Bobbi Jene Smith of Batsheva spends the entire length of Naharin’s Last Work trotting away on a treadmill upstage. Here she tells Jen Peters how she manages to do it.
Tag: 02.28.17
Gender-Bending And Fluid Sexuality? In Japan, They’ve Been Doing That For Centuries
The “genderless” young hipster types in Tokyo and Osaka who’ve been getting press coverage lately are by no means a new phenomenon there. Anthropologist Jennifer Robertson, who has spent much of her life in Japan, gives the history, from cross-dressing eighth-century women to bisexual aristocrats in classical literature to foppish 19th-century “high-collar” men to the very popular Takarazuka Revue, considered avant-garde when it opened in 1914.
Russian Oligarch Takes $60 Million Bath On Gauguin He Owned For Nine Years
So much for art – even older art as financial investment. Dmitry Rybolovlev paid €54 million (then $85 million) for Gauguin’s Te Fare (La Maison) in 2008; this week the painting sold for £20.3 million ($25 million) at Christies.
The Great ‘Disco Sucks’ Riot Of 1979
“This wouldn’t have happened if they had country and western night.” — Richard Wortham, White Sox pitcher
Hadley Meares tells the story of how Disco Demolition Night at Chicago’s Comiskey Park got a little bit out of hand.
Even Viola Davis’s Oscar Acceptance Speech Has Become Fodder For The Culture Wars
Gee, it seemed like most of us loved her speech because it transcended politics. But one sentence – one word, really – gave the right-wing internet the target it wanted. Spencer Kornhaber reads the attacks so we don’t have to.
The Out-Of-The-Way City In Northern England That Churns Out Ballet Stars
The Skelton Hooper School of Dance in Hull has produced several generations of leading dancers – not least Kevin O’Hare, now director of the Royal Ballet, who’s taking the company to the city for the first time in 30 years.
Decline Of French Towns Has French Worried About The Meaning Of “Frenchness”
“France is losing the core of its historic provincial towns — dense hubs of urbanity deep in the countryside where judges judged, Balzac set his novels, prefects issued edicts and citizens shopped for 50 cheeses.”
Phil Kennicott: Victim Of Success? Tom Campbell’s Travails At The Met Museum
In many ways, his resignation may be the most high-profile symptom of a paradoxical new age in which major museums are struggling with success.
Why Literary Writers Should Celebrate Hacks Who Make Tens Of Millions Of Dollars
The current model — big-name writers sharing wealth with unknown counterparts who enjoy the prospect of MFA employment — is a more cooperative arrangement that, while not ideal, has a better chance of ushering into existence quality literature by writers who have a shot at being able to change our lives with words.
What’s A Cultural Critic To Do? (Plenty, Actually)
“The radical potential of aesthetic negotiation relies, I think, on total freedom. Decoupled from government politics, cultural politics knows no bounds. But tweeting about an issue can encourage the critic (and her reader) to pick a stance, thereby helping to shore up the big pile of social-media meaning. Our space for aesthetic negotiation ends up laden with binaristic thought after all.”