Over the course of his career, Gershwin was praised and criticized in equal measure for his willingness to borrow and fuse musical elements from various cultural and ethnic realms. He regularly tapped into the aesthetic values and popular tastes of his surroundings, in an attempt to compose works that would connect with as broad a public as possible. This approach to composition produced mixed results. – Times Literary Supplement
The New Choreography For ‘West Side Story’ Misses What Made Jerome Robbins’s Dances So Essential, Says NY Times Dance Critic
“That’s because what Robbins created wasn’t just a series of dances, however peerless, but an overarching view of how, beyond anything else, movement could tell a story,” writes Gia Kourlas. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s choreography for Ivo van Hove’s new Broadway staging “is part of a larger vision that renders it extraneous or, worse, inconsequential.” – The New York Times
Baltimore Symphony, In Debt, With Unhappy Musicians And Losing Its Music Director, Asks For $15M To Expand
Recommendations of the task force, created last spring to examine ways to staunch the BSO’s losses, include obtaining an extra $5.5 million through 2026 from the state government, which last year promised and later withdrew emergency funding of $1.6 million. The BSO also will attempt to increase gifts from private donors by $10 to $15 million over the next three years. The extra cash would be used to create new programs designed to increase the orchestra’s presence statewide and to provide for a 52-week performing season, which has been a demand of — and flashpoint for — the musicians union. – Baltimore Sun
Polonium, The Opera: Work About Poisoning Of Alexander Litvinenko Is Coming
The Life & Death of Alexander Litvinenko, with music by Anthony Bolton and a libretto by Kit Hesketh-Harvey based on the book Death of a Dissident by Litvinenko’s widow, premieres this July at Grange Park Opera in England. Reporter Mark Brown talks to Marina Litvinenko, Anthony Bolton, and Grange Park director Wasfi Kani. – The Guardian
Arts Venues Is Britain May Be Required By Law To Protect Against Terrorism
“Home Office officials are to launch a consultation on legally forcing organisations to increase physical security at venues and train staff to respond to terrorist attacks, as well as putting in place incident response plans – and how failure to comply would be enforced.” – The Guardian
Has Anything Really Changed In Hollywood Since The Harvey Weinstein Case Broke? Actually, Yes
“Structural problems, such as Hollywood’s persistent lack of women in positions of power and key creative roles, will take years to adequately address. Still, on top of the specific changes to industry practices, advocates say there’s a strong sense that the underlying standards of behavior toward women in the industry have changed in significant ways.” Here are five ways in which progress has been real. – Los Angeles Times
Langston Hughes, Spanish Civil War Correspondent
“The Baltimore Afro-American newspaper sent him abroad to write ‘trench-coat prose’ about black Americans volunteering in the International Brigades. … Hughes’s 22 articles covered an angle no one else in the world was focused on as companies such as the Abraham Lincoln and Washington Brigades were not only integrated but featured Negro commanders leading white troops.” – Literary Hub
Merce in Three Dimensions
Alla Kovgan’s new film Cunningham not only shoots its dancers in three dimensions, but collages historic, two-dimensional black-and-white images in smaller sizes on the screen, often overlaid with print. This practice allows us to choose (or stumble upon) those visions most meaningful to us, or to accept multiplicity and not worry about what we didn’t see. – Deborah Jowitt
Neuroscientists Study Blind Pianist’s Brain And Discover How It Rewired Itself
“Pretty remarkable. His entire brain is stimulated by music. His visual cortex is activated throughout. It seems like his brain is taking that part of the tissue that’s not being stimulated by sight and using it or maybe helping him to perceive music with it. It’s sort of borrowing that part of the brain and rewiring it to help him hear music.” – People
When Filmmakers Make Films In Languages They Don’t Speak Well
“It is a truth universally acknowledged in world cinema that a celebrated auteur, making their first film outside their native tongue, must be preparing a dud.” But is it actually true? Well, there are a few success stories such as Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth and Alps in Greek, then The Lobster and Oscar-winner The Favourite in English), but only a few. – The Guardian
It’s Time To Retire ‘West Side Story’ And Its Stereotypes, Argues Puerto Rican Critic
Carina del Valle Schorske: “If this musical is still our narrative ghetto, then the least we can do is make noise about what it feels like to live in it. In 2020, it feels exhausting.” – The New York Times
