Yearly Archives: 2021
Why Sexual Grooming And Abuse Seem To Happen So Often In Ballet
"Unfortunately, ballet's rigid hierarchy, job scarcity and conditioning of dancers to be compliant makes it a comfortable environment for perpetrators to thrive in." Kathleen...
Biggest-Ever Vermeer Show Is Coming, And It Could Be The Last
At least two dozen of the 35 surviving paintings of Johannes Vermeer will be on display in the spring of 2023 at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum,...
Medieval Rock-Hewn Churches Of Lalibela Retaken By Ethiopian Government Forces
The UNESCO World Heritage Site and pilgrimage center has been one of the battlegrounds in the civil war between Ethiopia's central government and rebels...
NPR Morning Edition Host Noel King Is Leaving For A Sort-Of Competitor
She is moving to Vox Media as editorial director and co-host (with current host Sean Rameswaram) of Today, Explained, Vox's morning news podcast. What's...
If Democracy Is Institutions, What Institutions Are Democracy?
Political institutions differ considerably from one purportedly democratic society to the next. Voting procedures, representation schemes, conceptions of free speech, and judicial arrangements are...
Has America Lost Its Imagination?
Americans used to go to movie theaters to watch new characters in new stories. Now they go to movie theaters to re-submerge themselves in...
The Art World Power 100 List
NFTs (and with them cryptocurrency and all that comes with it) have upended the art market, bringing contemporary art and millennial meme culture crashing...
The Universal Story (But Why?)
From one point of view, it’s obvious that, despite exceptions, most stories portray “goody-baddy” dynamics—from nursery rhymes to juicy gossip, from ancient folktales to...
Why Orchestra Percussion Sections Aren’t Diverse
At minimum, percussion students need a room to practice in — usually in a large single family home and not an apartment — over...
A Playwright-Turned-Librettist Considers Opera’s Centuries-Long Penchant For Adapting Pre-Existing Properties
Adaptations from well-known sources go right from the beginnings of opera as a distinct genre circa 1600 (Peri's Euridice and Monteverdi's L'Orfeo) to the...
One Of Canada’s Top Contemporary Groups Calls It Quits
“We have been here for 35 years. We have made 300 creations, several international tours, 11 Canadian tours, and 70 concerts across the country....
Italy Shows Britain (And The Rest Of Us) How To Return The Parthenon’s Looted...
"The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports has announced that Italy will return a fragment of the Parthenon Frieze, which has been on loan...
Why The World’s Best Chess Players Are Too Good To Win
Accurate is the word of the match so far. Inevitably, the string of draws is the main narrative out of Dubai; no one has won...
Female Filmmakers Are Rethinking And Reworking The Western
"These female-made Westerns are really tackling toxic masculinity and the ways in which men's attempts to prove themselves as men can backfire, rather than...
The Rise Of The Media “Comfort Creator”
“With the terror of a global pandemic sending anxiety sky high and rendering TV one of the few safe entertainment outlets, the desire for...
“The Russian Proust”, Who Died At Auschwitz, Will Have A Novel Published In English...
Yuri Felsen (né Nikolai Freudenstein), born in St. Petersburg in 1894, fled to Paris after the Revolution and was considered by Russian émigrés to...
It’s Been Ten Years Since Robert Battle Took Over Leading Alvin Ailey Company
“The knee-jerk thing is to overcorrect,” he continued. “But sometimes you need to double down in your mission. Sometimes you have to think about...
Dominique Morisseau On Why She Pulled Her Play “Paradise Blue” From The Geffen Playhouse
"I felt in this situation that everybody's wellness was not considered. The theater makers that were causing the harm were being centered over the...
After 31 Years, A New Hint In The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft
A retired Boston jeweler says that, shortly after the 1990 heist, an acquaintance brought in a gilded bronze eagle for him to appraise —...
Hashing It Out: Is “West Side Story” Worth Doing In 2021, Or Is It...
As the Steven Spielberg/Tony Kushner film arrives, New York Times critics Jesse Green and Isabelia Herrera, playwright Matthew López, theater historian Misha Berson (author...
Alvin Lucier, Pathbreaking Avant-Garde Composer, Dead At 90
"During a career spanning six decades, Mr. Lucier moved from a respectable position as a traditional composer … to the near-personification of experimentalism in...
Turner Prize 2021 Goes To A Mockup Of A Belfast Bar
Array Collective has become the first Northern Irish artist(s) ever to receive the award. The winning work, titled The Druithaib's Ball, is a full-size...
If Boris Won’t Make British Audience Members Mask Up, Then Venues Will
When performances started up again in the UK over the summer, masks weren't made mandatory (much to the alarm of some visitors from abroad)....
After 30 Years, Director Of Australia’s Flagship Indigenous Dance Company Is Stepping Down
Stephen Page became artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre in 1991, two years after its founding, and has led it to awards and acclaim...
Author Alice Sebold Apologizes To Man Cleared Of Her 1981 Rape Featured In Her...
“My goal in 1982 was justice – not to perpetuate injustice,” she said. “And certainly not to forever, and irreparably, alter a young man’s...