“There’s this assumption that there’s money in pop. No – my contemporary art music funds my burgeoning middle-aged pop sensation career! … It’s made me realise how much support and infrastructure there is for classical music.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Watch The Alvin Ailey Company On PBS NewsHour
“Robert Battle grew up in one of Miami’s poorest neighborhoods wearing metal braces on his legs but dreaming of dance. Thirty years later, he runs the renowned Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater – the very company that inspired him as a child. Battle joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss how dance can transform lives and his vision for the company’s future.”
Cincinnati Considers Robert Mapplethorpe, 25 Years After The Obscenity Trial
Even now, “the city has not fully recovered. … Some Cincinnatians see Mapplethorpe as a ‘liberating force’ that advanced the arts and tolerance in the city, while others view him as a kind of ‘blight’ that tainted Cincinnati’s reputation.”
Kanye West, Donald Trump, And Martin Luther King (There’s More In Common Than You’d Think)
“Despite a career-long alignment to both Jesus and God, neither is actually what Kanye truly seems to be aiming for. Nor is the perfect Martin Luther King of legend. … [And] if you peel back a layer, Trump and Kanye actually share a lot, at least as public characters, starting with many rhetorical gestures, a truly messianic sense of purpose, and an amazing conviction that one’s ego is itself a kind of messianic purpose.”
‘Theatre Has Been The Last Bastion Of Segregation,’ Says Playwright Lynn Nottage
“You see plays by African American playwrights, by-and-large, have majority Asian or African American cast and are produced either on smaller stages or produced in theatres that are specifically geared towards work by people of colour.”
The Chilling Effect Of The Disappeared Hong Kong Booksellers
“Some publishers and authors have lost confidence in Hong Kong’s autonomy and left the territory. Others, like Bao Pu, the founder of the New Century Press, had little confidence to lose.”
‘The Shining’ Is Becoming An Opera
First of all, composer Paul Moravec and librettist Mark Campbell are basing their work on Stephen King’s novel rather than Stanley Kubrick’s film, so there will be no “Here’s Johnny!” moment (a Kubrick invention). (We’d rather know what they’re doing with “red rum.”)
There’s Another Play That Has Audience Members Literally Fainting
“Five people have fainted watching the graphic scenes of torture, rape and violence in the National Theatre’s latest production while 40 walked out in the show’s first week.”
Dance Directors Share Their Biggest Audition Pet Peeves
The Joffrey Ballet’s Ashley Wheater, Nederlands Dans Theater’s Paul Lightfoot, and Broadway casting director Rachel Hoffman offer some suggestions for what not to do.
Straightened-Out Croissants And The Decline Of Civilization
Adam Gopnik considers the British supermarket chain Tesco’s decision to stop making its croissants curved. “Adding an arbitrary national shape to an established one to attempt an entirely English croissant, [some] future scholar will argue, is an affirmation of refusing to be one with Europe. (The crescent, moreover, is the sign of the Islamic empire, and some damp, suspicious kinds will see meaning in that, too.)”