The company’s trademarks are imaginative spectacle and intense physicality (often including acrobatics), as well as a concentration on brand new work. Among Lookingglass’s best-known productions are Mary Zimmerman’s adaptations of Arabian Nights and Metamorphoses.
Tag: 06.09.11
Checking Out Some National Pavilions At The Venice Biennale
The Swiss exhibit is deeply un-Swiss (i.e., it’s deliberately anarchic and a bit shabby); the Poles turned their pavilion over to an Israeli artist; a pair of women are representing Saudi Arabia(!); the American pavilion is fronted by an upside-down Army tank; Azerbaijan’s president was so offended by his country’s two sculptures that they’re now covered by sheets.
Sherman Alexie Defends ‘Dark’ Young Adult Fiction
“Almost every day, my mailbox is filled with handwritten letters from students … I have yet to receive a letter from a child somehow debilitated by the domestic violence, drug abuse, racism, poverty, sexuality, and murder contained in my book. To the contrary, kids as young as ten have sent me autobiographical letters … that are just as dark, terrifying, and redemptive as anything I’ve ever read.”
A Hard-Knock Life: Girls (And Stage Parents) Train To Star In Broadway’s Revival Of Annie
“The opportunity [to audition] has prompted parents to seek out Annie boot camps around New York to get their daughters ready. Workshops – many led by former Annie cast and creative-team members – are helping little girls figure out what to sing (no age-inappropriate love songs), what to wear (no prissy dresses) and how to enter the audition room (fearlessly).”
Powerful Stagehands Union To Picket Tonys
“Broadway’s powerful stagehands’ union, which usually does all of the staging work at the nationally televised ceremony each year, is planning to hoist one of its inflatable rats and mobilize a picket line of 400 union members to protest a loss of union work organizing the red carpet pageantry at the awards, the theater industry’s biggest night of self-congratulation.”
Maqbool Fida Husain, 95, India’s Most-Famous Painter
“Dubbed the ‘Picasso of India,’ Husain’s work is a blend of cubism and classical Indian styles that fetches millions of dollars on international art markets. His depictions of naked Hindu goddesses enraged zealots who attacked his house, vandalized shows displaying his work and drove him to flee India. For years, galleries were too frightened of protests to display his work.”
Owner Of Stolen Pissarro Finds Trouble When She Tries to Sell
“As it turns out, 30 years ago the French police reported the work stolen from a museum in Aix-les-Bains. After Ms. Davis tried to sell the print, the United States government seized it as contraband.”
The First Computer Musician
“The contributions of Max Mathews may seem inevitable. Just as so much of our life has become ‘digitized,’ so it seems that sooner or later, sound would become the domain of computers. But the way in which Max opened up this world of possibilities makes him a singular genius, without whom I, and many people over the last six decades, would have led very different lives.”