Not a single one of those camera angles or moves was unplanned – and here’s how it all went down (including the golden caftan and the hand gestures).
Women Are Still (Hugely) Underrepresented In The Director’s Chair
So what’s happening here? The numbers are ugly: “The year with the highest percentage was 2008, with nine women, or 8 percent.”
Is This Going To Be The First Blockbuster Audiobook?
George Saunders’s Lincoln in the Bardo has 166 different characters, and for the audio version, he wanted to have each on them voiced by a different performer. Amazingly, Penguin Random House agreed – and you should see the astounding cast they’ve assembled. (includes video)
The Relationship Between Mind And Body? Sounds Like A Perfect Exploration For Dance
“Embodiment” and “the intelligent body” are buzz terms both in dance and academia: the idea is that the brain doesn’t have dominion over human experience. “We still hugely privilege the mind over everything else,” says Siobhan Davies. “I think the mind is bloody wonderful, but the whole of us lives in the world, the whole of us communicates, the whole of us can fantasise and imagine. I’d like us to turn the world around.”
The Difference Between Chance And Luck
Luck is chance viewed through the spectacles of good or bad fortune. It’s really good news, at least for you, if you win the lottery, and it’s really bad news if you’re one of the passengers on the plane when it crashes. Chance, then, is the objective reality of random outcomes in the real world, while luck is a consequence of the subjective value you place on those random outcomes. Luck, we might say, is chance with a human face. Understanding this gives us a clearer view of reality, and a clearer view of reality means we can choose better courses of action.”
Dispatches From The Art World In A Turkey Gone Mad: ‘It’s Not Chaos, But The Atomization Of Life’
“What is a stake in Turkey today is not politics in any general manner; it’s a delusion that, under the banner of religion, is swallowing up the whole of reality. … Conversations with artists reveal a dark mood, and everyone across the class spectrum is focused on one topic: When to leave? Where to go? How to get a visa? What to do in the meantime?”
Dance Classes For The Blind At The Royal Ballet
“The participants range from young adults to senior citizens and have varying degrees of sight, but they all agree on the positive effects” – better balance, improved range of motion – “of the class. Sessions include a mix of barre and center work, as well as some weight-sharing and partnering exercises.” (video)
Fashion Designers Face A Dilemma: Should They Dress The Trump Women?
Designers, like many artists, have widely varying views on the question, but it’s complex: “Critics of those designers who’ve voiced their reluctance to dress the new first lady have maintained that it’s a designer’s job to simply make clothes — that they should keep personal opinions out of it and not pass judgment on people who wear their clothes. But over time, society has demanded much more from the fashion industry.”
Are Podcasts Going To Replace Written Book Reviews? (Or Have They Already?)
First of all, book review podcasts don’t pretend to objectivity. And then there’s the ease of access factor: “It can be daunting for someone who feels like a literary outsider to pick up a 10,000-word piece on three translated works in The New York Review of Books, but not to download a couple episodes of a show you can listen to while you’re cleaning your apartment.”
As The Arts Destroy Themselves In Search Of Lone Geniuses, Blame The Germans
Michael Lind with a theory about artists destroying conventions – and maybe art itself: “Modernism was not a late stage of Western art. It marked the death of the Western artistic tradition and the beginning of something entirely new — the art of global industrial capitalism. Did I say I blame the Germans? German romanticism could not have killed off Western art without the help of global industrial capitalism.”
What’s Up With ‘The Crown’ Obscuring David Windsor’s Nazi History?
Wallis Simpson and David Windsor went on a “goodwill tour” of Nazi Germany right after he abdicated the British throne – but you won’t find out any of that from the highly popular Netflix series. Why?
An Artist From Standing Rock Explains How His Art Goes Way Beyond ‘Struggle Porn’
Mirror shield-maker Cannupa Hanska Luger: “Artists, we live on the periphery. But we are the mirrors. We are the reflective points that break through a barrier. You don’t have to be in the same economic place that I am to relate to the work that I make. That is the power of art.”
How Algorithms Designed Hamburg’s Stunning New Concert Hall
“The auditorium—the largest of three concert halls in the Elbphilharmonie—is a product of parametric design, a process by which designers use algorithms to develop an object’s form. Algorithms have helped design bridges, motorcycle parts, typefaces—even chairs. In the case of the Elbphilharmonie, Herzog and De Meuron used algorithms to generate a unique shape for each of the 10,000 gypsum fiber acoustic panels that line the auditorium’s walls like the interlocking pieces of a giant, undulating puzzle.”
