Turner Prize Show Gets Approval Of The Critics (Oh How Things Have Changed)
Time was, everyone’s favorite sport was dumping on whatever crazy art the Turner Prize finalists had created. That was then. The critics are much more enthusiastic this year…
Neighbors To Tate Modern: Your Visitors Are Peeping Into Our Apartments; Tate Director To Neighbors: So Buy Some Damn Curtains
Nicholas Serota: “I need to repeat the fact that clearly people purchasing those flats were in no doubt that Tate Modern was going to build its new Switch House building and the character and uses of that building were widely known. People purchased with their eyes wide open.”
“Transformational” Progress At Boston’s Handel And Haydn As America’s Oldest Performing Arts Institution Expands
Executive director David Snead: Of the $13 million raised, “$8.3 million was for endowment, which will result in a quadrupling of the corpus, and another $5.2 million was raised for a new Strategic Initiatives Fund that is financing a triple-digit increase in education programs, national touring, 6 CD’s, growth in staff, new audience development initiatives such as these videos and online streaming of concerts and market research and a new brand strategy, increases in artistic budget, the commissioning of a new work by Gabriela Frank together with the Library of Congress, infrastructure and capacity growth etc. And the number of new subscribers has doubled in one year. As a result of all this, H+H has grown from a $3 million operation to a $5 million operation in the course of just a few years, all while posting 6 consecutive balanced budgets. So yes, the joint is transformed.”
Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time
“We undertook a major poll – actors, writers, producers, critics, showrunners. Legends like Carl Reiner and Garry Marshall, who sent us his ballot shortly before his death this summer. All shows from all eras were eligible.” Even so, there seem to have been some unspoken limits: the shows chosen are all in English and almost all from the U.S.; there’s only one Masterpiece series (you know which one, so no Upstairs Downstairs, Prime Suspect or Sherlock), no news or documentary shows, and some strange choices and omissions. (Beavis and Butt-Head and not Bugs Bunny or Bullwinkle? Really??)
How Julie Kent Plans To Reshape Washington Ballet
Her predecessor, Septime Webre, “stamped the Washington Ballet as a showcase of youthful punch and audience-friendly showmanship. … [Kent] She aims to groom the Washington Ballet in the more refined, elegant language of the classics and first-rate contemporary works.”
How Do You Make Emergency Drills Less Annoying? Turn Them Into Choreography
“Emergency evacuation drills, though necessary, are a pain: they seem to always happen when we least expect it and interrupt us when we’re at our most productive. At SIGNAL gallery, the procedure becomes a delight, with artist Madeline Hollander transforming what we’ve all rehearsed with irritation into a mesmerizing performance.”
How ‘Weird’ Became The Term Of Civic Pride In Hipster Cities
“About 15 years ago, an independent bookseller in Texas went to battle against the specter of mega-bookstore invasion. His weapon of choice was something a purveyor of books knew best: a word. And the word was weird.”
Terrific Action Films On $200 Budgets: Uganda’s One-Man Hollywood
“It starts out like any other training montage. Alan is a white doctor in Uganda, and the children of the slum resolve to teach him the ways of the commando. A child soldier, armed with a makeshift assault rifle strung together by yam sticks and slung over his shoulder, chases the hapless doctor into a small stream. Alan falls face first. ‘That, my friend, was poo poo, for real,’ the film’s omniscient narrator exclaims through giggles. ‘This is Uganda. Poo poo everywhere.’ Madcap moments like this are emblematic of Wakaliwood-style films. And Wakaliwood is one Ugandan man in a slum.”
Now Out Of Prison, Garth Drabinsky Will Try For A Broadway Comeback
“A return to Broadway would be a remarkable moment for Mr. Drabinsky, who was convicted of fraud and forgery in Canada in 2009. As a theater producer he won three Tony Awards, for Kiss of the Spider Woman, Show Boat and Fosse, but he has not had a production on Broadway in 15 years, and is unable to travel to the United States because he is considered a fugitive there.” His vehicle will be a new musical adaptation of Madame Sousatzka.
