“Yes, women can be conductors. I am not against them conducting. But I simply don’t like it. There are women boxing and weightlifting; they can do that. But I don’t like watching. It is only my taste. We all have different tastes. For example, I don’t eat fish.” (includes video)
Author: Matthew Westphal
Carlos Acosta Readies His New Dance Company In Cuba
“Since retiring last year from London’s Royal Ballet where he was principal guest artist, the 42-year-old has gone back to his native Havana to found Acosta Danza. ‘My country made it possible for me to become a ballet dancer and I want to pass that on too,’ Acosta told a news conference.” (includes video)
Shakespeare’s Globe Winds Up Its ‘Hamlet’ World Tour
“Along the way, the mostly young, multicultural cast has endured the usual inconveniences of life on the road, including visa problems, lost luggage and endless takeout food. But they have also performed during a riot, encountered racially charged comments from audiences and narrowly missed the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.”
If Belgium Has A Terrorism Problem, This Author/Playwright Has Part Of The Solution
“‘We have to mix,’ he says. The 39-year-old playwright grew up the son of Moroccan immigrants in Brussels. His comedy Djihad, about young Belgians going off to fight in Syria and becoming disillusioned along the way, has been playing to sold-out audiences for more than a year now.” (includes audio)
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.21.16
The Value of Intrinsic Value in the Arts: A Guest Post by Carter Gillies
In recent years an artist named Carter Gillies has written to me with some regularity in response to Jumper posts. I have always valued his letters, which are invariably insightful, provocative, warm, and encouraging. Recently, …read more
AJBlog: Jumper Published 2016-03-20
Historic days for US and Cuba, accompanied by jazz
Congratulations to the U.S. and Cuba for advancing our long overdue reset. It’s about time. Jazz at its best has linked our nations for decades, through the tangled history of corrupt dictatorship and revolution, missile crisis, failed invasion, bad relations and … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-03-21
Taking Folk Dancing into Today’s World
Tina Croll + Company performs in New York with Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-03-21
Thad & Mel: The Tradition Continues
You may recall that a couple of weeks ago the Rifftides Monday Recommendation was an album of recently discovered recordings by the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra. This evening, the PBS NewsHour closed with … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-03-21
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She Wasn’t Just The Topless Cellist: Restoring Charlotte Moorman To Her Place In The Post-War Avant-Garde
“Why are Charlotte Moorman’s contributions … so underappreciated and relatively unknown today? … Because she was a woman, because she was married, because she was naked, because she was a performing artist with a ‘repertoire’ rather than a ‘practice'” … ?
Actual Spies Tell What Is And Isn’t Realistic In ‘The Americans’
“Real spies know that world is make-believe. Still, when they’re done lurking in shadows – or typing away in their cubicles, more likely – they often come home and turn on the show … Spies recognize that the show exaggerates, but they also mostly praise the ways in which it rings true – and even the ways it doesn’t.”
Pianist’s Husband Convicted Of Her Murder On Their Second Anniversary
Natalia Strelchenko, 38, “died shortly after being assaulted in her home by John Martin in August last year. … A Home Office postmortem examination found Strelchenko had died from head and neck injuries.”
The Controversial Chinese Gay Erotic Novel You Can Finally Read In English
“In 1998, an anonymous writer began publishing installments of a gay erotic novel online. Perhaps the first gay novel ever published in China, it quickly became a touchstone for queer men in the country. This week, Beijing Comrades is finally coming out in the US.”
These Kids Today Don’t Know How To Practice, Says Pianist
“The great Singaporean pianist [Melvyn Tan] first made a name for himself as an expert in early music, recording music on the fortepiano. We spoke to him about how taking up the harpsichord by accident, learning how to practise and why he’d really like to meet Schubert.”