No less than dance or fight choreography, intimacy choreography consists of specific, repeatable movements, and intimacy directors find desexualized language to use with actors (as opposed to “More passionate!”) to create the right effect for the audience. Holly L. Derr talks with some of the creators of the practice of intimacy direction about how they developed it and use it. – HowlRound
Thanks To The Claw, Philadelphia Has Become A Literary Hotbed
The Claw, founded by authors Carmen Maria Machado and Liz Moore, “is comprised of 19 published and professional fiction and nonfiction writers. Not unlike a book club, it meets roughly once a month, usually at one of the members’ homes. Over glasses of wine, the women ask for advice, offer feedback, and discuss what they’re writing at the moment — or just whatever’s occupying their minds.” Says one member, “What you see in Philly’s literary community is that women have decided to take the lead here.” – Philadelphia Magazine
A First Look At The New, Non-Robbins Choreography For Broadway’s ‘West Side Story’
“Though her work has evolved beyond the minimalist choreography that first garnered her critical notice in the 1980s, [Anne Teresa] De Keersmaeker remains a formalist. Throughout this production, she makes ingenious use of traveling wedge formations, each gang shaped loosely into a triangle with their leader at the point, as they circle, stalk, intimidate, and prepare to pounce. [Director Ivo] van Hove says that De Keersmaeker’s facility in moving groups of bodies around a stage is partly why he chose her to choreograph this musical, as it is one in which ‘groups are really important.'” – American Theatre
Turn Libraries Into Arts Spaces? Be Careful!
It’s fantastic to see libraries recognised as valuable public spaces that need protection and increased support, but I’m concerned that the attempt to rejuvenate them through the arts could backfire. Rather than reviving libraries, it could transform them into something else completely. – Arts Professional
Ambitious Major Triennial Canceled In Beijing Over Coronavirus Fears
The CAFA Art Museum (CAFAM) in Beijing announced its decision to suspend the inaugural edition of its CAFAM Techne Triennial, an ambitious exhibition of media art scheduled to open on February 20. More than 130 artists and collectives planned to exhibit their work in the museum’s 5,000-square-meter space, including Alex Da Corte, Wang Gongxin, Hito Steyerl, Tauba Auerbach, Zhang Peili, and Hans Haacke. – Hyperallergic
Digging Through The Thames’ Mud For The Unwritten Records Of Several Nations
London’s thoroughfare is a tidal river, and when the river retreats, the mudlarks emerge. These mudlarks are people, and they find cool things: “A gold ornament from the 16th century, ancient Roman coins, shards of medieval pottery, prehistoric flint – these are just some of the thousands of historical treasures … Lara Maiklem has found searching the banks of London’s River Thames.” – NPR
Comics Are Poetry, And Here’s Why
Let Ivan Brunetti break it down for you: Comics are “an incantation beckoning us to enter their world. The simplicity of their superficial concision can reveal surprising density, layers, and multivalence.” – Paris Review
Peak TV Is Surprisingly Like Peak Books
They’re not at all the same – and the internet is more distracting from books than TV is – but: “As with classic unread novels, certain TV shows have begun to carry with them a hint of obligation. There are so many shows that people assure me are really good, really smart, really fun, shows like Breaking Bad and Borgen and Schitt’s Creek. Then there are the documentaries that promise to teach history: Ken Burns’s Vietnam, Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us, Ken Burns’s Country Music, OJ: Made in America—actually, I did watch OJ, and it was incredible. I would like to watch it again. But then I’d like to read Middlemarch again, too.” – The Millions
Protests Against The New ‘West Side Story’ For Hiring A Dancer (Briefly) Fired From City Ballet For Sexual Harassment
Sure, there’s been a lot of buzz around this Ivan van Hove production, with new choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. But: “There’s another buzz gathering around the show—and not because two dancers’ injuries forced the postponement of opening night from Feb. 6 to Feb. 20. It is instead the controversy over the production’s choice to cast dancer/actor Amar Ramasar as Bernardo. Ramasar was fired from New York City Ballet in 2018 for sharing aggressively lewd text messages and nude photos and videos of female company members without their consent with some of his fellow male dancers at NYCB.” – American Theatre
