“Michael Grandage has announced his first project after leaving the Donmar Warehouse – a 15-month season of work in the West End with casts including Judi Dench, Daniel Radcliffe, Simon Russell Beale and Jude Law and 100,000 tickets priced at only £10.”
Tag: 06.15.12
The Choreography That Made Copyright History
Pop quiz: What was the very first recorded dance work to receive a US copyright?
The Rise Of The Male Ballet Superstar
An episode of the newly-revived South Bank Show looks at the way Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov – followed, in the next generation, by the likes of Carlos Acosta (now a genuine sex symbol in England) – completely transformed the role of male artists in classical ballet.
Marina Abramovic Hates MoMA, And A Lot More
“There was this one piece where I almost died lying in the burning star. My hair was burning; I was burned everywhere. In the morning, my grandmother was in the kitchen making breakfast. She saw me and thought she saw the pure devil and threw everything on the floor and ran away.
Hilary Hahn Has A Winner! (And More Than That, A Lot Of New Encores)
Violinist Hahn announced the winner on her Facebook page, but there’s more to the Encores Project than winning. “There are so many great composers out there who either aren’t on the forefront of what people are aware of or whose works I wouldn’t necessarily have come across or students who I would not have had the chance to hear their music. I also wanted people to think about writing encores. The miniature form is challenging in a different sort of way and I thought it might be fun for composers to work on.”
Urban, Regional, Tyler Perry – Whatever: This Theatre Festival Wants It All
The D.C. Black Theatre Festival started a mere two years ago – and has exploded as a venus for African-American drama, comedies, musicals, and more. “We wanted a festival that embraced both sides of the story — both urban and regional theater because of the importance of the story,” founder Glenn Alan said.
Reading Racist Classics To The Kids: Why, And If So, How?
“We rewrite the past to serve the needs of the present. The clarity of history is its great advantage. The racism in Fantasia or Pippi Longstocking is overt: instantly identifiable by its noxious odor and satisfyingly dismissible with enlightened disgust. More subtle instances may provoke hedging and justification.”
In Oaxaca, Unlike The U.S., Art Bows To History
“We are not dealing here with imagined reconstructions, but with the past’s palpable presence. And most of these ancient cities and monuments were abandoned some six centuries before the Spaniards plundered the region. After 80 years of archaeological research, their meanings are still unclear, though much has been written about Zapotec social hierarchies, gladiatorial-style games and stone carvings.”
Can’t Make It As An Artist? Heck, Just Cure Blindness, Then
Stephen Redenti, artist and bioengineer: “When you’re building a three-dimensional sculpture, you have to build the architecture to support the clay. Then you have to build devices to support the sculpture in progress — little scaffolds, levies, pulleys. I think that kind of found-object resourcefulness came in handy at the stem-cell laboratory.”
A Postal System, Carved In 17th-Century Stone
Dutch sailors left messages carved in stone on the beaches of Madagascar – but the British and Portuguese stole the letters left beneath the stones.