“While the dance minor and graduate program will remain, the school has proposed dissolving the dance major under budget constraints. … Founded in 1938, Mills’ dance department is the oldest, continuously-run program in the country today. With that comes a list of distinguished alumni, including Molissa Fenley and Trisha Brown.”
Archives for October 2015
The Illusion Of Deliciousness: How Packaging Can Make Food (Seem) More Flavorful
“Sitting in a pub one night a dozen years ago, Charles Spence realized that he was in the presence of the ideal experimental model: the Pringles potato chip.” The Oxford experimental psychologist argues “that in most cases at least half of our experience of food and drink is determined by the forgotten flavor senses of vision, sound, and touch.”
Picasso’s Last Surviving Lover/Muse And Marcelo Gomes Make A Ballet Together
Françoise Gilot, an accomplished painter herself and still active at age 93, has created the backdrop for Gomes’s new AfterEffect, the first work he has choreographed for his colleagues at American Ballet Theater.
It Don’t Come Easy: David Lynch’s Relationship With Language
“Affable despite his elusiveness, Lynch seems [in an early interview] less to be stonewalling than striving to verbalize daunting concepts with a vocabulary that might politely be termed basic. … It’s clear from the 1979 footage – and from almost every interview he has done since – that words do not come easily to him. … Lynch has said, more than once, that he had to ‘learn to talk,’ and his very particular, somewhat limited vocabulary seems in many ways an outgrowth of his aesthetic.”
Maria Callas Still Sets The Opera Diva Standard, Even After Half A Century
Peter G. Davis argues that La Divina changed both the way we listen to opera and the ambitions and goals of countless later singers.
Alicia Alonso Remembers
The founding mother of ballet in Cuba recalls her early training and career, convincing Fidel Castro to fund a professional national company, and convincing skeptical parents that ballet could be a career. (video)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.28.15
The Whole World Is Awash in Art
Once you have successfully freed yourself from the Sinatra Imperative, you have taken the first major step toward artistic independence. Suddenly, all the world is available for your creativity, and all the world’s people as well. … read more
AJBlog: Creative Insubordination Published 2015-10-28
Making My Peace with Sales
Nearly four years ago, shortly after I started Engaging Matters, I published a post (What Is Arts Marketing?) in which I outlined a conceptual framework for nonprofit marketing in the arts. While I stand by much of it, it implies a dismissiveness about sales for which I repent. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-10-27
Recent Listening: Dee Dee Bridgewater
Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dee Dee’s Feathers (Okeh). Dee Dee Bridgewater is strong medicine, fully a match for the powerful New Orleans repertoire she performs here. Slinking and seducing her way through Harry Connick, Jr.’s “One Fine Thing,” … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-10-28
Exciting Young Singers
Over the past two weeks I had the good fortune to visit two extraordinary groups of aspiring and inspiring opera singers. I gave master classes, heard a lot of auditions, discussed how to get ahead in the business of classical music, and talked (probably too much) about my own experiences. All in all I heard more than forty singers, aged twenty-two to thirty, … read more
AJBlog: OperaSleuth Published 2015-10-28
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A Rotten Tomatoes For Theatre
Inspired by Netflix and Amazon, the site lets audience-goers find exactly what they want — options include a show with puppets, a Shakespeare revival or a romance, and many more. There also are guides for folks who like their shows 90 minutes or less, family friendly or even scary, in time for Halloween.
TV Business Declining? Don’t Tell Comcast
Comcast reported on Tuesday an 11 percent increase in revenue, to nearly $18.7 billion, in the third quarter, fueled by continued growth in its high-speed Internet and film businesses.
The Sun Never Sets On The Gagosian Art Empire
With 15 galleries stretching around the world and a host of former employees also making their marks, his influence is large.
English National Opera: We’ve Turned The Page
Cressida Pollock, the former McKinsey consultant who last month was appointed chief executive on a three-year contract, said they were in process of searching for an “artistic leader” to replace Berry, but there was no schedule for the appointment, nor any decision as to what this person’s title or exact role will be.
Why Are Boston Audiences Laughing Inappropriately During Serious Plays?
