“‘These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned,’ a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing told residents” of Mosul in ISIS-occupied Iraq. The extremists “loaded around 2,000 books – including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science – into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.”
David Hallberg As Bridge Between American And Russian Ballet
“If dance, for two countries with a fractious history and a tense present, is a mutually comprehensible language, then Hallberg is something of a poet laureate. Who better to represent the state of American art? Who better to turn rivalry into collaboration?”
Why Will Amazon Lose BBC Shows? Because It Wants Them All To Itself
“It’s a bit of hardball that could frustrate Amazon’s customers in the short term, but demonstrates just how serious the company is about Prime.”
This Writer Wrote The Book Gravity, And Sold The Rights To Hollywood – And This Is What Happened Next
“The principles involved go far beyond my individual lawsuit. Every writer who sells film rights to Hollywood must now contend with the possibility that the studio they signed the contract with could be swallowed up by a larger company — and that parent company can then make a movie based on your book without compensating you. It means Hollywood contracts are worthless.”
Theatre Explores What Will Happen If Football Goes Away
“The playwrights wondered whether, as fans, they had some responsibility to the players — and to the future of football itself.”
Flex Dance Is Traveling Far And Away From East New York
“Flex is said to have originated in the 1990s in Jamaica with a dancer who called himself Bruck Up. It developed in Brooklyn, mainly in dance battles and tournaments, both informal and organized. Although the form has found exposure through television competitions and an ocean of online music and dance videos, the attention from the likes of Mr. Sellars is recent.”
‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ Writer Explains What Really Went Wrong (If Anything Actually Did?)
“What gets lost in this story is how many people actually wound up loving the show. … For a lot of people, because it was Spider-Man, it was their first musical ever, and for some it was kind of a gateway drug. They were turned on to Broadway musicals in a way they hadn’t been before.”
Yes, We Can – And Should – Enjoy The Music Of Richard Strauss
“It seems more and more obvious that the composer’s critics were merely looking for the wrong things.”
The Star Violinist Who Defies Putin’s Russia – And Thinks Western Orchestras Should Too
“She agreed to play in the concert but prepared a gesture of protest that was characteristically elegant. She commissioned an encore for solo violin from a Georgian composer, Igor Loboda, titled ‘Requiem for Ukraine,’ which she performed after her concerto — as Mr. Gergiev stood in the wings.”
What’s It Like To Write A Composition About Frank Gehry’s House?
“The new piece, for four musicians, tries to evoke the Gehry home with means both literal and conceptual. As with much of his music, Norman acknowledges, there’s a chance that some listeners will find ‘Frank’s House’ as unpleasant as those neighbors in 1978 found Frank’s house.”
Theatre Too Big To Fail (Perhaps Unfortunately)
“There does seem something odd about ACE’s long-standing tradition of hurling ever more money at buildings and organisations that lurch from crisis to crisis. There are plenty of small, nimble organisations with absolutely no desire to empire-build by adding another auditorium or indeed any auditorium at all, but who get by on very little funding; who with a little bit more, they could be real power houses, despite, or perhaps because of, their diminutive size.”
As Lawsuit Shows, It’s Hard Out There For An Independent Movie Producer
“Indie producers typically raise money from a pool of investors, and look to partner with studios that can market and distribute their projects. But their movies often have trouble finding an audience in a marketplace dominated by big productions. It’s a bit of a gamble, and unlike a corporation, independent producers often don’t have the deep pockets necessary to weather a movie that bombs.”
Moscow Library Containing 14 Million Books And Many Rare Historical Documents Goes Up In Flames
“It was founded in 1918 and holds documents from the League of Nations, UNESCO, and early parliamentary reports dating back as far as 1789.”
It’s 2015, And TV Now Has Exactly One Show About An Asian American Family
“Mr. Huang has been vocal in opposition to some of the differences between the show and his book. But producers and writers were, broadly speaking, true to his story of cross-racial solidarity. ‘The new generation of people, I think, are ready for this show,’ Hudson said.”
Geraldine McEwan Was Miss Marple (And Miss Jean Brodie As Well)
The actress – whose death at age 82 trended on Twitter – had a career that “spanned decades on the small screen and in theatre and films, including box office hits such as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves starring as the witch Mortiana. She won a Bafta for best actress in 1991 for her role in the TV serial of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.”
How Japan Became A Pop Culture Superpower
“Almost every childhood craze of the past 30 years has come from Japan: Transformers, Power Rangers, Tamagotchi, Pokémon and on and on and on. And together these have blasted through boundaries between different media.”