- Michael Ondaatje had a respectable literary career before “The English Patient” and the movie of it made him truly famous. The author, who lives in Toronto, has been described as “the Greta Garbo of Canadian letters.” With all the distraction of Hollywood, it’s probably not surprising that his follow-up book took seven years to produce. – The Telegraph (UK)
Author: Douglas McLennan
DANCE ON
Trisha Brown’s dance company celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. At the age of 63, Brown’s still pushing. “I’m hell bent right now. The learning curve is stretched so tight it’s twanging. I’m discovering, questioning, looking for solutions. I want to get out as much work as possible. It’s not surprising,” she says. “After all, I’ve been a wife, a mother, a dancer, a choreographer, a citizen in a radically changing world. I’m in my seventh decade. Over time one gets rewritten by experience – by loss, by death, by accidents. All these things have made me think a lot about emotion, about the shape of emotion.” – New York Times
RETURNING HOME
Helgi Tomasson returns to New York City Ballet as a choreographer. At 57, he “remains trim though his hair has gone from black to white and thinned somewhat. He has now been running San Francisco Ballet for the same number of years he danced with City Ballet. ‘It was not a terribly smooth transition,’ he says, in his understated way, of his arrival there; his restrained approach and attention to the refinements of classical technique represented a big change from the flashy showmanship of the previous director, Michael Smuin.” – New York Times
JECKIE JOUSTING
Composer Frank Wildhorn is the first American musical-theater composer in 22 years to have three shows running simultaneously on Broadway. He’s been called the American Andrew Lloyd Webber, but while his loyal fans are fanatical in their love of his work, the critics haven’t been kind. “Six million people have seen my stuff. I make no apologies for what I write. I just want to appeal to my generation. Look, if you’re 45 or 50 years old, that means in the early ’70s you were listening to the Stones or John Denver or Jim Croce. If nothing else, I represent the era I grew up in. I still write for pop artists all the time. I feel it’s important to speak to audiences in a vocabulary that’s comfortable to their ear.” – Orange County Register
ART CAPITAL
Modern London is bursting with museum openings this year. “There is a tremendous on-rush. Wherever you look, there are things happening,” said Richard Cork, art critic for the Times of London. “It is incredibly important, particularly the Tate Modern. At last we’ve got the full-fledged museum of modern art in this country that we’ve needed for 50 years. Finally, Britain is taking modern art seriously.” – Los Angeles Times
ART OF RECONCILIATION
The UK’s Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is blocking plans for a peace sculpture made of decommissioned weapons to be erected in Belfast. Richard Branson has commissioned a £50,000 work from 97-year-old Josefina de Vasconcellos, the world’s oldest living sculptor. “The idea of the sculpture has been widely welcomed by politicians in Northern Ireland. However, the proposal to make the new work from decommissioned weapons is causing disquiet at the Northern Ireland Office.” – The Independent (UK)
THE MEANING OF MODERN
New York’s Museum of Modern Art is trying to catch up with its name. On the eve of a major expansion it’s taking a look at its own collections with a sharpened eye. “It’s a chance for a monumental institution, one with a reputation for having a glacial metabolism when it comes to change, to rethink the modern-art tradition that it helped to invent, and to consider its own identity in what is often called a postmodern world.” – New York Times
COMING HOME
A decade after a federal law gave Native American tribes the right to reclaim human remains and sacred artifacts from museums, less than 10 percent of the human remains believed to be in the custody of federal agencies, museums and universities have been returned to tribes. – Chicago Tribune
STARS OF BASEL (AND LONDON)
Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are architecture stars of the moment with this month’s opening of London’s new Tate Modern. “All famous architects have mighty egos, and Herzog is unusual only in the openness with which he displays his. If he weren’t brilliant he would be insufferable, but it isn’t unduly flattering to say that he is brilliant. His immodesty is also redeemed by a talent for collaboration with others, most notably his childhood friend and business partner de Meuron. Both are turning 50 this year. They are young – in the slow-moving world of architecture – to have got to their present status.” – London Evening Standard
STARS OF BASEL (AND LONDON)
Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are architecture stars of the moment with this month’s opening of London’s new Tate Modern. “All famous architects have mighty egos, and Herzog is unusual only in the openness with which he displays his. If he weren’t brilliant he would be insufferable, but it isn’t unduly flattering to say that he is brilliant. His immodesty is also redeemed by a talent for collaboration with others, most notably his childhood friend and business partner de Meuron. Both are turning 50 this year. They are young – in the slow-moving world of architecture – to have got to their present status.” – London Evening Standard