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Dance Among The Irradiated Ruins Of Fukushima

Eiko’s performative gestures are captured in opulent compositional detail as she defiantly inserts her body amidst crumbled buildings, vine-encrusted train tracks, large bags of radioactive trash, upended cars, tender memorial altars, washed-away fields, crushed fishing ports, and abandoned beaches. Over the course of the collaborator’s five trips, nature’s resiliency is revealed as Eiko inhabits regenerating (while still contaminated) gardens,...

There’s Nothing New About Cutting Offensive Stuff From Children’s Books, So Calm Down About Dr. Seuss Already

For instance, ugly ethnic stereotypes from the 1920s and '30s were removed from the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books all the way back in 1959, and from Mary Poppins and The Story of Dr. Dolittle in the '80s; Roald Dahl himself rewrote the original, now-cringeworthy portrayal of the Oompa-Loompas in the early 1970s after complaints from the NAACP....

$158 Million Restoration Of Air Force Academy Chapel Is Biggest Modernist Preservation Project Ever

Listed as a National Historic Landmark District, the Air Force Academy campus is still one of the most advanced fusions of technology, education, art, and architecture that the country has ever seen. At its heart, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Walter Netsch Jr. designed an aluminum skinned chapel pointing straight up to the sky and the heavens beyond it. -...

Hollywood Stars, The Theater Needs Your Help!

"In one of the more surprising revelations of the shutdown, it turns out that the American theater has no towering figure even attempting to lead it through this crisis, the way Andrew Lloyd Webber has in Britain. … In such a scarily perplexing time, there is no one to rally the troops, let alone do what I'm hoping you...

Milwaukee’s Danceworks Changes Collective Leadership Model Amid Protests

A recent leadership change at Danceworks has led to the longtime artistic director's resignation and a letter from a co-founder criticizing the board of directors for "disempowering" the dancers who make up much of the staff.  - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Warner Bros. Has Dropped Pepe Le Pew From Looney Tunes

The amorous/borderline-rapey skunk was cut from Space Jam 2 and is not included in any future projects, though studio sources say that this is not because of last week's tweet from New York Times columnist Charles Blow that Le Pew "added to rape culture." (Alas, it seems the cut scene from the Space Jam sequel showed the stinker finally...

Milwaukee Repertory Theatre Will Pay Its Employees To Get Vaccinated

"We are incentivizing each one of our employees with a payment of $200 to get vaccinated," Chad Bauman said. "We believe it's incredibly important not only in terms of protecting our staff in general, but also protecting our patrons and artists when they come to us and know that the highest number of employees that they see at the...

What It Was Like At The Movies The First Weekend New York’s Cinemas Reopened

Capacity Limits: "Not really an issue for Chaos Walking, a poorly-reviewed mess of a sci-fi adventure." Distancing: "Fortunately, AMC's ordering system handles this well, automatically blocking off two seats on either side of your party." Mask Compliance: "This is where the whole thing kind of falls apart." - Gothamist

What’s A Conductor Good For? Let A Veteran Orchestral Player Tell You.

"A great maestro, through the sheer force of his or her spiritual presence, can inspire musicians to play not with our hands but with our hearts." Barbara Bogatin, longtime cellist at the San Francisco Symphony and former principal in the Milwaukee and New Jersey Symphonies, explains how one little explanation from the likes of Kurt Masur or Esa-Pekka Salonen...

Charleston Symphony Eliminates Music Director Position

To cope with the huge income shortfall caused by the pandemic, South Carolina's largest performing arts organization will let go of conductor Ken Lam after next season; concertmaster and principal pops conductor Yuriy Bekker will become the orchestra's artistic director, with guest conductors being engaged for core classical concerts. - The Post and Courier (Charleston)

TV Newsman Roger Mudd, 93

" Peabody Award-winning journalist who spent a quarter-century at CBS News and NBC News and came close to becoming a No. 1 network anchorman — not that he wanted that, anyway" — he was most famous for his reporting on the scene at Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, asking Ted Kennedy a pointed question whose abysmal answer sank the latter's...

Paris Biennale Is Permanently Discontinued

"The Paris Biennale, founded in 1962 and once the world's most prestigious art fair, is no more. After years of confusion, scandal and strife, the French union of antique dealers that ran the fair has announced its decision to 'turn the page of the Biennale, in order to set up a new event' in the city, scheduled for the...

Jair Bolsonaro Blocks Arts Funding To Brazilian States With Pandemic Lockdowns

"A national culture secretary published the decree last week making clear that proposals under the Rouanet Law, which provides funding to cultural projects on a case-by-case basis, will only be considered if they involve in-person interactions and come from regions 'where there is no restriction on circulation, curfew, lockdown or other actions that prevent the realization of the project.'...

Norton Juster, Author Of ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’, Dead At 91

"A budding architect with a self-confessed tendency to procrastinate, Mr. Juster … stumbled into literature much as his most famous hero, Milo, stumbles into the marvelous world of wordplay and adventure in the classic 1961 . They were bored and entirely unsuspecting of the wonders that awaited them." - The Washington Post

Disney+ Closes In On 100 Million Subscribers

The subscriber count is up from the 94.9 million accounts Disney reported last month for the quarter that ended in January. And the surge — fueled by hits such as “The Mandalorian” and “WandaVision” — has encouraged the company to spend more on growing its streaming businesses. Disney in December unveiled an aggressive plan to ramp up programming for...

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