“Dancers interviewed on the condition of anonymity confide that weight gain can get them fired while thinness can help them advance. Even though the field has made progress, and has become more aware of the health risks of dieting, directors having ‘fat chats’ to tell dancers to slim down remains routine.” Says one corps member, “In shape for us is being hungry. Eat nothing and see how far you can go.”
Tag: 06.30.16
Eight Nearly Forgotten Female Composers Who Were Hits In Their Own Day
Not many of us remember Barbara Strozzi and Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre; more of us know of Clara Schumann and Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn). Here’s an opportunity to get to know all four of them, as well as four more, a bit better.
Actors With Disabilities Say It’s Time To Start Casting Them In Disabled Roles
“Recent conversations around this issue, in film and television as well as in theater, have become more contentious, with comparisons often drawn to traditions of blackface. As the journalist Frances Ryan wrote … last year, ‘Perhaps it is time to think before we next applaud ‘cripping up.’ Disabled people’s lives are more than something for non-disabled actors to play at.'”
UK (Finally) Gets First Public Statue To Honor A Named Black Woman
“Mary Seacole was a Jamaican-born nurse who cared for wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War in the 19th Century. … The statue was created by sculptor Martin Jennings and stands opposite the Houses of Parliament in the grounds of St Thomas’ Hospital.”
Some Aesthetic Misgivings About Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Floating Saffron Piers
“It is undeniable that “Floating Piers” has tapped into the public imagination, drawing 270,000 visitors within the first three days of opening and over 500,000 to date. But if we are to take the work as a purely artistic statement (and a very popular one), it is nonetheless one that connects the private villa of an arms manufacturer to the mainland, drawing the parched masses to the Beretta family’s closed doors. I came, I saw, and I left feeling that a beautiful lake had been mired by a large-scale reinforcement of the social fabric: a paean to neo-feudalism, no less.”
Dispute Over Minimum Wage For L.A.’S 99-Seat Theaters Goes To Court As Talks Collapse
“Negotiations to resolve a minimum wage dispute between Actors’ Equity Assn. and members of the theater community have failed and the parties are headed to court … At the center of the lawsuit is Equity’s 99-seat theater plan, which calls for owners of theaters with fewer than 100 seats to pay Equity actors minimum wage for rehearsal and performance time.”
The Secret Lives Of Those Who Live In New York’s Libraries
“While the closed stack is currently sealed off to daylight to protect its rare contents, when the Thornberrys lived in the library, it was a light-filled and vibrant space. But the family was by no means confined to their apartment. They also enjoyed a penthouse-level garden and after hours, access to the library’s stacks and large reference rooms too.”
Downtown Los Angeles To Get Yet Another Large Art Space
“The museum … will have 40,000 square feet of exhibition space on the ground floors of the 1903 Hellman Building and the 1905 Farmers and Merchants Building. It will also have a rooftop sculpture garden and amphitheater.”
The Era Of Mid-Budget Movie Dramas Is Over
“Either you offer audiences an unmissable blockbuster derived from well-known intellectual property, or you invest in meek, sub-$10-million indies and pray for a return on investment on the art-house and VOD circuits. That once-upon-a-time sweet spot of $30-million to $50-million productions, with marquee stars and trusted directors? That era is over.”
A History Of Miss Havisham
One early critic of Dickens’s Great Expectations called the character “a foolish, senseless, fantastical, impossible humbug”; later, another critic wrote that “living types have already been pointed out that claim resemblance [to her].” Carrie Frye suggests that this “seems like a fitting jumping-off point for exploring how Miss Havisham came to be in the world: as a fantastical, impossible creature … clearly based on real-life people.”