$50 Million Gift Revives LACMA’s Stalled Building Campaign
The pledge raises the total commitments to $640 million. The $50 million from Keck is the second-largest private pledge to the project, after a $150 million pledge from entertainment mogul David Geffen in 2017. Casino and hotel magnate Elaine Wynn, co-chair of LACMA’s board of trustees, in 2016 also pledged $50 million. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has authorized $125 million in taxpayer funds for construction of the new building. – Los Angeles Times
How Schoenberg Evolved Away From Tonality
Schoenberg and beauty are words that rarely occupy the same sentence. Arguably the most influential composer of all time, his fame derived from his abolition of tonality—the harmonic system of the previous centuries, in which melodies and harmonies relate to the tonic (the home) of a given key. While detractors still demonise him for having destroyed music, the largely self-taught Schoenberg saw his work as a logical evolution of tradition. Frustrated that tonality seemed exhausted and had reached its limits (in other words, what did classical music have to say after Wagner?), Schoenberg felt that he must transcend its constraints. – Standpoint
It’s Beethoven’s 250th Birthday. Is There ANYTHING New To Say About Him?
How did Beethoven’s work — its harmonies, its rhetoric, its formal ideas — become such an exclusive model for what classical music should sound like? What are we going to do to give other models, both past and present, their due? How do we get past our Beethoven addiction? – San Francisco Chronicle
No Matter How Many Problems There Are With The NFL, Hordes Of People Keep Watching The Super Bowl. What Keeps Us Hooked?
“The Super Bowl isn’t just a game. It’s the halftime show; it’s the ads; it’s the chips and guac. It is sport but also music, dance, costumes, TV production and stage design — a pop culture event greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps most important, … the Super Bowl is one of the last true vestiges of an era when we all watched the same things at the same time.” Times journalists Wesley Morris, Caryn Ganz and Austin Considine discuss. – The New York Times
Should Artists Work For “Exposure” When A Museum Asks?
Artists looking to establish themselves often get requests to perform or otherwise lend their creative skills to conferences, private parties, businesses and assorted projects for the promised payment of exposure. But what does it say about the value of an artist’s work when a city’s leading arts institution does the same? – Blue Ridge Public
Failure To Entertain? Is That A Problem With Today’s Arts?
Ben Lawrence suggests that a large swath of the arts establishment is more interested in lecturing and criticizing than it is giving people affecting experiences they enjoy. – The Telegraph (UK)
A New, Nationwide Initiative For Asian-American Theater
“The National Asian American Theater Company is starting a partnership with regional theaters across the country, aiming to foster inclusion of more Asian-American theater artists, technicians, administrators and community members through productions, outreach and other programming. The first partner theaters will be New York Theater Workshop, Soho Rep, Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn., and Two River Theater in Red Bank, N.J.” – The New York Times
In Today’s Russia, The Government Doesn’t Always Need To Bother Censoring Cutting-Edge Art
Often, gangs of far-right nationalists will do it instead — burning books, protesting outside venues, bursting into buildings to disrupt an exhibition or performance, or even (in one instance) sending a teenager with a fake ID into a gay-themed play that’s legally barred to minors, then busting the company for admitting someone underage. A Moscow correspondent looks at the case of Teatr.doc. – The Economist
Ten Or More Dalí Sculptures Stolen From Stockholm Gallery
“The sculptures are each approximately 20 inches tall and are worth between $21,000 and $52,000. They were apparently snatched by at least two thieves in a smash-and-grab operation that was conducted in the early hours of Thursday morning … [at] Galleri Couleur.” – Observer (New York City)
Liam Scarlett, Royal Ballet’s Choreographer In Residence, Suspended Following #MeToo Claims From Students
“Independent investigators are examining claims that he behaved inappropriately with Royal Ballet School students and encouraged them to send him naked photographs. … The inquiry has not concluded and it is understood that no findings have been made against Scarlett.” – The Times (UK)
