Important historical buildings are being threatened in Moscow. Preservationists are “concerned about the legacy of the Soviet avant-garde, the buildings designed in the 15 or so years following the 1917 October revolution, perhaps the most fertile period in Russian architectural history. These buildings range from the expressionistic forms of architects like Konstantin Melnikov to the machine-inspired, functionalist structures of the Constructivists. They are stunning for their eclecticism, yet they were united by an unfaltering optimism. The goal was to overthrow centuries of cultural history and to replace that past with an architectural order that would embody the values of a new, modern society.”
Tag: 05.15.05
Snubbed Jukebox Musicals Here To Stay
This year’s Tony nominations ignored jukebox musicals – those that are built around the songs of pop groups or pop songwriters, inserting them into a story. But that doesn’t mean the popular shows are disappearing any time soon.
Dragone – Ambition Outstrips Ability
Franco Dragone has reinvented theatre in Vegas. After a string of hits, he’s undertaken his most ambitious show yet, at Steve Wynn’s new mogul-named hotel. “Dragone’s new water-based extravaganza — which opened here last weekend — is at once deeply troubled and proudly uncompromising; arrestingly original and inevitably derivative; dripping with heart and strangely removed. You could say much the same about the much-hyped Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, wherein whimsy has been left outside on the street. And yet “Le Reve” also is at war with its surroundings.”
Shape-Shifter – Is TV Really Changing?
So VCRs and Tivo and DVDs have changed the ways we watch TV. But has it really changed TV? “Time-shifting was supposed to revolutionize the way we watch TV. But while there’s an undeniable shift towards more consumer control at work here, time-shifting hasn’t changed the overall pattern of viewing TV shows: You still watch a standard rotation of programs — you just get to juggle the rotation to fit your schedule.”
Ballet Newcomers To LA Have A Rough Road Ahead
Three new ballet companies have their sights set on making a home in the Los Angeles region. But these efforts look naive to some. “Perhaps the directors of the struggling ballet companies in such communities as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Claremont, San Pedro, Anaheim and the L.A. metropolitan area ought to invite the classical newcomers for a facts-of-life session about survival in our battle-scarred ballet landscape. Even the Pentagon might learn a thing or two about strategies for existing in a constant state of emergency.”
Art Auctions: The New Generation
“Even before last week’s sales of contemporary art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York, the catalogs for those events indicated that art made during the last four decades has become attractive to potential buyers. And the sale results confirm the emergence of a cohort of youngish collectors eager to buy recent art at prices that continue to rise, sometimes to levels that astonish dealers. Concomitantly, interest in art that has yet to prove its historical staying power appears to be driving the market.”
Clearing The Bases
Baseball writing is far more than a literary niche – more like a self-contained genre populated by both specialists and one-time visitors, all determined to capture the simple beauty of America’s game on paper. Of course, it’s not as easy as that, as scores of mediocre baseball tomes have proven over the decades. Not everyone can be Ring Lardner, or even W.P. Kinsella, but that’s never stopped anyone (no, seriously, anyone) with a ball cap and a pen from trying.
America, Lost In The Wilderness
“If there can be said to be a theme running throughout the history of American art, music, and literature, it might well be the allure, the danger, and the quiet beauty of the wilderness. “Scads of crucial American stories and images feast on the idea of wilderness, of a place apart from the so-called civilized world, of a pristine region that can rejuvenate a jaded soul.” So it’s little wonder that, when wilderness and the environment become political issues, there are considerable artistic and literary overtones to the debate.
Boston Sheds Some Russians, Gains Some Skill
This weekend marked the close of Boston Ballet’s third season under artistic director Mikko Nissinen, and the change in the quality of the company’s performance over that time has been striking. “Without the kind of wholesale purge that could have left the Ballet reeling, [Nissinen] has slowly changed the company’s personnel both behind the scenes and onstage. The coaching staff he’s brought in — especially Spanish-born Trinidad Vives — is first-rate. Those additions have largely replaced the Russian teachers and coaches whose attitude was that their dance heritage alone made them superior.”
Selling The Dance
Dance executives across the country bemoan the modern-day public’s lack of interest in the form, and despair of ever again convincing large numbers of ticket-buyers to attend a traditional ballet not concerned with nutcrackers and sugar plum fairies. But Kennedy Center chief Michael Kaiser insists that the marketing of dance is not rocket science. The key is to trust the public’s intelligence, create a marketable identity for your company, and never to overestimate your own popularity.