Giant Paper Sculptures on Park Avenue
They’re not actually made of paper (they’re aluminum and fiberglass), but they sure look like it. The seven pieces make up Alice Aycock’s Park Avenue Paper Chase, now going up in the median of Park Avenue in upper midtown Manhattan.
Life After Merce: What Happens After a Great Dance Company Disbands?
Dance Magazine checks in with former members of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company to see where life and career have taken them.
How Do You Write a Realistic Novel About North Korea?
“The problem with North Korea journalism is that you can write almost anything and almost nobody knows if it’s bunk. Then you have North Korea fiction, where you can paint a very vivid reality and readers, I imagine, will want to believe that it’s 100 percent true.” Adam Johnson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Orphan Master’s Son, talks about how he dealt with the challenge.
Is Shakespeare’s Globe Wrong to Visit North Korea?
With the London-based company about to begin a two-year global tour of Hamlet that they hope will include every nation on Earth, Amnesty International has given them a scolding for including Kim Jong Un’s domain on the itinerary. Mark Lawson considers the precedent – the long boycott of apartheid-era South Africa – and whether the situations are comparable.
Dancing the First World War
English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo and her three choreographers – Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan – talk about creating their upcoming mixed bill, titled Lest We Forget.
How ‘Rocky’ Made It to Broadway
It was the idea of Sylvester Stallone himself, after the disappointment of the fifth Rocky film in 1990. But nobody took that idea seriously for more than 20 years …
All Animals Play – Why Do Scientists Have So Much Trouble Accepting This?
“Generally speaking, an analysis of animal behavior is not considered scientific unless the animal is assumed, at least tacitly, to be operating according to the same means/end calculations that one would apply to economic transactions.” David Graeber explains why. (Don’t blame Charles Darwin.)
Science’s Problem With the Idea of Play Goes Deeper Than Economics
Barbara Ehrenreich: “But I would say that the roots of our short-sightedness about play range far beyond economics, that they extend into all of Western science, and that what is at stake here is ultimately even deeper than play. For the last few hundred years, Western science has been on a mission to crush all forms of agency, which I mean in the philosophical sense as the capacity for action.”
The Grandmother of Body Art
Carolee Schneeman, “the avant-garde artist who bared her buttocks for Yoko Ono, filmed herself having sex when movies still couldn’t say the word ‘vagina’, and made art out of meat long before Lady Gaga, talks to Steve Rose.”
Diana Rigg: ‘I’m Portrayed As This Tough Broad, But I’m Not’
On the other hand, says the 75-year-old, “I think women of my age are still attractive. Men of my age aren’t.”
West End’s Queen Musical to Close After 12 Years
We Will Rock You, “which has been seen by more than 6.5 million people at the cavernous Dominion theatre, will close on 31 May 2014. It will have run for a total of 4,600 performances, with an annual average of 600,000 tickets sold.”
Haves/Have-Nots: Here’s Who Reads In England
“More than one in four (27%) of adults from the poorest socio-economic backgrounds said they never read books themselves, compared with just 13% of those from the richest socio-economic backgrounds.”
Ironic: Greece’s Economic Meltdown Has Been Huge Opportunity For Greek Filmmakers
“The same recession that brought misery to tens of thousands of families since 2009 has fueled demand for tales out of Greece — prompting the nation’s filmmakers not only to adapt to the new economic realities but also rack up awards in the process.”
Warning: UK Curators Leaving Country For Higher Pay In US
“Higher salaries in North America are attracting an increasing number of British curators, and insiders warn that poor pay in London will lead to a “brain drain” from the city’s museums unless conditions improve.”
How A Small Bay Area Theatre Became A Powerhouse
“Our audience is made up of many of the greatest scientists, computer engineers, cooks, urban gardeners, authors, environmentalists in the country, if not the world. They want their experience at the theater to reflect the complexity and thoughtfulness of their daily work.”
Where Were The Outstanding Women Jazz Instrumentalists?
“Were there no female musicians playing instruments or do we just not know about them? The truth is that there were plenty of capable and talented ladies, but social expectations for the household matriarch did not include frequenting dance halls at night and touring around the country for weeks in a bus full of men.”
New Smithsonian Secretary Has Been Champion Of The Humanities
“The funding we allocate to the humanities through our government has never come close to the value the humanities add to individual lives and to the life of our nation. Even in times of austerity, especially in times of austerity, sound investments must be made.”
Fifteen Of The World’s Most Beautiful Concert Halls
“More and more concert halls are being built that stand out by virtue of their eye-catching shapes, colors and materials.”
Remembering Gerard Mortier And His Influence In America
“I can think of no one more important than the crafty, brilliant Belgian impresario in making opera a uniquely telling, relevant, contemporary and meaningfully controversial art form in Europe. But it wasn’t only Europe and it wasn’t only opera in which Mortier’s influence has proven pervasive.”
