“In a railway station in St. Petersburg last year, backed by a full orchestra, [Ragnar] Kjartansson sang the words ‘Sorrow will conquer happiness,’ in Russian, for six hours. … [His] brand of performance art, in which Nordic gloom goes hand in hand with non-ironic humor, has made him one of the busiest artists on the planet.”
Tag: 04.11.16
New Dallas Architecture Sucks. But Why?
“This bastardized visual language has become the de facto standard of Dallas residential architecture development. The explanation for its ever-increasing prevalence, however depressing, is fairly straightforward.”
When Samuel Beckett Made A Buster Keaton Movie (Yes, Really)
“When [the] future Nobel laureate … made his one and only film in the mid-1960s, he structured it both as a chase film and as a homage to the earliest years of cinema. However, you won’t be surprised to learn that the resulting work, Film, is far more complex, strange and intellectual than its slapstick forebears.”
Judge: Led Zeppelin Must Stand Trial To Determine If They Stole Chords For “Stairway To Heaven”
“In a decision on Friday, US district judge Gary Klausner in Los Angeles said the song and the 1967 instrumental Taurus by the band Spirit were similar enough to let a jury decide whether Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were liable for copyright infringement.”
London’s National Theatre Has Begun Producing Off-Broadway
“While the play had its world premiere at the National Theatre in London, in collaboration with Headlong, the creative team and cast wanted a future life for the show. When a West End or New York transfer didn’t come together, they tried another way.” NT exec Tim Levy explains how it happened (and might happen again).
Is Theater Criticism Too White? Here’s How To Change It
The keynote speech at this year’s American Theatre Critics Association conference in Philadelphia.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.11.16
Smithsonian London? “Not So Fast!” Says Secretary Skorton
Notwithstanding the fact that its founding donor was British, the Smithsonian Institution’s proposed London outpost, conceived before the institution’s current head, David Skorton, came on board, is not necessarily a marriage made in museum heaven. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-04-11
Monday Recommendation: Brooklyn Blowhards
Jeff Lederer, Brooklyn Blowhards, (Little (i) Music) Lederer conglomerates music by the free jazz avatar Albert Ayler with sea shanties that survive from the whaling ship era when Herman Melville had Ahab pursuing Moby Dick. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-04-11
Just because: Van Cliburn plays and conducts Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto
Van Cliburn plays and conducts a performance of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, Op. 26, with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Moscow. This concert was originally telecast on Soviet TV in 1962. … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-04-11
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New York’s Stand-Up Women, In A Room Where It Happens
“Selena Coppock, a comic who founded the private Facebook group, said, ‘Usually you’re the only woman’ in a standup show,” she explained after the photo. ‘It’s like nine men, one woman. So it was really hard for us to even know each other, or collaborate, or network.'”