“The idea of having a third stage that’s a digital platform was really to invite [non-dance] artists to come to the opera and get a sense that they can really create something here: work with the dancers, the music, the architecture, something. … It’ll be totally original content; so far we’ve had many people, from visual artists to directors. I want them to feel they have carte blanche.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Joffrey Ballet’s Newest Dancers Have More To Think About Than Dancing
“[They] must contend with their own newly emerging public identities almost as readily as they practice their turnout. Last year, Valeriia Chaykina, a dancer from Russia, was cast in an ongoing series from Teen Vogue. In 2011, Colombian-born Joan Sebastián Zamora starred in the documentary First Position, which followed six young ballet dancers preparing for New York City’s Youth American Grand Prix, one of the world’s largest ballet competitions.”
Turning Combines Into Sculptures And Printmaking With Rhubarb Stalks: Minnesota Leads The Way In Rural Arts
“While some of the initiatives currently underway may benefit cultural tourism, most of the efforts seem to be based on an understanding of the intrinsic value of the arts in the life of any community and the sense of belonging that anchors people to a place.”
Fake Weddings Are The Hot New Party Fad In Argentina
#falsaboda (yes, it’s a hashtag) is “a fake wedding where the bride, groom, and officiant are actors and the guests are there to party rather than celebrate a new marriage. The party-goers, usually young and single, pay between $43 and $65 for tickets, which are in high demand. The faux-wedding-goers receive a video that tells the backstory of the ‘couple,’ and they’re usually in for some kind of drama.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 09.15.15
Where did the creative class come from?
Your humble blogger has been absolutely swamped with a cross-country move and writing about pop culture (mostly) for Salon. I hope to never leave CultureCrash fallow for nearly this long. … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2015-09-15
The Broad Broadsided: Critics Take Aim
No good deed goes unpunished. That adage seems sadly apt when it comes to collector/philanthropist Eli Broad, whose eponymous downtown Los Angeles museum, opening Sept. 20, has already sustained potshots from leading art critics, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-09-15
Conover Stamp News & When Paquito Met Willis
The campaign for a US postage stamp to honor the late Voice of America Broadcaster Willis Conover has surmounted a bureaucratic hurdle. Maristella Fuestle of the Conover archive at the University of North Texas reports. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-09-15
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Will The New Broad Museum Damage LA’s MoCA? Eli Broad Says –
“We are one of the best things that’s ever happened to MOCA. Why? We have a marketing budget. We are going to bring people to both museums. Admission is free at the Broad, and there will be exciting things happening. MOCA is going to benefit from all this.”
The Broad Museum’s Big Plans For Lending Works May Not Work Out
“The Broad is a hybrid. It is one part art museum, with an as-yet undefined program of changing exhibitions and a sizable permanent collection … It’s also one part lending library, with a mandate to circulate its holdings far and wide in the U.S. and abroad” – the first museum to have lending explicitly written into its mandate. But Christopher Knight has doubts about how this will work out in practice.
How Naked People Took Over Reality Television
VH1’s Dating Naked. The Discovery Channel’s Naked and Afraid. TLC’s Buying Naked. “Awkwardness, things jiggling or flapping, the possibility of sex, privacy undone, the prying lens – reality TV has always thrived on these elements. So ask not Why is everybody suddenly naked? Ask instead What took them so long?“
The Nine Lives Of Cat Videos
Prompted by a visit to the Walker Art Center’s CatVidFest, Jillian Steinhauer offers a nine-part meditation on the Internet’s favorite time waster motion-picture medium and its status as art, or entertainment, or spectacle.
Glenda Jackson Returns To Acting After 23 Years In Politics – And Says Things Aren’t A Bit Better For Women In Theatre
“Where have been the remarkable new plays which have women as the driving engine as opposed to the adjunct for what is always, and inevitably, a male engine-driver? That hasn’t changed. That is what is deeply, deeply depressing. It was exactly the same when I was still earning my living in the theatre and I have seen no improvement in that area at all. … Why don’t creative people find women interesting?”