Donald Trump Stiffed Me On $100,000 Worth Of Pianos, Says New Jersey Music Store Owner
J. Michael Diehl: “My relationship with Trump began in 1989, when he asked me to supply several grand and upright pianos to his then-new Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. I’d been running a music store for more than 30 years at that point, selling instruments to local schools and residents. My business was very much a family affair (my grandsons still run the store). And I had a great relationship with my customers – no one had ever failed to pay.”
The Hip-Hop Heroines Of Kabul
“The Taliban may no longer control the airwaves, but young women in Afghanistan still face torture and death for performing music. Meet the women who are pushing back – by rapping, singing, even playing the cello.”
$300K Gish Prize Goes To Wooster Group’s Elizabeth LeCompte
“LeCompte takes the award for 40 years of Wooster Group work encompassing a string of experimental, boundary-pushing, multimedia shows that include Route 1 & 9, L.S.D. (Just The High Points), Brace Up! and The Emperor Jones. She co-founded the troupe with Spaulding Gray, with Willem Dafoe among its original members; Frances McDormand has performed with the company in recent years.”
Without Warning, Off-Broadway’s Soho Rep Closes Its Theater
“The company said Wednesday that it had recently concluded that the scale of its current productions was not permitted by restrictions on the property, and that it would immediately vacate the premises. Three productions by other theater companies renting the Soho Rep space, including one that was scheduled to begin performances Thursday, will have to be relocated or canceled.”
Should Middle-Aged Opera Singers Really Be Playing A Babe Magnet Like Don Giovanni? Of Course, Say Middle-Aged Opera Singers
Christopher Purves: “I think it’s much more interesting for the audience to watch a couple of old duffers trying to negotiate their way round this opera. … [Giovanni] exudes danger, mature sex appeal, total self-confidence, even though he’s no longer young.”
The Matthew Bourne Dancer Killed In A Collision Last Year? The Driver Was Talking On His Cell Phone
“Dancer Jonathan Ollivier was killed when his motorbike was hit by a minicab while the driver was making a hands-free call on his mobile, a court has heard. Ollivier died last August after his motorbike collided with a car as he was making his way to the final performance of Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man.”
Bots Are Figuring Out How To Make Art (And Starting To Get Good At It)
“We’re always writing from our experiences of things that we’ve read and what we’ve heard and things that we’ve absorbed verbally. So to what extent can anyone author anything? And to what extent does this machine augment this capacity?”
An Evolving Landscape Of Creative Re-Use Rights
So, what do you do if you want to use someone else’s work as a creative jumping off point? “Appropriation art” is in the news these days; just ask artist Richard Prince, who’s been sued multiple times for copyright infringement and won, based on the “fair use” principle.
New California Law Requires IMDB To Remove Actors’ Ages If Requested
“Their ages are already very public and easy to find. The law is designed for the working performer… who wanted the opportunity to be able just to be seen for the first time or to be able to go into a room when they’re not known and be able to show their work and not have the subconscious bias of their age being the deciding factor of whether they should be able to come in that room or not for an audition.”
Continuing Woes: Metropolitan Museum Lays Off 34 Employees
As AJBlogger Judith Dobrzynski reported yesterday, the Met is cutting staff. “The Met has been contending with a ballooning deficit even as it aims to raise money for a $600 million new wing dedicated to Modern and contemporary art and to sustain its eight-year lease at the Met Breuer at a cost of $17 million a year.”
Why Balanchine’s ‘Jewels’ Makes The Perfect Introduction To Ballet
Alastair Macaulay: “Nobody can miss how vividly different its stage worlds are: the green romantic medieval French forest of ‘Emeralds’ (music by Fauré); the red Modernist high-energy American urban world of ‘Rubies’ (Stravinsky); the wintry white (both snowscape and palace) grand imperial Russian classicism of ‘Diamonds’ (Tchaikovsky). What other artist could conjure these three dissimilar realms with such easy mastery?”
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