A couple of times each week, Mahinda Dasanayaka, a 32-year-old child protection officer in the tea-growing mountains northeast of Colombo, packs up his motorbike with children’s books and brings them to villages too small and remote ever to get a public library. And the kids line up to meet him. – AP
‘In The Land Of Bittersweet’: ‘Nutcracker’ And The Christmas Of COVID
Reporter Cory Stieg looks at how various companies are adapting the ballet for this very unusual Christmas, from going online completely (most East Coast troupes) to in-person performances with smaller, socially-distanced casts and audiences (Ballet West in Utah), and why Nutcracker is so important even beyond its status as a revenue generator. – Dance Magazine
How COVID Turned One Of The Year’s Hottest Plays Into A Site-Specific Work
After the pandemic blew up the plans of every American stage company for this year, Blanka Zizka, director of the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, got the idea to create a COVID bubble for cast and crew at a house in the Poconos, where they’d do a site-specific production for later viewing online. And one of the year’s most awarded scripts, Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning, seemed like the perfect choice. Writer Jane M. Von Bergen reports on how Zizka and her colleagues made it happen, complete with actual screaming foxes. – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Camilla Wicks, One Of World’s Leading Violinists In 1940s and ’50s, Dead At 92
She performed her first Mozart concert at age 7, debuted at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic at 18, and played the Sibelius concerto for the composert himself, who called her performance the best he’d heard. Her fame faded after she retired to raise five children, yet, wrote Henry Fogel in 2015, “Her technique is as close to flawless as humans get, and her intelligence and interpretive breadth are clearly those of a major artist.” – The Washington Post
The Impossible Weight That Public Sculptures Of Women Must Bear
It’s not just the sexualized, weirdly tiny Mary Wollstonecraft; it’s not just the naked Medusa in the park; it’s not just that rather iffy sculpture of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth all sitting down to plan universal suffrage. No. It’s the arc of public art for its entire history – and we do mean history in this case. “Two millennia of European and American history could be told through a genealogy of equestrian monuments to men, from Marcus Aurelius to Gattamelata, from Confederate generals to Kehinde Wiley’s exhilarating riposte, Rumors of War (2019). (And that’s just one genre!) One reason Wiley’s monument succeeds is that it has a heroic model to subvert. But women have no such models.” – Hyperallergic
In Praise Of Classical Music Radio
Radio in particular – and Portland’s All Classical in particular. There’s a lot of media nowadays, and a lot of choices to make – perhaps too many. “Radio cuts through all that. You make one decision – tune to a station – and then passively take in whatever it has to offer. Maybe it’s a bunch of Haydn or Mingus, maybe it’s an hour of spooky Irish music, maybe it’s interviews with local composers you’ve never heard of playing music composed by kids who go to school with yours.” – Oregon ArtsWatch
The Worst Kind Of Book Thief
Easily the worst is the kind that steals from a shared heritage in libraries for private sale or just adoration. “It denies everyone the opportunity of having access to that book. Even a rare book bought (or stolen) from a bookshop will end up having just one owner, whereas in a public library that same book is available for anyone who wishes to read it.” – The Guardian (UK)
Documentaries Are Hot Right Now, Threatening HBO’s Dominance
But the two women who run the documentary division at the behemoth aren’t worried. “Audiences’ appetite for nonfiction has grown as new funding sources like Kickstarter have emerged, and new formats, like podcasts. At the same time new and affordable technology has helped democratize the medium, and competition has exploded among deep-pocketed platforms hungry for documentary content.” And then there’s Netflix. – The New York Times
What’s Up With Romance Novel Architecture?
The men in romance novels – whether straight or gay – seem obsessed with open plans. Open plans, big TVs, big sofas. Blame Canada. (Seriously: Blame Canada for HGTV, which led directly to … this.) – Slate
More Details Emerge About Why Mosaic Theatre Company Kicked Out Its Founding Artistic Director
Ari Roth was fired from Theatre J after 18 years as an AD, and so he quickly founded his own company – Mosaic. Recently, he resigned under pressure from Mosaic. Why? A liaison with Equity says he is living with an older definition of an AD as someone who can treat staff and others badly, as long as his vision is great: “His defense is that the role of the artistic director has changed. … But everything changes. Everything evolves. We just happen to be living in a time where this imaginary rule that an artistic director’s actions will be tolerated by the people below — that rule no longer exists.” – The New York Times
London’s Proposed Tulip Means Nothing About Cultural Capital, But A Lot About Ego
Rowan Atkinson is not happy with the proposed tower or its boosters’ claims that it will make London, exhausted from the battle with COVID-19, feel better. “Its outdated futurism resembles nothing more than the fantasies of a third-world dictator.” – The Guardian (UK)
Flor Silvestre, Mexican Singer, Actress And Musical Matriarch, 90
Silvestre married musical icon Antonio Aguilar after she was already a star, and the two had vital careers apart – “but transformed into a supernova when they worked together in 20 films and dozens of songs that get screened and streamed to this day. More important, Silvestre and Aguilar created a traveling rodeo that toured across the United States and Mexico for decades. Part musical revue, part horse show, part comedy act, and all about a wholesome night out for the family, their espectáculo played from small towns in the Midwest to six straight sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden.” – Los Angeles Times
The Musician Taking Wedding Gigs To Survive The Pandemic
Survive monetarily, that is. And psychologically. “There’s definitely a part of me that puts myself in these risky situations just to feel some sense of normalcy. My sister, a Ph.D. clinical psychologist, agrees. She says the damage this apocalyptic Groundhog Day is doing to performers’ psyche is as bad, if not worse, than the financial hardships we’re facing. After all, for many of us professional entertainers, our work is also intertwined with our social lives. It’s much more than just a paycheck.” – Slate
Paradoxically, You Can See More ‘Nutcracker’ Than Ever This Year
That is, if you’re willing to watch on-screen. Collected here are well over 30 options for watching The Nutcracker, or some version of it, this holiday season, from ballet companies across the United States. – Playbill
The True Value Of An Arts Degree
A recent graduate says of her art history, cultural analysis, and other classes, “Being able to take these topics seriously and giving them the same attention and weight as things such as 18th-century philosophy taught me so much more about our communities, what we value, what we enjoy and whom we pay attention to.” – Maclean’s (Canada)
Hugh Grant Says He Never Wanted To Be A Romantic Hero
Not that he hated it. “I’m not ungrateful. I loved the money, of course, and I’m proud of a lot of those films. But if someone said to me, ‘Do you have any talent as an actor?’ I’d say, ‘Well, only in regard to character acting.'” – Los Angeles Times
Is That Mysterious Monolith In Utah Actually By Artist John McCracken?
McCracken’s son says maybe. “He was inspired by the idea of alien visitors leaving objects that resembled his work, or that his work resembled. This discovery of a monolith piece — that’s very much in line with his artistic vision.” – The New York Times