Ballet dancers don’t know when they’ll perform again, or even when they can dance with others again (aside from those in their own homes). One advantage to online classes: Dancers can join them from anywhere. Two Pacific Northwest Ballet dancers “have enjoyed taking classes taught by dancers they know in other companies. ‘It’s cool how we can connect with friends that we wouldn’t be able to see in our normal jobs,’ Ryan said, calling it a ‘silver lining.'” – Seattle Times
Tag: 05.15.20
The Horrific Ecstasy Of Burning Your Own Writing
Or, more usually, why writers instruct others to do it after their deaths. “The elemental annihilation of destruction by fire is so absolute, and this is where the horror lies for me. If writing is slow, quiet, creative work, burning pages is quick, loud, and flagrantly destructive. Where once there was something, afterward there is nothing. There’s something irresistibly dramatic about the act of applying a naked flame to the corner of a page and watching the paper disappear in a sheath of fire.” – LitHub
How Two Film Productions Have Begun Again
Carefully, with medical staff on set and stringent guidelines, and in one case, by essentially taking over a small town in Australia. “For Foster, who said that the extra precautions added at least 20 percent to the initial $10 million budget of his indie film, the most crucial decision he made was to house his entire cast and crew together, including the guardians for more than 25 child actors. He even quarantined an actor’s dog.” – The New York Times
The Ancient Art Of Creating Theatre At Home, But Make It Streaming
Professional playwrights still need commissions, and honestly, people still need theatre even when we can’t go to the theatre, so: “Theater companies big and small across the country, including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, New York’s Public Theatre and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., have asked dozens of professional playwrights to create short dramas for people to perform at home. The play scripts, part of a new initiative called Play at Home, have been downloaded 20,000 times since the start of April.” – KQED
Add ‘Quarantines’ To The List Of Things Jane Austen Can Get You Through
If you’re a Janeite, you already know this. If not, truly: “To be a woman of a certain class in Regency England was to be socially distanced by default—isolated in the country-side, living at the pace of the seasons, beholden to restrictions set by others (namely, men). Set aside the reasons for being confined and we’re left with a defining commonality: the need to fill our days at home.” – Time Magazine
This Theatre Critic Confesses The Screen Isn’t To Her Taste
Jayne Blanchard isn’t into the National Theatre’s (wildly popular) streams. She’s not thrilled with the general flatness of screens compared to, well, face to face. It is, he says, mostly like “looking at the striking stage effects, lighting and choreography and thinking ‘This must be amazing in real life.'” – DC Theatre Scene
Marquees Without Movies Can Be, It Turns Out, Quite Performative On Their Own
A funny, sweet message from a theatre in Oregon caught on with the Instagram crowd, and it’s not the only one. Its creator, who says his small movie theatre provides a true home for cinephiles during non-quarantine times: “The fact that it did catch on made me happy because it essentially showed there’s a place for more hopeful messages; that dark humor isn’t the only way we can express ourselves.” – The New York Times
Brits Are Missing Live Performance, And Not Planning To Go Back Anytime Soon
With 93 percent of those polled saying they miss live theatre, it’s perhaps a surprise that only 19 percent of those polled said they would buy tickets immediately when theatres and other live performance venues reopen. Or perhaps that’s just grim reality. “Most (74%) cited the buzz of live performance as the thing they missed most, with other popular choices including seeing performers they admired and supporting local venues.” – The Stage (UK)
Louis Delsarte, Muralist Of African American Experience, 75
Delsarte’s large-scale public murals are his best-known works, but he also painted and created drawings and prints. His murals, though, they’re the ones that everyone in New York (and elsewhere) knows. “‘Whenever I see Louis’s work, I see a bunch of black people looking good, from anywhere and everywhere in the diaspora,’ said Arturo Lindsay, an artist and professor emeritus of art and art history at Spelman College in Atlanta. ‘Just showing black people looking good and happy is a hell of a political statement.'” – The New York Times
Writing Fiction Without Trying To Be ‘Useful’
Author Robin Sloan: “I think you need to tread lightly, and really disguise your intentions—even to yourself, if possible—or you end up producing a sci-fi after-school special, the ‘moral of the story’ written in towering letters of flame.” – The Atlantic