“Behind the satin and tulle, the ‘work hard, play hard’ mentality thrives and some dancers depend on good genes to cancel out bad behavior. ‘I don’t know any group of people that treats their bodies worse than dancers,’ says [Miami City Ballet’s Simone] Messmer. ‘They don’t rehab from injuries, they drink too much, they eat a lot of sugar. The idea that all dancers are healthy is a big myth.'”
Tag: 12.11.17
Is It Art Or Arson? It’s Both, And The Artist May Go To Prison For It
“[Russian photographer] Danila Tkachenko’s 2017 Motherland project documents the annihilation of villages, the plight of small farmers struggling to compete with big corporations, and ‘a state over-reliant on oil, which has shown no interest in developing agriculture’.”
García Márquez’s Archive Is Now Available Online – For Free
“The online archive, which is catalogued both in English and in Spanish, includes drafts and other material relating to all of García Márquez’s major books, … [as well as] previously unseen photographs, notebooks, scrapbooks, screenplays and personal ephemera, like a collection of his passports. Many archives are digitizing their holdings. But to make so much material from a writer whose work is still under copyright freely available online is unusual.”
The Latest Pre-Broadway Tryout Town: Edmonton (Edmonton?)
“The road to Broadway has rarely been this cold.”
If You Need A Basic Primer On The Berkshire Museum Art Sale And Lawsuit, Here It Is
The AP’s Mark Pratt offers “a look at the arguments for and against, and why the case against the Berkshire Museum has aroused such anger:”
Spanish Medieval Art Pieces Caught Up In Catalonia Independence Fight
“Unrest has broken out at the Lleida Museum in western Catalonia after Spanish law enforcement officers entered the institution this morning. The move is the latest development in a long-running restitution saga centred on 44 religious artefacts housed at the museum, which have become a symbol of Catalonia’s bid for independence.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.11.17
Janine Jansen at Carnegie Hall without veneer – or microphones breathing down her neck
What price freedom? Carnegie Hall’s Perspectives series allows its selected artist-curators to have something close to carte blanche over multiple concerts in numerous different forums. This year, the glamorous Dutch violinist Janine Jansen is one of those artists, … read more
AJBlog: Condemned to Music Published 2017-12-11
Great Expectations, Set By Museums, And Then?
I was drawn to an exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art by its title: Glorious Splendor: Treasures of Early Christian Art. When I went to see it last month, it was not quite what I expected. Or what the title conjured. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good show. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-12-10
Robert Gard on Arts and Communities
When my good friend Maryo Gard Ewell asked me to write a reflection on the Gard Foundation/Americans for the Arts collaborative collection of Robert Gard’s writings (To Change the Face & Heart of America), … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-12-11
Iyer on Iyer
Vijay Iyer’s music occupies a fascinating terrain. It’s a world that emanates from a lifetime of improvisation and a multilayered approach to the passage of time. It’s also music that reflects its creator’s quiet defiance … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-12-11
Monday Recommendation: Discovering “Melanctha”
Dave Brubeck & Carmen McRae, Tonight Only (Columbia)
What would the Rifftides staff do without readers who keep us informed and on track? … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-12-11
Reversing 35-Year Ban, Saudi Arabia Will Allow Public Movie Theatres
Although satellite television and video downloads have made the ban on commercial theaters all but moot, the announcement highlights the diminishing power of the kingdom’s conservative clerics. The grand mufti, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious authority, publicly called commercial films a source of “depravity” and opposed the opening of movie theaters as recently as a few months ago.
Artists In Russia Are Under Attack
Less than a year before presidential elections, Russian authorities appear unable or unwilling to do enough to protect the country’s artists and civil society from attacks by activist thugs.
Why You Can Be Genetically Intelligent, But Not Necessarily Smart
“As it turns out, genes contribute to intelligence, but only broadly, and with subtle effect. Genes interact in complex relationships to create neural systems that might be impossible to reverse-engineer. In fact, computational scientists who want to understand how genes interact to create optimal networks have come up against the kind of hard limits suggested by the so-called travelling salesperson problem.”