“While the locals flock to the 300 or so venues, they are largely un-visited by tourists and expats because one of the main requirements for a visit is a good knowledge of French. At least that’s what Carl de Poncins says. He quit his job as the marketing director of a multinational company last year to focus on making theatre accessible for English speakers by introducing surtitles.”
Tag: 02.18.15
How Ballet Dancers Make Pop Music Videos Incomparably Better
“Behold, a brief history of ballet invading pop music.”
Clinging To Timelessness In A Changing Cosmos
“Traditional science has little to offer our longing for permanence, leading many to disenchantment, says commentator Marcelo Gleiser. Can we be scientific and satisfy our desire for transcendence?”
SoCal Arts Groups Courting A New Donor Source: Chinese-Americans
“With a median income that exceeds the national average, and a cultural heritage that prizes the arts, it’s little wonder that Chinese Americans would be seen as a promising source of donations. But there are challenges. Many wealthy Chinese Americans are immigrants who don’t have strong connections to L.A.’s cultural institutions. … [And] for wealthy Chinese Americans living in L.A., arts philanthropy is a relatively new concept.”
The Refugees Who Created The Sound Of Hollywood
Violinist Daniel Hope looks at the composers who fled the Nazis and settled in Los Angeles – and supported themselves by creating a style of music that defined an industry.
Why Zadie Smith Will Not Keep A Diary Ever
“I realize I don’t want any record of my days. I have the kind of brain that erases everything that passes, almost immediately, like that dustpan-and-brush dog in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland sweeping up the path as he progresses along it. I never know what I was doing on what date, or how old I was when this or that happened – and I like it that way.”
When Virtual Reality Becomes Good Enough, Will Masses Of People Just Give Up On Real Life?
“The appeal of these environments is not so much that they help us totally escape reality. Rather, it is that they make us believe that we can recreate and change our own.’ In that way, rather than forcing a mass rejection of society, virtual worlds may open new ways of examining our own.”
Met Opera And ENO Commission Second Work From Nico Muhly
The two companies, which developed and premiered Muhly’s recent Two Boys, will work with the composer on an adaptation of Marnie, Winston Graham’s 1961 novel (made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock) about a woman blackmailed into marrying one of her bosses after she gets caught embezzling.
Those Who Stay: The Lives Of Writers’ Companions
“We often know very little about those who live closely and share the lives of the writers about whom we apparently know so much. Part of this is wilful mythologizing. We like to think of the writer as indestructible as the text, preferring not to imagine who might make them breakfast in the morning or help them put on their shoes when they are too old to manage it by themselves.” A look at “Miss Alice” Lee, Ted Hughes, John Bayley, Leonard Woolf, and Valerie Eliot.
Guthrie Theater Names New Artistic Director
“His name might not have been on the handicappers’ shortlist, but Joseph Haj’s appointment Tuesday as artistic director of the Guthrie Theater brought waves of acknowledgment and praise. ‘He’s a huge player on the national scene – one of the finest theater artists working in America today,’ said [former NEA head of theater] Ralph Remington.”