New York City Hall Gives $2 Million To Increase Diversity In Theatre
“The funding, provided by the city’s Theater Subdistrict Council, will go to paid training and mentorship opportunities at organizations like the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harlem Stage, Roundabout Theater Company and the New York Theater Workshop.”
How “The Front Page” Works Behind The Scenes
“How does a cast of 25 actors, plus a dozen stage managers, stagehands, electricians, dressers, props handlers and makeup artists get into the proper groove to envelop a Broadway audience in the antics of an 88-year-old play? Musicals these days are often as large or even larger. But rising costs and a shrinking pool of interested theatergoers have made straight plays of this magnitude an extreme rarity on BroadwayIt’s a complex organism, a Broadway production of this caliber, with a backstage so teeming with experience, talent and ego it could be the subject of an anthropology class.”
Martha Swope, Dance And Theatre Photographer, Dead At 88
“From 1957, when Ms. Swope was invited by Jerome Robbins to shoot rehearsals of West Side Story, to 1994, when she shut down her Times Square studio and sold her archive, Ms. Swope produced hundreds of thousands of images of performers in action, capturing Gelsey Kirkland and Mikhail Baryshnikov in full flight, the cast of La Cage Aux Folles in full drag and John Travolta in full Saturday night fever.”
‘Ballet Remains A Sexist View Of The World’ – Alastair Macaulay On The Form’s Gender Roles In The 21st Century
“[That view is] one that privileges the woman, certainly, but on terms that let her shine only by doing what no man can. Should we agree with the choreographer George Balanchine (1904-83) that ‘ballet is woman’? Or do we qualify this, as the choreographer Pam Tanowitz (born in 1969) has recently done, by saying that ballet is a man’s idea of woman?”
Plan For New Concert Hall For London Brought Back From The Dead
“The scheme, costed at £278m, appeared derailed in November when the [national] government unexpectedly announced it was withdrawing money it had pledged for a detailed business case to be made. On Thursday the City [of London] said it would provide the money, up to £2.5m, needed to complete it.” The move comes just as Hamburg has opened its new concert hall to ecstatic reviews.
Hamburg’s Spectacular New Concert Hall Sounds As Good As It Looks
Rick Fulker: “From my vantage point, the stage was far below, but despite the distance from the source of the music, I had the sensation of sitting amidst it. … [The program] spanned five centuries of Occidental art music, and the interior space played along. Soloists and small ensembles sometimes performed from the upper balconies, but whether five or fifty meters away, they sounded equally vivid as the orchestra down there onstage.”
Artist Blacklist Is Yet Another Side Of South Korea’s Massive Presidential Scandal
The bad news: More than 9,000 cultural figures were barred from any government support and sometimes harassed.
The good news: Three of President Park Geun-hye’s aides have been arrested over the blacklist.
Canada 150 Composers’ Competition Has Prizes So Small It’s Appalling – And Composers Are Definitely Appalled
“Composers across the country have been outraged over a competition launched by the Canadian House of Commons in honour of [the confederation’s sesquicentennial].” The main issue is award money so stingy that even former prime minister Stephen Harper might be embarrassed.
Major Arts Center In Manchester Gets Go-Ahead
“Manchester’s proposed £110m arts centre, the Factory, has moved a step closer to being built after city councillors gave planning permission for the Rem Koolhaas-designed building.” The project is part of a larger plan to make Manchester and northern England “a genuine cultural counterbalance to London.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.12.17
Good News for the New Year: Reinstallation of the Getty Villa
If you’re down in the dumps about Trump, or just coping with some post-holiday blues, I’m making an effort this month to perk you up with something atypical of the hypercritical CultureGrrl — good news. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-01-12
New Documentary About Millepied And The Paris Ballet Explores A Clash Of Cultures
“By the time type comes up on screen telling us that Millepied left the Paris Opera Ballet after little more than two years on the job, we have seen the reasons for that departure writ large on the screen.”
How Northern Ballet Rethought Its Transactional Business Model
“The greatest challenge was to try to change the existing culture from one that was transactional to philanthropic, removing the need for tiers and associated benefits. The Directors’ Circle was our upper-level membership scheme, designed with its own set of tiers (silver, gold and platinum) and associated benefits. The scheme itself had been relatively successful, particularly in the development of our Sponsor a Dancer appeal. The drawback to the scheme was that it was not cost-effective if supporters drew on all of their benefits. This meant that rather than creating a community of supporters we were at risk of turning those closest to us into transactional givers.”