MacKenzie Scott, ex-spouse of Jeff Bezos who was heavily involved in launching Amazon in the 1990s, gave generously to many pandemic (and perenially) cash-strapped dance companies in her latest philanthropic efforts. "This round of gifts promises to have an especially large impact on New York dance, with generous aid to some of the city’s most diverse companies. Alvin Ailey American...
The show has just arrived on Peacock, but it was a hit before that, garnering about 750,000 viewers for its season 2 opener as the super prestigey Mare of Easttown got 1 million viewers. "Take it from a critic and a Christian with an aversion to Christian entertainment: The show is good. I’d stop short of calling The Chosen a prestige...
The board of Kanal-Centre-Pompidou had decided to name a woman artistic director - and then added a male co-director. Nearly 800 European art dignitaries didn't buy it. "'Internationally renowned and appreciated, Kasia Redzisz has been selected by the jury for this job,' the open letter said. 'She is a competent and experienced woman and there is not the slightest...
And Boris Johnson doesn't care at all. In fact, he's putting another monument - that's right, unbelievably, Stonehenge!? - at risk as well. - The Guardian (UK)
For Universal Pictures, which raked in an oddly normal (thus deeply robust) box office total over the weekend for F9, "the opening success is vindication for a studio that in the early days of the pandemic decided to delay its potential blockbuster by an entire year — a move that was considered excessive when it was announced in early...
Artist John Sims, who was asleep when officers entered his apartment, says, "I could have easily been shot and killed that night. ... Now what if I was armed legally and fired on the intruders not knowing if they were police? Would this ‘stand-your-ground’ law apply to me? ... And more importantly, why are Black people consistently profiled to...
The plot calls for a lot of music: "Teenage Luca lives underwater with his fish-finned family, but when he steps out of the water and into an Italian fishing village, he becomes a human boy in the very recognizable 1960s, a time period fixed by the pop music that is frequently blaring from tiny portable radios." - Slate
It's a bit safer than most productions; there are "no mesmerizing choreographed musical numbers, no enchanted sets, no multi-page bios of cast members in the Playbill. The show consists of a man alone onstage; his ensemble a microphone, a harmonica, a piano and six steel strings stretched across a select slab of spruce wood." Still, Broadway. - The New...
This year, it's all Freud. Why? The author of Real Life and Filthy Animals: "At the start of the year I read a lot of American mid-century critics, people like Lionel Trilling and Alfred Kazin. They kept talking about Freud. I realized I should read Freud because he’s had such an impact on contemporary literature. It had immediate dividends....
Da Rocha was one of Brazil's most well-known architects, despite being blacklisted by a brutal military regime for 20 years. "'Concrete acrobatics' is how many architecture writers described his work. He called concrete, his material of choice, 'liquid stone.'" - The New York Times
Ali Smith won for her Summer, the concluding novel in her seasonal quartet - and one that encompasses Brexit, Australian wildfires, COVID-19, and the murder of George Floyd. She cited Orwell’s combination of political writing and art as an inspiration. "The place where these two things meet can’t not be a place of humane – and inhumane – revelation."...
Arles is famous for Van Gogh and for its Roman ruins. Now there's a new show in town: Luma. "The center doesn’t fit neatly into given ideas about museums, art collections or cultural hubs. ... Luma doesn’t have a predictable program of exhibitions, artist residencies or performance pieces." But it does have a Frank Gehry building, and a lot...
