“‘I had a couple of real obsessions with worlds I wanted to explore dramatically,’ Jane Tranter, the head of BBC Worldwide Productions, which is producing the show [titled Breaking Pointe], said recently. ‘One was ballet, the other was a convent.’ Each, Ms. Tranter said, offered ‘a world which is a hidden world: there’s what the public sees, and what happens underneath’.”
Month: May 2012
Yet Another Record Box-Office Year On Broadway (Thanks To Higher Prices)
“Broadway musicals and plays had another record-setting season at the box office, grossing a total of $1.139 billion … Revenues increased at a faster rate than theater-going because several Broadway producers have raised the prices of so-called premium tickets.”
After 31 Years, Sol DeWitt Garden Design Planted In Philadelphia
In 1981, DeWitt was commissioned to design a horticultural installation for Fairmount Park. The plan he produced, titled Lines in Four Directions in Flowers, ended up going dormant (as it were) for three decades. Newly completed, Lines stretches out from just beyond the rear portico of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Is The Mariinsky’s New Boris Godunov Anti-Putin?
“At one point in [Graham Vick’s] new production of the Mussorgsky opera] the stage at the Saint Petersburg theatre is swarmed by riot police and protesters brandishing slogans, in a clear reference to the street demonstrtations against Vladimir Putin’s rule.”
In Defense Of Regieoper
The co-artistic director of Sydney’s Baroque opera company (!) argues in favor of the notorious phenomenon of stage directors updating and changing (sometimes in quite perverse ways) the settings and scenarios of classic operas.
Tracey Emin Talks About Menopause
“For women, it is the beginning of dying. … [For] me, [it] makes you feel slightly dead, so you have to start using the other things – using your mind more, read more, you have to be more enlightened, you have to take on new things, think of new ideas, discover new things, start looking at the stars, understand astronomy.”
Culture Wars Down Under: Magazine Fans Flames Of Sydney-vs-Melbourne Rivalry
Limelight, the Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s performing arts magazine, has cooked up a vicious, vicious video inviting us all to decide which city is Australia’s cultural capital. (The magazine has also done a serious study of the two cities’ offerings in seven categories, but only print subscribers are allowed to read it.)
Staging An Ant Ballet (Yes, With Real Ants)
“[Ollie] Palmer’s project, Ant Ballet, is an augmentation of ant societal behavior. By appealing to their most base instincts – hacking the pheromone signals that ants rely upon for communication – Palmer is able to manipulate ants, to choreograph their movements.”
Is Martin Amis Under-Appreciated?
“One of the recurring themes of Amis’s pronouncements over the past few years has been a palpable disenchantment with England and English life: the ‘skanky town’ malice of London’s literary world; his bald declaration to a French newspaper that he would ‘prefer not to be English’; the sense that his homeland is a busted flush; the fact that his new book, Lionel Asbo, is a satire on the shallowness and vulgarity of celebrity-obsessed Britain. All of this may or may not be true, but it is not the reason he has decamped to America.”
Lady Gaga Cancels Indonesia Concerts After Threats
“The fundamentalists had threatened violence if Lady Gaga went ahead with her Born This Way Ball concert in the world’s most populous Muslim country, saying her sexy clothes and provocative dance moves could corrupt the young.”