Silent-Film Superstar ‘Baby Peggy’, Diana Serra Cary, Dead At 101
“Born Peggy-Jean Montgomery, she became one of the country’s youngest self-made millionaires by age 4, then suffered a devastating reversal of fortune and fame in her adolescence. In adulthood, she rebounded with a new name, Diana Serra Cary, and became a respected author of books on Hollywood film history. In her autumnal years, at screenings of her few extant films, she found herself embraced as a movie pioneer.” – The Washington Post
David Mamet Tries Out A Play As Quietly As Possible In L.A. The L.A. Times’s Critic Found Out About It Anyway
Charles McNulty: “I’m going to respect the tacit wishes of Mamet and not review the play as I would if it had had an official press opening. A work that’s still being tinkered with before it’s shipped to New York deserves the chance to evolve in peace even if it’s charging $50 a ticket to L.A. theatergoers. But the experience reminded me of what I admire about Mamet’s talent — the vigor and cunning of voices in all-out attack — and what I have found so off-putting since Oleanna — the stacking of the deck in ideological blood battles.” – Los Angeles Times
The Real Problem With That Open Letter Supporting The Fired Lyon Ballet Director Wasn’t Who Did Or Didn’t Agree To Sign It
“Unthinkingly defending one’s powerful friends has real-life consequences. What [illegally fired dancer Karline] Marion, and other dancers who may find themselves in a similar situation, will take away from this letter is that there is no winning against a well-connected director. Even if you gather the necessary evidence, play by the rules, and wait, the people you most admire may still call you crazy and obfuscate.” – Dance Magazine
Italian Arts Venues Close And Venice Carnival Is Cancelled As Measures To Contain Coronavirus
Across northern Italy from Venice to Milan, theatres, cinemas, museums, and opera houses (including La Scala) have been ordered to stop operations for a week as cases of the disease spread. – Hyperallergic
Met Opera Orchestra To Tour For First Time In 18 Years
In late June and early July, music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead the orchestra in concerts at the Barbican in London, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in Germany. The singers joining them will be Joyce DiDonato, Christine Goerke, Brandon Jovanovich, and Günther Groissböck. – Playbill
Are You Sure The Person You’re Arguing With Online Is Real?
The sheer profusion of actors online has foreclosed their need to be real at all: the armies of bots and the Russian sockpuppets, the corporate tweeps and the AI deepfakes. One can just as easily get into a heated dispute with a bot account generating random replies, or with an automated customer-service agent matching inputs to outputs, as with a human foe who is frantically tapping words into a glass rectangle. – The Atlantic
Adèle Haenel Says France Has ‘Missed The Boat’ So Far On The MeToo Movement
Once Haenel publicly accused film director Christophe Ruggia of harassment and “inappropriate sexual contact” that began when she was 12, women in France began speaking out in large numbers. “My story was like the last gram in a chemistry experiment that made everything fall out of solution,” she said. She’s clear about the problem: “Many artists blurred, or wanted to blur, the distinction between sexual behavior and abuse. The debate was centered on the question of [men’s] ‘freedom to bother,’ and on feminists’ purported puritanism. But sexual abuse is abuse, not libertine behavior.” – The New York Times
Turns Out That People Who Are Likely To Pay For Streaming Services Are Also Likely To Pirate Shows
At least, that’s true in Australia, according to the results of a recent survey. The more services you subscribed to, the more likely you were to pirate. That’s a little weird, right? Well … “Electronic Frontiers Australia board member Justin Warren said people who were paying for multiple subscriptions were likely turning to piracy out of frustration at not being able to find what they wanted on the services they were paying for.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Man Who Sees A History Bigger Than All Of Us
Yuval Noah Harari did not invent Big History, but he updated it with hints of self-help and futurology, as well as a high-altitude, almost nihilistic composure about human suffering. He attached the time frame of aeons to the time frame of punditry—of now, and soon. His narrative of flux, of revolution after revolution, ended urgently, and perhaps conveniently, with a cliffhanger. “Sapiens,” while acknowledging that “history teaches us that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialise,” suggests that our species is on the verge of a radical redesign. – The New Yorker