“The campaign, which officially launched Thursday, shows dancers from the National Ballet of Canada in photos and online videos dancing and posing in subway stations, on streetcars and in buses. But Jill Andrew, co-founder of the Body Confidence Canada Awards, worries the images send the wrong messages about what healthy, confident humans should look like.”
Tag: 10.28.16
Two Are Better Than One: How An L.A. Classical Theater Company Makes Double Casting Work
The Antaeus Theatre Company, which concentrates on plays by the likes of Ibsen, Brecht, and Williams (and yes, of course, Shakespeare), sees what it calls “partner casting” as a solution to a regular L.A. theater problem: actors getting called away at short notice for better-paid short-term film and TV gigs. Kevin Delin watches the process in action as Antaeus rehearses Hedda Gabler.
The Muslim Female Singer Who Went To Pakistan To Feel Free
Compared to her home country, Saudi Arabia, singer-songwriter Rutaba Yaqub is freer: she can legally perform in public. And that’s what she’s doing. (includes audio)
Why Dictionaries Are A Form Of Perfection
“Maybe the most reassuring thing about a dictionary is its finite nature. A small dictionary contains all the words you need to know, and a really big one seems to contain all the words in existence. Having one nearby seems to say that the language has boundaries, and reasonable ones at that. It might surprise dictionary-owners to know that most lexicographers do not think of their subject in this way at all.”
Latest Battle In Russia’s Culture Wars: Theatre Director Vs. Biker Gang
In a speech decrying growing censorship, Konstantin Raikin, director and lead actor of the Satirikon Theatre, said, “I see how people are itching to change things and send us back to the past. And not just to the time of stagnation, but further back – to Stalin’s times.” Putin’s spokesman gave a “no, but” denial – and then the Night Wolves got involved.
Ground Zero Of Film Noir: ‘The Maltese Falcon’ At 75
Phil Hoad looks back at John Huston’s 1941 classic and its artistic progeny, from Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil through Chinatown, Blade Runner, David Lynch’s oeuvre and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – and even Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary
The Act of Killing.
Werner Herzog, Cinematic Swashbuckler? Well, Yeah, Sort Of
“He’d be utterly exasperating if he weren’t so entertaining, if his films weren’t so good, and if all his tall tales were not by and large true.”
How A Scandal (And A University’s Handling Of It) Has Devasted One Of Canada’s Most Prestigious Writing Programs
“The scandal – with gaping holes in official information and the resulting speculation and innuendo – has devastated the vaunted writing program, which was established more than 50 years ago by Canadian poet Earle Birney and whose graduates include award-winning authors Lynn Coady, Charlotte Gill and Lee Henderson, as well as Madeleine Thien. It has also inflamed Canada’s tight-knit literary community and irrevocably altered many lives. Steven Galloway, who was never charged with a crime, lost not just his job, but his reputation – and all that implies for his publishing career.”
The Small Town Orchestra Manager That Could
Jane Hill runs the small Eureka Symphony in California. She’s pragmatic, creative, and has strong ideas about what her orchestra’s role in her community is. “Hill’s notion is that a programming strategy must be flexible and relevant but also ambitious. “Any small town orchestra having to focus on Pops concerts, film music, and country and western music to stay alive — I shouldn’t be critical but I really believe this — to me that means they’ve chosen to limit what they think the audience will buy, with the result that no one is paying close attention to broadening the classical-music taste and interests of the audience. Or the potential audience.”
The Story Of A Sidekick, Or, The Actress Who Has To Play The BFF On ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’
“I couldn’t believe it when I first read for Paula, because I had never seen a breakdown of a character that described me so well, physically, for television and film. It just doesn’t happen. The casting directors sent me the audition scripts, and I remember saying to my husband while reading them, I feel these people have bugged my apartment.”