Citing Coronavirus Epidemic, Boston Symphony Cancels Asia Tour
“When officials with the Shanghai Oriental Art Center informed BSO that they were canceling the concert and other events because of the outbreak, BSO followed up with their presenting partners in Seoul, Taipei and Hong Kong, and ultimately decided to shelve the tour, the orchestra’s statement said.” – Boston Classical Review
This Is “Science”? Researchers Claim Rachmaninov Was The Most Original Composer In 200 Years
The scientists set out to quantify the creativity of 19 of the most prominent composers of recent centuries, including Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven. An analysis of their chord sequences found that none matched the originality of Rachmaninov. – The Times
Sundance’s Focus On Issue Films Suggests A New Wave Of Cause-Driven Stories
At a festival that thrives on the spirit of niche filmmaking, the prevalence of stories and programming about ripped-from-the-headlines causes made for an energizing change of pace. Given the annual event’s reputation as a dependable bellwether for the year in independent cinema, such films could signify a potential wave of policy-driven, urgent stories to come. – The Atlantic
Why “American Dirt” Doesn’t Work As Moral Marker
“American Dirt”won’t have much political impact, because Americans who have the capacity to be outraged about children in cages on the border already are; it’s arriving too late and isn’t compelling enough to change many minds. In the best-case scenario, it will be like “This Is Us” — popular, gratifying to some, not capable of moving any needles. As a novel, it’s a profoundly missed opportunity, a displacement of attention and resources that should have gone to more worthwhile books and more informed writers. But as a subject for conversation and controversy, even outrage, I hope “American Dirt” reminds American readers that a vibrant literature of the border already exists and deserves their attention. – Los Angeles Times
Traveling show
One of the nice things about collecting art is that you needn’t leave home to look at it. I had to miss a major exhibition of Hans Hofmann, whose work I love passionately. Fortunately, Mrs. T and I had a Hofmann of our own — and now we have two. – Terry Teachout
How Matthew Bourne’s ‘Swan Lake’ Makes Boys Want To Study Dance
It’s not just that the piece is in the final scene of Billy Elliot. A corps de ballet of muscular men as feral swans, in place of the usual ethereal women in white tutus, shows boys different, powerful images of both strong masculinity and ballet as a genre. That the production has been a success all over the world for 20-odd years helps, too. Roslyn Sulcas talks with four members of Bourne’s current company about the effect his Swan Lake had on them when they were young. – The New York Times
A 37-Year-Old Standard For Digitizing Music Is About To Change
Though MIDI has done an exceptional job of digitizing music for the last 37 years, it hasn’t been perfect. MIDI quantizes music, meaning it forces music components into a particular value. In MIDI 1.0, all data was in 7-bit values. That means musical qualities were quantized on a scale of 0 to 127. Features like volume, pitch, and how much of the sound should come out of the right or left speaker are all measured on this scale, with 128 possible points. This is not a lot of resolution. – Quartz
Sydney Opera House Closes Its Concert Hall To Fix The Problems It’s Had Since It Opened
“The ambition of the Danish architect Jørn Utzon’s design, his walkout mid-project, and Peter Hall’s subsequent takeover in 1966 resulted in compromises that have bedevilled the building ever since. Now, as part of a five-year program in which the Opera House has been progressively upgrading its core infrastructure, construction is about to begin on a $150m revamp of its largest performance space, the 2,500-seat concert hall, designed to remedy the shortcomings born of the project’s messy origins.” – The Guardian
#MeToo Is Starting To Make A Real Difference In Hollywood
“No matter how Harvey Weinstein’s criminal trial in Manhattan turns out, the revelations about the way he used his power over women have altered Hollywood in ways big and small. … Activists and industry professionals say that the steps being taken represent sustained attention to the issue, some improvement in day-to-day working conditions and perhaps signs of bona fide change.” – The New York Times