“Rogue laughter,” as Boston-area actress Marianna Bassham calls it, has become an occupational hazard for actors, an annoyance for audiences, and an increasingly common phenomenon on stages from Boston to Broadway and from “A Streetcar Named Desire” to last year’s New York revival of “A Raisin in the Sun,” starring Denzel Washington.
The ADD Arts Philanthropist
Perhaps no one has given more money to Northwest arts organizations. But Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s arts philanthropy is changing in a big way. And the region is wondering what is in store.
Study: Streaming Isn’t Killing Recording Industry Revenues
“When looking the top songs each week and calculating how much rights holders were paid, researchers find that streaming usage increases music-industry revenue thanks to the ability to convert those who were either downloading illegally or not listening to tracks at all. But those gains are pretty much offset by streaming’s displacement of permanent track purchases or downloads.”
Rockefeller Foundation Buys $1.46 Million Of “Hamilton” Tickets
Under the initiative starting next spring, the producers of “Hamilton” will make tickets to select Wednesday matinees available for $70 for students attending New York City public high schools. The Rockefeller Foundation will subsidize $60 of each ticket, and students will pay just $10.
Guy Vanderhaeghe Wins Canada’s Governor General Lit Award For Third Time
Since the first-ever Governor-General’s Literary Award was handed out in 1936, only three writers have won the prize for English-language fiction three times: Hugh MacLennan, Alice Munro and Michael Ondaatje.
Museum Says It Will Collect Legos For Ai Weiwei
“We have received many offers of donations of Lego in the past days. People have shown their generosity, creative spirit and enthusiasm to become engaged in this project, and we are pleased to be the first international collection point.
The Link Between Ticket Prices And The Community Around You
“My fellow arts leaders, the next time you find yourselves asking, “Why don’t our audiences include younger people? Why is our neighborhood gentrifying? Why aren’t we staging more innovative shows and developing young talent?”—rethink your admission prices and your outreach strategy.”
Obamas Bring More Contemporary Art Into The White House
“There was discussion about the president and first lady liking more abstract art,” said William Allman, the longtime curator of the White House art collection, who has arranged loans of the more modern paintings from museums. “Our collection doesn’t really have any of that.”
Of Course You Can Ban Cellphones In The Theatre. But That’s Kinda Stupid (With All Due Respect)
“The bad news for theatre is that we live in a world full of hand-held technology, where word travels fast. And if the word travelling about our industry is that we bully newcomers who don’t know any better, those newcomers have more than enough alternative forms of entertainment to choose from.”
Why Are We Still Fascinated By Sherlock Holmes?
“What keeps Sherlock Holmes alive? As is customarily the case with serial literature, the most important element of the appeal of the Holmes stories is the personality of their principal character, closely followed by his relationship with his amanuensis.”
When Bar(n)-Storming Cellist Matt Haimovitz Colonized Columbia University Campus
“Students eating at Columbia University’s John Jay Dining Hall, an airy den reverberating with undergraduate chatter, were in for a surprise last Wednesday. When they walked in for dinner, they found Matt Haimovitz – the cellist who helped to start a trend by performing in places like an East Village punk club and a pizzeria in Jackson, Miss. – playing Bach.”
Bolshoi Ballet Gets New Director, Replacing Acid Atttack Victim Sergei Filin
“Bolshoi Theatre general director Vladimir Urin appointed Makhar Vaziev, who has led La Scala Ballet for seven years and, before that, spent 13 years at the helm of the Mariinsky Ballet. Many Russians are relieved that the choice is a former dancer with leadership experience and good taste. But questions surround this appointment.”
The Thorny Situation That The Bolshoi Ballet’s New Director Is Dancing Into
It’s by no means only the drama surrounding the acid attack on outgoing director Sergei Filin, as bad as that was. Ismene Brown explains.
More Female Producers And Directors Mean More Female Crew Members, Study Finds
“Data crunched by researchers … at San Diego State University found that on films with female directors, women accounted for slightly more than half of the films’ writers. On films with male directors, by contrast, women made up 8 percent of writers. The ripple effect extends to other jobs: across the board, having a female director greatly increased the number of women in editing and cinematographer positions.”