“The problem for people in the arts using populism as a reason to diminish the value of arts criticism is that their own arguments can just as easily be used against themselves.”
Robert Fairchild’s Ballet Workout
The New York City Ballet principal walks us through his daily exercise and strength training regimen (and throws in a quick tribute to colleague and fiancée Tiler Peck).
Australia’s Classical Music Magazine Won’t Die After All
Limelight, affiliated with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and published by Haymarket Media, was going to close by the end of this week, following Haymarket’s decision to end its Australian operations. But a new publisher has been found.
Look What Turned Up In The Trash! Lost Peter Sellers Movies!
Two early short films starring Sellers, and co-written by Mordecail Richler – “are to be shown in public for the first time in more than 50 years.” Yes, they were literally salvaged from a dumpster outside a film company’s offices.
John Cage, Filmmaker (They’ve Found The Evidence)
“Ask John Cage in 1956, as the sculptor Richard Lippold did, to make a film and you take your chances.” (Pun intended.)
Court Allows California To Resume Suit For Nazi-Looted Pissarro Painting
“A Jewish family from San Diego that has been seeking to recover a painting by Camille Pissarro that a relative sold during the Holocaust has received a legal victory from a panel of judges who ruled this week that the family can pursue the case, reversing an earlier court decision that had favored the painting’s present owner.”
The Last Great Vaudevillian (He’s Only Just Now Retiring)
John Lahr: “[Barry] Humphries’s retirement marks the end of the vaudeville tradition, whose singing, dancing, and low-comic folderol he almost single-handedly carried into the twenty-first century.”
Much-Needed Good News From The Motor City: Detroit Symphony Turns A Financial Corner
“The city of Detroit may be in bankruptcy, but the Detroit Symphony Orchestra is back in the black. … The newly released figures suggested that the orchestra is recovering from a corrosive six-month strike that ended in 2011.”
You Know Who Started The War On Christmas? The Pilgrims, That’s Who
“The real American crisis over the holiday happened centuries ago. Back then, the attackers were the Puritans – they hated Christmas, especially the fun parts. And they were experts at fighting it. ”
’12 Years a Slave’ Leads Screen Actors Guild Nominations
In an unusually good year for African-descended actors, 12 Years, “based on the real-life story of Solomon Northup, garnered nominations in four of SAG’s five film categories, including the organization’s top award, best ensemble cast.” Lee Daniels’ The Butler earned a further three nods.
Pew Poll: Americans LOVE Their Public Libraries
Some 90% of Americans ages 16 and older said that the closing of their local public library would have an impact on their community, with 63% saying it would have a “major” impact.
Is There Such A Thing As A “Global” Art Aesthetic?
Funny thing about the word “global”: It looks the same in Spanish and English. But it sounds different, and brings different connotations.
Detroit Institute Of Arts Joins Talks For Control Of Its Art
“The Detroit Institute of Arts embraced publicly, for the first time, the broad outline of a federally mediated deal that would protect its art from sale and spin off the museum from city ownership into an independent nonprofit. The deal would raise roughly $500 million from a consortium of national and local charitable foundations and funnel the money into retiree pensions on behalf of the value of the art at the DIA.”
Hey TicketMaster – Time To Rethink Those Tickets!
“My job requires me to check tickets and usher people to their seats—a manageable task, but after checking hundreds of Ticketmaster tickets, it’s very clear that these tickets were designed more than three decades ago without a serious look into how people interact with it.”
Alex Ross on The Minnesota Orchestra: Words Fail
The Minnesota Orchestral Association gives a dumbfounding report of its financial situation.
What The Choice Of The Kennedy Center’s Next President Says About The Kennedy Center
“It’s not that she’s a woman, though it was certainly high time for the Kennedy Center to be led by one. It’s that she comes from the classical music world.”
Digital Language Death (Yes, It’s A Thing)
In the 21st century, can a language survive for long if no one uses it on the Internet?
Richard Nelson’s Apple Family Plays To Be Filmed For Broadcast
“Richard Nelson’s critically acclaimed Apple Family plays, which are running in repertory at the Public Theater through Sunday, will be recorded for television by WNET, the PBS station on Channel 13 in New York, for broadcast at a future date, the Public announced on Wednesday.”
Everything Around Us Is About To Be Electronically Tagged (And That Will Change The World)
“The most obvious application for iBeacon is tying digital information to physical places. When Apple first presented iBeacon to developers at their WWDC conference this summer, they used the example of an art museum. Instead of punching a three-digit number into a handheld tour guide, you could walk up to a painting, pull out your iPhone, and find additional information on the artwork right there waiting for you.”
YouTube Tells Us What We Most Looked At In 2013
“Comments and interaction were taken into account, rather than just views, to identify the 10 videos that people were talking about most in 2013.”
At Home With Roberta And Jerry (Smith And Saltz Talk About Their Lives Reviewing Art)
“I think we both have the ability to unsettle the other’s opinions. That’s what happens. It’s just kind of going back and forth, back and forth. If we really disagree, I tend to think, I’ve got to reconsider this. And sometimes I don’t think that.”
Ten State Legislators Call For New Leadership For Minnesota Orchestra
The letter accuses orchestra leaders of manipulating financial results “in a deliberate deception of the public.” In addition to calling for the resignations, the letter urges the board to immediately end the lockout and resume contract negotiations.
Backstage At English National Ballet
“It’s 11 o’clock in the morning and row upon row of well-sculpted men are pirouetting in a small room to the tinny notes coming from an upright piano.”
What’s Britain’s Favourite Play?
A new poll by English Touring Theatre finds that it is … one you’ve probably heard of, but it may not leap immediately to mind.