“A new work by the Royal Ballet is to feature pop singers and hip-hop rappers accompanying ballerinas on stage at Covent Garden in a collaboration with music producer Mark Ronson.”
Month: February 2012
England’s Cultural Scene Is ‘Glowing With Optimism’ (Says One International Observer)
Anne Applebaum, Washington Post/Slate foreign affairs columnist (and wife of Poland’s foreign minister): “Twice in one day, in other words, I encountered mobs of people, pushing and shoving one another, desperate to get into a London cultural event. Those who had booked well in advance clutched their ticket as if it contained a winning lottery number.”
Pakistanis Hail Their Nation’s First Oscar
“Wearily accustomed to being the focus of bad news, Pakistanis celebrated on Monday after a filmmaker from Karachi won the country’s first Academy Award, for a documentary about the victims of gruesome acid attacks.”
At Home With Ai Weiwei And His Posse
“With all the people hanging around, the place feels a little bit like a very comfortable, more wholesome version of Andy Warhol’s Factory except that Chinese state security agents are waiting just outside the walls and could burst in again at the first hint of subversive behaviour.”
How Books Saved Armenian Civilization
“[For] large parts of its history Armenia has been a nation without a country. This has given the spoken and written word, the primary means through which Armenian identity has been preserved, enormous prominence in its people’s culture. Over the centuries this emphasis has fostered a particular regard for books and the means of producing them.”
‘Thy Breasts Are Like Two Young Roes’ – RSC To Stage The Song Of Solomon
“[The] Royal Shakespeare Company is risking fresh controversy by staging a ‘sensual and erotic’ version of the Bible’s Song of Solomon from the Old Testament.”
Gigantic Rock Is On Its Way To LACMA
“After nearly half a year of delays, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s 340-ton monolith, sitting in a Riverside County quarry, will begin its long, circuitous journey to the museum Tuesday night.”
An Increasingly Rancorous Exchange Over What Constitutes A “Fact”
“I, the hypothetical reader, am putting my trust in you to give me the straight dope, or at least to make some effort to warn me whenever you’re saying something that is patently untrue, even if it’s untrue for ‘artistic reasons.’ I mean, what exactly gives you the authority to introduce half-baked legend as fact and sidestep questions of facticity?”
How Disco Changed The World (For The Better)
“In its proud and glorious mid-70s Manhattan heyday, disco was far more than that. It was a four-on-the-four bassline, euphoric strings, fierce cowbells and a soaring vocal straight out of the church and on to the dancefloor. More importantly it created a place – or rather it soundtracked a space – outside the mainstream. A place where black, Hispanic, gay and any combination thereof could come together and dance, love and just be without fear.”
California Shuts Redevelopment Agencies That Fund Community-Building Through Arts
“More than $350 million in arts projects have been funded by redevelopment agencies in Los Angeles County over the past 45 years, including construction of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Grand Avenue headquarters ($23 million) and the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts ($60 million).” Now the redevelopment programs have been shelved.