Television Academy Updates What “Television” Means
Instead of referring to the electronic console as “television,” the group now embraces a more inclusive moniker — television means programming — in a nod toward the rise of disruptive new digital programmers, including Netflix.
Trey McIntyre Project Shutdown – Does It Say Anything About The State Of American Dance?
“To be certain, the company’s January announcement that it was shutting down as a full-time performing troupe drew plenty of congratulations from some circles. But there was also a good deal of consternation about what this would mean for the folks in Boise.”
Study: Reading Literature Can Make You Less Racist
“Narrative fiction offers a rich context in which exposure to out-group culture and (a process of emotional) merging can occur,” the researchers conclude. “Supporting this notion, there is growing evidence that reading a story engages many of the same neural networks involved in empathy.”
A Computer Program That Analyzes Sentences And Identifies Authors
“The basic idea is that every word you say represents a choice. So when you speak, you’re making a million choices that you’re not aware of. The differences aren’t meaningful to the speaker.” But they are meaningful to a program that can catalogue and index all the possible options.
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Minnesota Orchestra Board Wants Vänskä Back, But Not as Music Director: Report
“Vänskä might be asked to take a limited role as a principal guest conductor, leading perhaps eight to 10 concerts a season, but without administrative duties, two sources within the orchestra’s board of directors said Monday.” The same sources say that the board voted strongly in support of controversial CEO Michael Henson.
Minnesota Orchestra Fans Press Board Hard for Vänskä’s Rehiring (As Music Director)
“Members of Save Our Symphony Minnesota have made it clear they’re not going away now that the lockout has ended. More importantly, they’ve made it clear to the board that they want Henson gone and Vänskä back … But understand, many of the board members are corporate heavyweights. Most corporate heavyweights don’t react well to ultimatums.”
George Saunders Is First Winner of Folio Prize
For his short story collection Tenth of December, “Saunders, a former Guardian columnist, became the first winner of the £40,000 Folio prize, an award created by people in the books industry who felt frustrated by what they see as the shortcomings of the Man Booker.”
Joe McGinniss, 71, Author of ‘Fatal Vision’ and ‘The Selling of the President’
“More recently, Mr. McGinniss made headlines in 2010 when, for his next book, he moved in next door to Sarah Palin and her family in Wasilla, Alaska.”
Musicals Storm Olivier Award Nominations
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Merrily We Roll Along take seven nominations each, while The Book of Mormon, Once and The Scottsboro Boys each get six. Meanwhile, in the best director category, women outnumber men 3-to-1.
‘Inherent Dullness’? Pah! How About ‘Soul-Searing Passion’? A Sports Journalist Goes to the Symphony
“I heard drama; I saw drama, great swaying, soaring playing full of determination and vigour, its pace never letting up. (I’m stunned how still the rest of the audience appeared to manage to sit. My head had gone a bit I think.)” Soccer writer Neil Atkinson visits the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.
Actress Wendy Hughes, 61
“Her career spanned four decades, from … iconic Australian television series Homicide and Number 96, through to numerous film projects including My Brilliant Career and Careful, He Might Hear You.
Christie’s Postpones Basquiat Auction Following Forgeries Lawsuit
“Christie’s has postponed its online-only sale, ‘Jean-Michel Basquiat: Works from the Collection of Alexis Adler,’ as it faces allegations in a federal lawsuit filed by the late artist’s heirs claiming that works in the collection may be fakes.”
Death of a Creation Myth: Jackson Pollock’s ‘Mural’
“Despite claims made and repeated for decades” – including by Lee Krasner (Pollock’s wife), Peggy Guggenheim (who commissioned the work) and critic Clement Greenberg – “Pollock did not paint the epic canvas in one great, glorious burst of nonstop creative fervor.” Christopher Knight explains how the myth got busted.
It’s Official: Amtrak Is Now Accepting Applications for Writer’s Residencies
“On Monday the company announced that up to 24 writers, chosen from a pool of applicants, will be given a round-trip ticket on a long-distance train, including a private sleeper-car room with a bed, a desk, and electrical outlets. The trains promise the romance. The writers will have to do the rest.”
$100K Nemmers Composition Prize Goes to Esa-Pekka Salonen
In addition to the cash award, the prize, given by Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, will do four residencies at the school over the next two years and have a work performed by the Chicago Symphony.
Korean Food Porn Is a Big Online Hit
“Every night at 10, thousands of Koreans tune in to watch Choi Ji-hwan eating on streaming video. The chubby-cheeked 24-year-old offers up a cooking lesson and then, in his main online act, devours a dish like kimchi pork stew in a wild, comic performance meant to make clear how much he enjoys a good meal.” (includes video)