stage 100, … for ‘literally and physically transforming British theatre’ through his buildings. (For the complete list and further coverage, click here.) — The Stage