" résumé included reimagining classic American plays through diverse casting and a stint in the ensemble of Ntozake Shange's groundbreaking 1976 Broadway show, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. But she was best known for shows she wrote and performed at venues like the Kitchen in Manhattan and Franklin Furnace in Brooklyn,...
"Before Halprin, American dance was cast in Graham's regal mold, presented formally onstage, and performed by highly trained bodies that acted out the choreographer's vision in a rarefied movement language. Halprin's rebellion was to declare that any movement, performed with presence and intention, could be a dance, and anybody could be a dancer." - San Francisco Chronicle
"He was globally recognised as a major architect of the 20th century, despite rarely building outside his native Brazil. … Because he worked with large expanses of raw concrete – a cheap and abundant material in his home country – his name was often linked with Brazilian brutalism. But it was a label Mendes da Rocha rejected." - Dezeen
Artists partnered with other artists — coupled, married or otherwise entangled — is as old as art itself. Did two artists, in their attraction to one another, create something that they might otherwise have not? There is a particular kind of glory and fame to be earned from such unions. - The New York Times
Kathy Andrews and her husband Jim, "with his best friend, John P. McMeel, concocted a newspaper syndication company from the basement of the Andrewses’ rented ranch house. Ms. Andrews, who had a master’s degree in mathematics, kept the books. They called it Universal Press Syndicate because, Mr. Trudeau said, 'it sounded bland and boring and like it had been...
Freitag, "a reference librarian at the Library of Congress for nearly a half-century, was unknown to the general public. But she was, in more ways than one, a librarian to the stars. Known for her encyclopedic knowledge of resources in science and technology, Ms. Freitag was sought out by the leading interpreters of the galaxy. She developed a particular...
"In the early 1970s, long before the rise of lesbian or gay-friendly acts such as K.D. Lang, Melissa Etheridge, Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls, Ms. Dobkin was writing and recording songs that celebrated lesbian life. … music history in 1973 when she released Lavender Jane Loves Women, generally considered the first full-length album by, for and about...
What might sound like general pep-talk fodder for the averagely scheduled person is actually just pragmatic paraphrase for Midori, whose prodigious musical talent was merely the first movement in a career that has extended into music education, community outreach and arts advocacy. - Washington Post
" was a part of the generation of Black dancers, many trained in classical ballet as children, who were instrumental in bringing top-flight modern dance to international audiences." Chase-Hicks became a full member of Philadanco at age 17; after seven years there, she spent 11 seasons with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, then returned to Philadanco as rehearsal director,...
From 1971 to 1974, he led the Motion Picture Association of America's Classification and Rating Administration, which gave films G, PG, R, and X ratings to films as a replacement for the old Hays Code of censorship. In 1981, longtime MPAA head Jack Valenti said that he had "made a mistake of putting a psychiatrist in charge." - The...
"Over the decades, Gensler's firm has designed universities, hotels, sports stadia and universities, touching almost every part of the built environment. It has created corporate headquarters for the likes of Facebook, Burberry and Hyundai, and airports from Detroit, Michigan, to Incheon, South Korea. In the process, the company has grown into giant of global architecture, employing thousands of people...
" made his mark in both comedy and drama, onstage and on screen and as a writer and director. He often adopted a quirky style that could be simultaneously self-effacing and self-important. He was a master of the cringeworthy moment, when it wasn't clear if he was being funny, naive or insulting — or a little of all three."...
"His last singing gig took place on a Saturday night 15 months ago at the Catalina Jazz Club. He packed the house. They even had to cram in extra tables. … 'Oh, God, I knew I liked it, but I didn't know how much I would miss it,' he says of performing. 'I really miss getting up in front...
"Spinning continuously at a speed of 60 revolutions per minute, or once per second, the drum measured 7 inches in diameter, and 11 inches in length. Its surface was etched with 5,400 Chinese characters, letters of the English alphabet, punctuation marks, numerals, and a handful of other symbols. How was the typist in the film able to pull off such a...
The woman who entered "jambusters" in the (well, her) dictionary read popular novels and listened to parliamentary debates to find the most Canadian English in the country. "To hunt for Canadian entries and the distinct Canadian meanings of words, Ms. Barber partly relied on a technique long used by Oxford. She assembled a small army of freelance 'readers,' who...
