The playwright-impresario-activist who created The Vagina Monologues starts out an interview talking about her One Billion Rising movement to combat violence against women – and ends up, by discussing her near-deadly bout with cancer, affecting her interviewer’s relationship with her own body. (includes video)
Archives for February 10, 2014
Keeping Pina Bausch’s Company Vital, Five Years After Her Death
“Five years on, what once seemed unlikely has happened. The two men who stepped up to the artistic directorship [after Bausch died suddenly] … have handed over the reins of the company to another former dancer, Lutz Förster. The transition appears seamless: the company continues to perform to the highest standards, and is more popular than it has ever been.”
José Manuel Carreño Era Begins at Ballet San Jose
“After 16 years as a highflier at New York’s famed American Ballet Theatre, José Manuel Carreño has landed a new role: trying to get the struggling Ballet San Jose back on its feet.”
Armenia’s National Opera Begins Strike Right Before Performance
Joining widespread and growing protests against a partial privatization of the national pension scheme, the staff and performers of the National Opera and Ballet Theater in Yerevan walked out just before curtain time. (in English)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.10.14
What Are the Arts For?
Source: CultureCrash | Published on 2014-02-10
Unconventional Partnerships: Let’s Have More
Source: Real Clear Arts | Published on 2014-02-11
New Trails for Traditions
Source: Dancebeat | Published on 2014-02-10
Shostakovich Decoded
Source: Unanswered Question | Published on 2014-02-11
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FCC Chairman Ponders A Move On Net Neutrality
Tom Wheeler “has yet to speak plainly about his plans to overcome the net neutrality decision. Critics say that in doing so he has hidden just how much power the F.C.C. had gained from the decision.”
Can Wikipedia Survive In an Increasingly Mobile World?
“The fact that people increasingly use the Internet with a smartphone, and only a smartphone, has disrupted television, books and news, among other things, and media companies have scrambled to adjust. Wikipedia, the world’s fifth-largest website, but one with a relatively minuscule operating budget, has been especially slow to adapt to a mobile world.”
How The Internet Has Impacted Our Lives
“Whether we like it or not we are caught up in these flows of technology and as we are carried along by the flows, some barely visible to us, it becomes increasingly difficult to stand back and distinguish between what is good about these innovations and what is not.”
Royal Ballet Cancels Ballet In Mid-Performance After Collision
“Natalia Osipova, who recently joined the Royal Ballet as a principal dancer, sustained a mild concussion on Saturday afternoon in a collision with a fellow dancer… The cancellation of a ballet is highly unusual, because a second cast or understudies are usually available to replace an injured dancer.”
New Data: Our TV-Watching Habits Are Changing Quickly
“In the past year, time-shifting of television content grew by almost two hours, averaging 13 hours per month, the study found. Viewers averaged nearly 134 hours of live TV viewing a month in 2013, down nearly three hours from 2012.”
European Parliament Supports New Rules For How Airlines Deal With Musical Instruments
The European Parliament has agreed to a revision of air passenger rights, which includes a reform that would mean air carriers “must accept smaller instruments into the passenger cabin” and “must clearly indicate the terms and conditions for the transport of larger instruments in the cargo hold”.
German Museum Cancels Balthus Show After Charges Of Pedophilia
In December, the German newspaper Die Zeit criticised the planned exhibition at the Essen museum, calling the images “documents of paedophile greed”.
Cultural Theorist Stuart Hall, 82
“Hall was always among the first to identify key questions of the age, and routinely sceptical about easy answers. A spellbinding orator and a teacher of enormous influence, he never indulged in academic point-scoring.”
The Evidence Mounts: Violent Video Games Influence Behavior
“Many real-world decisions require self-regulation of moral behavior. Our study indicates that playing violent video games can interfere with this ability.”
How Humans Are Different From Animals (Or Not)
“In the light of new research into animal intelligence, some scientists have concluded that there simply is no profound difference between us and other species. But other scientists of equal eminence argue the opposite: that new research is finally making the profound difference between humans and animals clear.”
Why The New “Occupy Art” Meme On Facebook Is A Bad Idea
“In an attempt to liberate Facebook from ‘photos of lunch,’ that circa-2009 shorthand for all things annoying and self-promotional on the Internet, Facebook ‘occupiers’ are actually engaging in the exact same behavior — posting self-indulgent poems or images to show off how sophisticated they are.”
Matching “Mozart In The Jungle” Characters To Real-Life – Now The Guessing Begins
“Mozart in the Jungle” is a satirical, behind-the-scenes look at a fictional American orchestra. But the magnetic Rodrigo doesn’t feel fictional at all. In fact, he’s a dead ringer for Gustavo Dudamel.
Why The “Guilty” In Guilty Pleasure?
“With the exceptions of warmongering doublespeak and racial epithets, is there any more pernicious linguistic remnant of the 20th century than the phrase ‘guilty pleasure’? And how did these two concepts ever come to be married anyway?”
The Creative Contradictions Of Baz Luhrmann
“What happens when you get a degree of success and then a degree of brand and then a degree of acknowledgment is: You cannot walk away from it.”