Back in 2005, as they were nearing retirement from Pennsylvania Ballet, Christine Cox and Matthew Neenan decided to put together a little group to dance at the Philly Fringe. They hoped that maybe, one day, they’d perform at Jacob’s Pillow and Vail. Now BalletX has ten dancers on 40-week contracts, commissions major choreographers, does up to eight world premieres a season, and tours around the U.S. (yes, including Vail and the Pillow) and to Europe. – Pointe Magazine
Tag: 02.06.20
First Major Arts Venue To Make All Its Performances ‘Relaxed’
Starting this month, London’s Battersea Arts Centre is making all its events “relaxed performances” — at which audience members may enter, leave, move around, and sometimes make noise, and first developed for neurodivergent patrons. – The Times (UK)
Audible And The Big Publishers May Finally Have Figured Out This Caption Thing
In settling out of court, apparently, “Audible has agreed not to include the copyrighted works of seven plaintiff publishers in its ‘Captions’ program without express permission.” This does not, of course, apply to works in the public domain, and indeed, “Audible sources confirmed to PW that the company currently has no plan to move forward with the Captions program beyond its limited pilot with public domain works for students.” – Publishers Weekly
Author Says The UK Educational System Is Dreary, Needs More Laughter
Michael Rosen blames the Reformation – truly. That time period was “when they thought the only way you could be virtuous was to be modest and serious, so humour was pushed aside, seen as frivolous … even dangerous. And that seeps through into education today, so there’s a slight fear of subversiveness or laughter, as well as a dismissal of it. And for some of us, humour is a means of survival.” – The Guardian (UK)
Dee Rees Is Working On A New Hollywood Empire, One That’s Good For Black Women Directors
Rees, whose Pariah hit the indie scene hard in 2011 and whose 2017 Mudbound earned four Oscar nominations, “is placing a thick spread of bets, in the hope that she will soon be able to play as boldly as she wants” in Hollywood. “Rees said her strategy is to work on ‘five things at once and see which one sticks.’ Each time we talked, she was working on a new project. Once it was a television show about a black police officer in the South, set in the 1970s. Another time it was a potential collaboration with a black playwright. This is both a survival tactic designed to navigate the ever-changing tides of a mercurial entertainment industry and perhaps also a defense mechanism.” – The New York Times
How Cleveland Ballet’s Partnership With A Local Hospital Works
“How is their pelvis shifting? How is their back moving? Is their foot collapsing in as they’re plieing? Is their weight over as they jump onto one foot?” They’re finding points of weaknesses before they turn into problems. – News 5 Cleveland
Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Plans To Be A National Leader
New OSF director Nataki Garrett has big plans. In the next few years, she plans to push technology-driven initiatives, like the launch of a digital archive and an OSF app. She’s also developing a residency for artists across different mediums as well as forging an alliance of West Coast theatres. As she marches toward her one-year anniversary, Garrett continues to think about OSF’s expansion and catalyzing larger shifts in the American theatre. – Playbill
Should The Classical Music World Just Cancel The 19th Century?
Musicologist Doug Shadle introduces his new blog/newsletter by suggesting that both the professional concert ecosystem and conservatory education can’t modernize, as everyone seems to think they should, because of “nineteenth-century elitism designed to exclude and punish rather than help students thrive. These values are so pervasive that we often can’t see them for what they are.” – The Classical Alternative
When Dorothy Parker Got Fired From Vanity Fair
She had been the magazine’s theatre critic for less than two years, and in trouble with her editor for much of that time, when one column enraged both David Belasco and Florenz Ziegfeld so much that libel suits were threatened. Her dismissal became a minor cause célèbre in the press, made her famous enough to maintain a freelance career ever after, and launched the Algonquin Round Table on the road to renown. – The Public Domain Review
The Strange Superstitions And Pre-Show Rituals Of Ballet Dancers
Some of them are sweet and sentimental, but they can be every bit as weird as those of actors and athletes. Sarah Kaufman talks to a dozen or so dancers from several companies about what they do and why. – The Washington Post