“The Florida Orchestra got an unwelcome surprise late Friday when Gov. Rick Scott ruled out $500,000 in funds to help pay for a new outreach program. Beyond the Bay launched in January with a vision of taking the orchestra to schools and community orchestras across Florida. The veto was part of $34 million the governor nixed from the state’s budget, leaving that money available for other priorities.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Sergei Vikharev, Russia’s Master Reconstructor Of Petipa’s Original Ballets, Dies Suddenly At 55
Ismene Brown: “Sergei Vikharev was the passionate pioneer of a brave new movement to install period sensibilities in an art form that had long become the plaything of its performers and coaches rather than its creators.”
Spanish Old Masters Paintings, Forgotten In Upper Manhattan, Are Huge Hits In Madrid
“The treasures of the Hispanic Society of America – works by Goya, Velázquez and El Greco, among other masters – are not a popular tourist draw at the group’s Beaux-Arts museum in Washington Heights. But through Sept. 10, the haughty portrait of the Duchess of Alba by Goya and 200 other works from the century-old Hispanic Society are finally receiving blockbuster recognition from thousands of visitors to the Prado Museum here – along with royal accolades, an international prize and souvenir folding fans.”
We Most Certainly Did Not Damage That Medieval Convent While Filming Don Quixote, Says Terry Gilliam
“A report by the Portuguese public broadcaster RTP suggested recent filming for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote left behind chipped masonry, broken roof tiles and uprooted trees at the 12th-century Convent of Christ in Tomar, central Portugal.” The director – whose years-long quest to complete the movie has been legendarily troubled – denies all: “People should begin by getting the facts before howling hysterically.”
New York’s Big Summer Solstice Music Festival Makes Last-Minute Emergency Plea For Funds
Due to the unexpected cancellation of a grant, “Make Music New York, the non-profit behind an expansive one-day music festival that takes over the city on the first day of summer, has issued a plea for emergency financial aid before its forthcoming edition on June 21.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 06.06.17
Riverside Art Museum
In conversations with staff members of the Riverside Art Museum, I learned that their initial work in fostering relationships with Riverside’s Latino communities had resulted in donations to purchase art. But the “hot off the press” revelation came … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2017-06-06
Lost and Found
Long ago, I heard a lovely definition of creativity: “Finding what has been lost and making it new.” I’ve never been able to track down the source of that definition, but it’s stuck with me. … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2017-06-06
Diller Thriller: MoMA’s Mega-Makover, An Irreverent Photo Essay
Having been briefed by another journalist about the current status of the project, we finally got to learn about this work-in-progress from the principals themselves: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-06-06
Pianist Vijay Iyer and the Ojai Music Festival
This year sees an unlikely but, I suspect, fortuitous paring: Pianist Vijay Iyer — one of the most inventive figures in jazz today — is curating the Ojai Music Festival, a friendly, mellow outdoor … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-06-06
How Can You Tell The Difference Between A Cult And A Religion?
“Cults, generally speaking, are a lot like pornography: you know them when you see them. … Less easy, though, is identifying why. Knee-jerk reactions make for poor sociology, and … often (just as with pornography), what we choose to see as a cult tells us as much about ourselves as about what we’re looking at.” Tara Isabella Burton looks at numerous examples and considers where it’s appropriate to draw the line.
The First Woman-Filmmaker (She Started In 1896)
Alice Guy-Blaché “should be heralded alongside early filmmakers like Georges Méliès and Auguste and Louis Lumière. She was one of the first filmmakers – some argue the first – to work with fictional narratives, beginning with her 1896 La Fée aux choux in which babies are born from cabbages with the help of a fairy.”
The ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ Effect: How a TV Show Changed The Dance World
“For the generation who grew up watching the show, it proved that dance has a place on television. … It’s undeniable that dance today is part of pop culture in a way that it wasn’t a decade and a half ago. This increased exposure hasn’t necessarily translated into more ticket sales for live performances, but it has presented an alternative way of experiencing the art form. … [Yet the show’s] biggest impact was setting the standard for dance on the internet with its ‘snackable, and eminently shareable’ dance clips.”
A Crown Prince, A Ballerina, And A Bared Breast – The Latest Battleground In Russia’s Culture Wars
“The costume drama featuring this moment, a film called Matilda after the dancer, is not due out until October. Yet the release of trailers of that scene, and a few others depicting the torrid affair that follows, was enough to ignite a firestorm.” The opposing sides are “an artistic community determined to fend off any hint of Soviet-style censorship” and a religious nationalist faction that sees the film as an insult to Nicholas II (the crown prince in question) – and therefore, since the last tsar is now a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church, “an insult to the faithful, which is a crime in Russia.”