“How do you turn a 100-metre-tall incinerator in the heart of Copenhagen into a social and cultural hub? By building a ski slope on the roof, of course. The unlikely combination of green energy and alpine sport was the winning bid in a competition to design a new waste-to-energy plant.”
Tag: 07.03.11
Tennis In – Or Versus – Literature
“On one side, we had John McPhee against Nabokov. On the other, Martin Amis against David Foster Wallace.”
Have We Lost Our Appetite For Shakespeare?
“The numbers suggest as much: This year, only 37 percent of the productions offered by the 10 leading Shakespeare festivals in North America were written by their namesake.”
Rossini’s Great Mystery: Why Did He Stop Writing Operas At Age 37?
“There are lots of theories. Maybe [he] was tired. He might have been devastated by the death of his beloved mother. Or perhaps it was his health, or shifts in art or politics. His detractors insinuated that he had simply grown rich and lazy. All we know for sure is that he stopped.”
The Messy Complexity Of Closing Down Merce Cunningham’s Company
“One might think that, having hashed out a legal document and established trustees, there would now be a clear course of action. The reality is considerably more fraught. … This predetermined finish line means that plans for the dancers are both straightforward and hugely complex, in ways practical and emotional.”
Modern Art? It All Belongs To The Super-Rich
“For the last couple of decades, contemporary art has flourished through an alliance of the rich and the not-so-rich. It is the same educated, probably public-sector-employed middle class (many of whom marched this week) that enthusiastically visit galleries and art fairs. It is these fans of modern art who have helped, by their acclaim, to generate the charisma that makes it apparently worth so many millions.”
Why Britain’s Big Public Art So Often Fails
“Public art, as it is practised in modern Britain, demands a very different set of skills from the ones that give the world great art. The public artist must be able to negotiate with businesses, councils and arts bodies, to explain an idea and to supervise it through complex practical processes. Big art needs big planning.”
Alvin Ailey Lands In Moscow On Cultural Diplomacy Mission
“This visit to Russia, with performances in St. Petersburg Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, was sponsored by the U.S. State Department and others as part of President Obama’s effort to engage Russia and warm up a relationship that had been cooling.”
Too Many Tits On HBO?
“Prostitutes and brothels are obviously and regrettably simply vehicles to work the R rating, to give viewers, if you will pardon the expression and maybe you shouldn’t, more bang for the buck. Which isn’t just gratuitous and ridiculous, it’s lazy and sexist. For all their many functions, women’s bodies are not props and prostitution is not something that should be regularly relegated to atmosphere.”
Luminato Festival: All About Toronto (But Much More)
The Luminato “festival was created to promote its home city and build its cultural prestige around the globe. Or, as the manifesto of the co-founders puts it: ‘to shine Toronto’s light on the world and the world’s light on Toronto.’ You can’t say it much clearer than that.”