“When she came across Kathak, the staccato rhythms of the dance form reminded [choreographer Helena] Waldmann of the rapid needle of a sewing machine. She saw the stomping footwork of Kathak as the perfect symbol of the pressures faced by garment workers.”
Dancing Waters: A Ballet Of Boats On The Mississippi River
Choreographer Patrick Scully, who has already done a similar project in Germany, hopes to get a cast of 100 kayaks, racing sculls, motorboats, paddleboards, and maybe even a barge to perform a work on the river in the Twin Cities this summer. (No sailboats, though.)
Why Young People Probably Won’t Be Watching The Oscars
“The Academy has managed to nominate one of its least-commercial best picture slates ever: six indie films (“Boyhood,” “Birdman,” “The Imitation Game,” “The Theory of Everything,” “Whiplash” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel”) and two studio features (“Selma” and “American Sniper”) that have yet to open in wide release. So far, the highest-grossing movie of the best-picture nominees is “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” at a modest $59 million domestically.”
Book About “True” Account Of Going To Heaven Is Pulled From Shelves
“The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” was first published in 2010 and told of a 2004 auto accident which left Malarkey in a coma. According to the book, co-written by Alex’s father, Kevin Malarkey, he had visions of angels and of meeting Jesus. In 2014, Tyndale reissued “The Boy,” which on the cover includes the billing “A True Story.” As reported by Nielsen BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of the print market, the book has sold nearly 120,000 copies.
Disrupt Culture? (Better Figure Out What’s Being Disrupted)
“Data suggests that audiences are agnostic in their habits of cultural consumption — and increasingly ambivalent about the platform by which they consume that culture. The Innovators Dilemma suggests that those who look with condescension upon the competitive emergence of cheaper, arguably poorer quality cultural products do so at their own peril.”
Ivan Fischer, Radical Conductor?
“I don’t like the whole system, the way American symphonies are organized,” he said last week, speaking by Skype from Berlin, where he and his family (he has two young sons) are now largely based. He has made no secret of his views, telling interviewers that orchestras have to change or risk dying out. The rest of the world, increasingly, is hailing him as a visionary.
If Artworks Could Watch Us Watching Them
“As museumgoers, we’re used to looking at art, but a new project from filmmaker and artist Masashi Kawamura inverses the traditional relationship of viewer to artwork. For his blog What They See, Kawamura has taken photographs from the perspectives of famous artworks, inviting us into their visual fields. We see what they would see – if they could see.”
It’s Frightening How Easy It Is To Make People Falsely Remember Committing A Crime
“By the end of the third interview, after a bunch of carefully crafted nudging to do their best to remember, a full 70 percent of the students [in the study] said, ‘Yep, I committed that crime when I was younger,’ and they ‘volunteered … detailed false account[s]’ of those crimes.”
Making A Rainbow Out Of One Of Brooklyn’s Ugliest Pieces Of Infrastructure
“Most days the underside of the Smith-9th Street subway bridge over the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is a tangle of ungainly gray beams, but this week it has been aglow in bold colors every night.”
24 Pieces Of Life Advice From Werner Herzog
“Send out all your dogs and one might return with prey.”
A Choreographer For A Ballet … With Boats
“‘Now you get into the heart of the choreography challenge,’ Scully said. ‘You can’t teach a sailboat to do a cartwheel.'”
You Can See The World’s Greatest Stolen Artworks In One Place – Online
“The virtual museum was designed to look just like a real one. The works hang on spare white walls, surrounded by ornate frames. An audio guide walks visitors through the halls. For Schneider, recreating the traditional museum environment was a chance to restore some dignity to these stolen works, which often just exist as thumbnail images on FBI and Interpol websites.”
Los Angeles Hosts A Hyperlocal, Modern ‘Figaro’
“Sung in English and Spanish, which are intertwined to create clever rhymes, ‘¡Figaro! (90210)’ finds the titular hero working in Beverly Hills as an undocumented gardener. The basic plot remains the same–a lecherous boss tries to seduce his employee’s fiancée on the eve of her wedding–but Guerriero has reimagined the characters as distinct L.A. archetypes.”
The World Is Addicted To Skyscrapers Right Now
“A new report shows 2014 was the ‘tallest year ever,’ with more skyscrapers constructed than in any previous year,” and 2015 is on track to outpace it.
French Movie Theatres Screening Documentary About Charlie Hebdo And Freedom Of Speech
“At the time of its release, Mr. Leconte’s documentary did not make much noise. But after terrorist attacks that resulted in the deaths of 17 people in Paris last week, directors at several movie theaters decided to pay tribute to Charlie Hebdo by reprogramming Mr. Leconte’s documentary.”
The Subtle Gradations Of Talent Among City Ballet’s Top Ballerinas
“While major ballet companies usually have plenty of dancers who fully deserve the title of ballerina, most don’t boast more than one or two who will define their generation and redefine its accomplishments. “
The Internet Brings All Subcultures To Your Living Room, Where You Can Definitely Be Offended
“There are those who expect that whatever alternative cultures they encounter through social media must comply with their own aesthetic or moral framework. They feel entitled, not just to enter spaces and places where they do not necessarily belong, but also to demand censure and closure if they don’t like what they find there.”
Sotheby’s Wins Court Case About (Not) Identifying Caravaggio
“The filing claimed that Sotheby’s did not undertake the necessary research and analysis prior to the work’s sale.”
Want To Quote A Novel? You’ll Probably Chose From Among These Books
“Certain works of fiction have so many memorable lines that they’ve entered everyday language.” Think Austen, Dickens – and many more.
City Opera Bidders Are Getting Ready To Lay It All On The Line
“In one corner is Roy Niederhoffer, a former City Opera board member backing a plan to reboot the company under the direction of Michael Capasso, the head of a small Manhattan opera company in the process of being wound down. In the other is Gene Kaufman, an architect who has also expressed interest in restarting City Opera but whose prior proposals have failed to win favor with the defunct company’s board.”
Not-So-Sunny London Loses Its Spinoff Sundance Festival
“The three-day event may have struggled to attract audiences to the O2, a huge corporate space far from central London’s traditional arts hubs.”
The Forty-Year-Old Toronto Dance Company That’s Ready For An Entirely New Model
“Forster and Kamino’s vision speaks to a larger debate on dance creation that pits the Canadian model against its European counterpart”
The (Extremely Specific) Time When We All Kill Our Inner Children
“This shift begins even earlier than previously believed, and it may be driven by a crucial cognitive development that’s arguably the basis of all human social interaction.”
24 Lessons From The Publishing World
Sometimes good books sell well; sometimes good books sell poorly; sometimes bad books sell well; sometimes bad books sell poorly. A lot about publishing is unfair and inscrutable. But…
Satire Is Firmly Embedded In The Traditions Of Every Culture
“In some of the discussion surrounding the case, there has been an implication that Muslims (and other non-Westerners, for that matter) don’t have the rich satirical tradition found in places like France. That’s not quite true. Satirical traditions may not be the same in France as they are in Iraq or Venezuela. But the mocking of rulers, politicians and pretensions has long had a place in every culture.”