Says animal behaviorist Con Slobodchikoff, who has successfully decoded some of the language (yes, it seems to be a language) used by prairie dogs, “It’s probably five to 10 years out. But I think we can get to the point where we can actually communicate back and forth in basic animal languages to dogs, cats, maybe farm animals.”
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Choreographer Liz Lerman On Aging
“As a choreographer in her 20s, Liz Lerman did something unusual: She put residents of a senior citizens home in her productions. … Now 65 years old, Lerman is approaching the age of those elderly dancers. How does that feel?”
Werner Herzog Directs A PSA
“The eminent German film director … has delivered a public-safety advertisement in the US about the dangers of texting and driving.” (If only Klaus Kinski had lived to take part …)
What’s Going On With Sergei Polunin, Anyway?
“Friends and fans watched with trepidation as the wilder elements of the Polunin story emerged: a self-professed desire to quit ballet at the age of 26; … self-comparisons with Alexander the Great; lurid accusations that there was a ‘British mafia’ at Covent Garden … So what do we have in Mr Polunin: deep-thinking artistic genius or spoilt brat? The answer is: probably neither.”
Actors’ Equity At 100
Actors’ Equity Association was born to fight the appalling working conditions actors faced – no pay for weeks of rehearsal, having to buy their own costumes, etc. – in early 20th-century New York. Over the next hundred years, the union bargained successfully with generations of producers, spread across the US, and was at the forefront of social issues from segregation to HIV/AIDS.
Singing Opera With Someone Else’s Lungs
Charity Tillemann-Dick was a promising student soprano when she developed a dangerous hardening of the blood vessels in her lungs. After two different double transplants, she’s back to singing – now using the lungs of a deceased middle-aged Honduran.
Singing Along With Cicely Tyson On Broadway
Early in the second act of the current revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, Tyson’s Carrie Watts stands up and starts singing the old hymn “Blessed Assurance”. And the audience, especially at Sunday matinees, joins right in.
Was This Modern Dance Pioneer Forgotten Because She Got Too Cozy With The Nazis?
“Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Bronislava Nijinska are regularly invoked to recall a golden age of female creativity and power. These women … had a transforming influence on the language and practice of dance. And there is one more name that should also be added to the list: the German choreographer Mary Wigman.”
Alec Baldwin Says Movies Are Abandoning Great Acting To Television
“When I started out in the early 80s, two-thirds of the movies made were very cast specific, meaning: ‘We need that woman to play the psychiatrist and that man to play the judge.’ Now that’s down to one quarter. … Cable TV is the bastion of great acting now.”
L.A.’s UnCabaret At 25
For a quarter-century, “it’s been a place to hear unvarnished, rough-edged ideas being tried out … It brought in funny people from the huge Hollywood talent pool … and freed them to talk about things in their own lives.” Founder Beth Lapides’s key instruction to performers: “When you get onstage, do the material that, if you don’t do it, your head is going to explode.”