Scientists researching ancient inscriptions happened upon a ramp with stairways and a series of what they believe to be postholes, which suggest that the job of hauling into place the huge blocks of stone used to build the monuments may have been completed more quickly than previously thought.
Tag: 11.05.18
Openly Gay Male Ballet Dancers Are Creating A New Paradigm Of Masculinity
“If you didn’t know much about classical ballet, you might think it’s an obvious home for queer artists and narratives, but it’s more complicated than that.” The canon is small and its stories are very conventionally heterosexual; even today, openly gay male dancers can have trouble getting cast as leads. “[Now] a new generation of dancers who are collapsing the boundaries between queerness and maleness in ballet by challenging its, and the culture’s, preconceived ideas of masculinity.”
How The ‘House Of Cards’ Crew Rewrote The Entire Last Season Without Kevin Spacey
“[Spacey’s scandal] was a ‘gut punch,’ [co-showrunner Frank] Pugliese said, but the prospect of tossing out five months of work and having to rebuild the season without the show’s corrupt central figure actually emboldened him and his partner. ‘It felt so unfair to the story, in a way, we had to defend the world of the show,’ [co-showrunner Melissa James] Gibson said.” Here’s how they pulled it off.
Bernard Bragg, 90, Pioneering Deaf Actor And Co-Founder Of National Theater For The Deaf
“After I saw [Marcel] Marceau’s performance, I said to myself, if he can do a two-hour show without saying a word, why can’t I?” Bragg once said. And he did: as The Washington Post once wrote, Bragg became “the man who invented theater as a professional career for the deaf.”
Two Miró Works Damaged During Venice Floods Repaired In Record Time
The pair of untitled tapestries, worth roughly €1 million, were disfigured (ironically, by a leaky sink, not the floodwaters themselves) during last week’s record-breaking high water. A specialty tapestry factory was able to clean the works, dry them, and get them back to Venice in time for the opening of an exhibition last week — a turnaround time of two days.
A. Margaret Bok, ‘Matriarch’ Of Curtis Institute, Dead At 98
“Though mostly a behind-the-scenes presence at the school, Mrs. Bok, known as ‘Stormy,’ stepped into leadership positions at Curtis at critical times. … She is best remembered, though, for her many decades as a loyal supporter of the small school started by her mother-in-law, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, in 1924. … It was during her most active period at Curtis that it shifted from being an inward-looking institution that relied on its own endowments and only selectively opened concerts to the public to one that routinely sends its students — and fund-raisers — to concert halls around the world.”
Chicago Backs Down, Pulls Kerry James Marshall Painting Out Of Auction
“In the face of withering criticism from public art advocates and the artist himself, … Mayor Rahm Emanuel has decided to pull the Marshall canvas Knowledge and Wonder from a Nov. 15 auction at Christie’s in New York City, where the work, commissioned for the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library for $10,000 in 1995, was expected to sell for more than $10 million.”
Chronicle of wasted time
There was much more to Art Carney than his much-loved impersonation of Ed Norton, the bumbling sewer worker on The Honeymooners, and the reason why you probably aren’t aware of that fact that is one of the saddest stories I know.
This Festival Is Building A Theatre Audience From Scratch In Burkina Faso
“Founded in 2002, Les Récréâtrales takes place in a residential area of Ouagadougou. Plays are developed, rehearsed, and performed in family courtyards, bringing theatre to the people. Whereas non-festival performances at downtown cultural centers … attract audiences composed of Europeans, other artists, and the artists’ family members and friends, the festival’s audiences are locals of all ages who would not usually have access to or interest in theatre.” Writer and translator Heather Jeanne Denyer talks with the festival’s artistic director, playwright Aristide Tarnagda.