“Why have so many small and midsize Portland theaters gone belly-up in recent years? Why don’t the city’s hip trendsetters have the kind of yen for drama that keeps the Seattle theater scene hopping, from our spiffy professional houses to our fringe cubbyholes?” – Seattle Times
Author: Douglas McLennan
NEW HEAD OF LINCOLN CENTER
New York’s Lincoln Center “is poised to name one of its own, Gordon J. Davis, the chairman of Jazz at Lincoln Center and a former New York City parks commissioner, to lead the organization through the nation’s biggest arts rebuilding project.” – New York Times 10/27/00
BLAME IT ON PO-MO?
Post-Modernism has got a bad name. “Mind you, most of them are never quite sure what postmodernism might be, but they know that it’s evil. Indeed, all of the contemporary world’s ills can be sheeted home to its pernicious influence.” And yet, ultimately, civilization will continue. – Sydney Morning Herald 10/27/00
- FINALLY, A PRACTICAL DEFINITION OF POST-MODERNISM: According to John Barth: “Postmodernism consists somehow of being able to tie your necktie in a perfect full-Windsor knot while telling somebody what the stages are in tying a necktie – and at the same time discoursing on the history of men’s neckwear from the court of Louis XIV to the present and still not screwing up the knot.” – Chicago Tribune 10/27/00
THE ANTI-TURNERISTS
There are those who think that the best thing about the Turner Prize is that it inevitably irritates a lot of people. “This year, the Turner Prize’s promotional budget is being helped along by the Stuckists arts group, who are calling for a return to the values of modernism and an acknowledgment that painting is the only true expressive art form.” – London Evening Standard
BELLAGIO COLLECTION ON THE BLOCK
Steve Wynn’s collection from the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas is being sold off piece by piece. – New York Times
A FESTIVAL SURVEY OF 20th CENTURY DANCE
“Inside and in front of Royce Hall, all the bottom-line strategies that once sent plenty of dance audiences and critics fleeing into the night reign again, newly revived and still as provocative as ever. Minimalism. Structuralism. Endless Repetition. Everyday Movement. Task-Oriented Choreography, Dances Anyone Can Do. And you know what? The simple honesty of this work looks awfully appealing compared to the desperate narcissism, salesmanship, emotional grandstanding and empty virtuosity of much Big Deal contemporary dance these days.” – Los Angeles Times
SLATKIN ON COPLAND
Leonard Slatkin explains why Aaron Copland is such a big deal in America. “When we think of the composers who have made their impact on the world scene, only a few names from America come to mind: Charles Ives, George Gershwin, Samuel Barber, Leonard Bernstein and at the top of the list, Copland.” – The Guardian
HARD-LIVING VIOLINIST
“Death is a recurring theme in a Ivry Gitlis interview because, well, other people just keep bringing up the subject. ‘Maestro rages against dying of the light’ screamed one review headline after Gitlis made his Australian debut at the 1998 Huntington Festival. Across the globe, music writers never tire of surmising whether the astonishing performance they’ve just witnessed might very well be the violinist’s last.” – Sydney Morning Herald
CHAUCER STILL FASCINATES
“This week sees the 600th anniversary of the death of Geoffrey Chaucer, spy, courtier, envoy and the father of English literature and the queues outside the Canterbury Tales, a converted church which contains an audio-assisted whistlestop tour round the great man’s work, themselves tell a remarkable tale. “Canterbury is more popular today than it was in Chaucer’s time.” – London Evening Standard
WHAT IF SHE HAD SAID NO?
The Australian Ballet orchestra’s conductor strode onstage as the applause was dying down after Tuesday night’s performance in Perth, dropped to one knee and proposed to the dancer who had just danced the lead in “Merry Widow.” – The Age (Melbourne)