Matthew Westphal – Page 1629 – ArtsJournal Wayback

The Painful Conundrum Of Agnes De Mille – And How She Solved It

Joan Acocella: “What we have here is a painful combination: her sense that she was without beauty, her sense that she could not make the kind of ballets she most valued, her sense that what she did was just a substitute for something else, something more longed-for, which, inexplicably, other people had and she didn’t. Add to this that, however inferior she felt to other people, she also, much of the time, felt superior to other people, and you have an ugly little knot. Which, somehow, relaxed when she picked up a pen.”

Behind The Scenes With The Showrunner Of The New Ballet Drama ‘Flesh And Bone’

Moira Walley-Beckett: “They [the young dancers in the cast] called me Mama Moira. It was a huge priority for me. Because I’ve been there, and I know what it’s like, and I know that they’re all secretly imploding. For most of them, it was the first time they’d been under these kinds of pressures. … It was really important to me to try to keep them safe in every way that I could.”

Ronald Broun, 75, Classical Music Critic For Washington Post

“Mr. Broun applied informally to write criticism for The Post in 1998, although he had never published in a newspaper before. His gift for lively and informed prose was recognized immediately, and he was soon covering several concerts a week. [He] had the ability to convey serious musical information with a good-humored twist.”

Upheaval At Orlando Ballet: Top Two Execs Terminated After Less Than A Year, Live Music May Be Cut

“For years, the ballet has been dogged by cash-flow problems and a revolving door of leaders – six in the past six years. [Now-former interim executive director] Cundiff took up the top job in March.” Chief fundraiser Julie Gillespie, who started with the company in July, was also let go. The schedule of annual Nutcracker performances, expanded in September, has been reduced, and the board is considering canceling its contract with the Orlando Philharmonic.

The Red Scare Is Over! Cadmium Pigment Is Safe From The Eurocrats

“The EU considered” – and has now rejected – “a restriction on cadmium [paints] following pressure from Sweden, which argued that artists pollute the food chain when they rinse their brushes in the sink. Cadmium ends up in sewage sludge and is then spread on agricultural land … Cadmium in its pure form is highly toxic, but the cadmium compounds used by artists are not classified as hazardous.”

Alice Cooper, A Classical Music Evangelist?

Says the veteran rocker, who’s doing the narration for an update of the Prokofiev work titled Peter and the Wolf in Hollywood, “These classical writers were insane, when you think of how crazy they were. These guys were out of their minds. They were just eaten by this music, they were mentally insane over it. They were the rock stars of their time. But I think they would have been a lot crazier than we were.”

Something For Everyone At Philly’s Barrymore Awards

“The equal-opportunity Barrymore nominations turned into near-equal-opportunity wins at Theatre Philadelphia’s celebration of itself. The most wins were four each, going to Theater Exile’s The Whale, a play about a morbidly obese gay man, and to Norristown’s Theatre Horizon production of the Stephen Sondheim fairy tale musical Into the Woods. Beyond that, most of the nominated entities went home with more than a little something.”

When An Author You Translate Gets Death Threats

“Acclaimed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk (pictured) has received a steady stream of hate mail and even death threats after questioning her country’s view of itself as ‘an open, tolerant country.’ As one person put it in a post to Tokarczuk’s Facebook page, ‘The only justice for these lies is death. Traitor.'” And when translator Jennifer Croft set up and English-language Facebook page to support Tokarczuk, she found herself in the line of fire.

PEN Petition Urges Ayatollah To Pardon Two Condemned Iranian Poets

Fatemeh Ekhtesari and Mehdi Mousavi “were first arrested in 2013, placed in solitary confinement and interrogated … They were released on bail in January 2014, awaiting verdicts on charges that included insulting the sacred in their poems, publishing unauthorized content and spreading anti-state propaganda. The sentences [were] 11 and a half years for Ms. Ekhtesari and nine years for Mr. Mousavi, plus 99 lashes for both.”

Author: Matthew Westphal