Most of the world gets its higher education in big public universities or specialized technical or vocational schools. But small liberal arts schools are opening in pockets of Europe, Asia and Africa. Some are branch campuses of U.S. schools, but many were founded by graduates of American colleges who wanted to spread liberal education in their own countries.
Tag: 02.16.09
Hytner: Drama Schools Teach Too Much Theory And Neglect Practical Skills
“One of Britain’s leading directors has bemoaned the deficiencies of the next generation of actors, who he says are being taught theatre theory above drama skills. Nicholas Hytner, the director of the National Theatre, said the failure to concentrate on the craft of acting would leave actors unequipped to rise to the challenges of the stage.”
Norman Foster To Design London’s New Double-Decker Bus
A proposal by Foster and Partners and manufacturer Aston Martin (better known for sports cars) has won the New Bus for London design competition run by mayor Boris Johnson. The rounded red double-deckers should be on the roads in 2011.
The Prodigal Ballerina Returns (As Choreographer)
Feeling like she didn’t quite fit in at the august New York City Ballet (“I felt like if I didn’t do something exactly the same way they wanted me to, it made me look bad, or like a rebel”), Melissa Barak fled in 2007 for Los Angeles Ballet. But NYCB ballet master Peter Martins “doesn’t hold a grudge. Last year, he sent her a letter asking her to return, this time as choreographer of a major work for her alma mater.”
Nazi Officer In The Pianist Honored By Yad Vashem
“Wilm Hosenfeld, the German officer whose assistance to Wladyslaw Szpilman in the [Roman Polanski] movie The Pianist made him famous, has been posthumously recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations for risking his life to save Jews during World War II.”
Philip K. Dick’s Widow Reworks His Last, Unfinished Book
“Philip K Dick’s last wife has reworked the novel the legendary science fiction author was working on when he died in 1982. Tessa Dick, who described her self-publication of The Owl in Daylight as a tribute to her former husband, was Dick’s fifth and final wife, marrying him in 1973. She told online magazine the Self-Publishing Review that her version of the novel was an attempt to express ‘the spirit’ of Dick’s proposed book.”
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf Jr. Dies At 90
“Alfred A. Knopf Jr., who left the noted publishing house run by his parents to become one of the founders of Atheneum Publishers in 1959, died on Saturday. He was 90, the last of the surviving founders, and lived in New York City.”
Stop Your Spending Clampdown; The Theatre Needs You
“I don’t need theatre tickets. Yet I buy them, partly because they have never been cheaper – and partly because, if people don’t start buying tickets to the theatre, they won’t have any theatre left to go to. I am not asking my fellow Americans to buy things they do not need. I am asking them to zone in on things they really do enjoy and spread their cash around.”
A Morris-Dancing Revival? But It’s Only Just Disappeared!
“Four weeks is a long time in morris dancing. Only last month, stories were circulating that Morris dancing was a dying past-time. But now, if new reports are to be believed, it’s enjoying a major comeback. Of course, morris dancing never left anywhere for it to come back to – because unlike Lily Allen, Twitter or political leaders, it is something that is entirely impervious to trends and utterly immune to what we – the public – think of it.”
Will Technology Make Movie Stars Obsolete?
Nearly an hour of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button only seems like it has Brad Pitt in it. What the audience is really seeing is computer wizardry. So: How long before Hollywood decides that living, breathing movie stars are no longer necessary?