“The strike was a defining political and social moment in recent British history; it changed the nation, and its repercussions are still being felt. But it is a complex and difficult subject to navigate in an abstract art form such as dance.” Even so, Rambert Dance Company artistic director Mark Baldwin gave it a go, and he writes here on how he went about it.
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Does A 45-Year-Old Ballet Dancer Keep His Body In Shape For Strenuous Roles?
Gary Avis of London’s Royal Ballet has a daily routine “as strenuous as [that of] any professional rugby player: three hours of training each morning, five or six hour rehearsals in the afternoons and a three hour performance in the evening. Yet with a physique that sportsmen half his age would envy, he shows no sign of winding down.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.11.15
$179.37-Million Picasso: My Storify Report on Christie’s Record-Smashing Sale
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-05-11
Entry from an unkept diary
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2015-05-11
Measuring success
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-05-08
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Cincinnati Symphony Gets New Contract That Expands (!) Orchestra
“The orchestra announced Thursday that a successful fund-raising campaign, and a new contract that it reached with its musicians, would allow it to hire 14 more full-time players over the next four years, expanding the size of the ensemble to 90 as other orchestras around the country, from Philadelphia to Atlanta, have shed positions to save money.”
Henry Moore Foundation To Artist: Do Not Use Moore’s Work To Make A Political Statement – Not Even In Photoshop Mockups
“Three years ago, Kansas City-based artist A. Bitterman proposed moving a vacant, dilapidated house, located in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, to the lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum … In place of the house, Bitterman suggested, the museum should install its prized Henry Moore sculpture Sheep Piece (1971–72). The house and the Moore lie on opposite sides of Troost Avenue.” The proposal recently resurfaced in the press, and Moore’s people are having none of it.
Boston Unveils an Enormous, Rainbow-Colored Spiderweb
“The untitled piece hangs above the Rose Kennedy Greenway and was made by local artist Janet Echelman … Though it appears lightweight, the 600-foot-wide entanglement weighs 2,000 pounds and required 100 miles of rope and a half-million knots.”
Producers Turn To Indiegogo To Finance Completion Of Orson Welles’s Last Film
“Add a few more twists to the decades-long quest to release The Other Side of the Wind, the unfinished final film of Orson Welles.” Says Peter Bogdanovich, one of the film’s stars, “I think it would amuse Orson to have the fans able to contribute to the completion of the film. As you know, he didn’t like Hollywood very much.”
At Venice Biennale, A Historic Church Becomes A Real Working Mosque
On Friday, the old Santa Maria della Misericordia “will open its doors as a functioning mosque, its Baroque walls adorned with Arabic script, its floor covered with a prayer rug angled toward Mecca and its crucifix mosaics hidden behind a towering mihrab, or prayer niche.” The project constitutes all of Iceland’s pavilion, and it has evoked more than a little ambivalence, despite a centuries-long Muslim presence in the city.
The Chinese Art Of The Choreographed Crowd
No country, not even North Korea, is better than China at staging precise movements by huge numbers of people. “Whether the subject is military parades or world-record attempts, mass exercises or enormous performances, the images are frequently remarkable. … (Note: a few of these images can create a dizzying effect when viewed while scrolling, which is fun, but could be surprising.)”
Jerry Saltz Shares A Dozen Stories Of Sex In Museums
“Museums are incredibly sexy spaces to me, but I have never had sex in a museum. Over the years, though, I’ve heard from those who have. … So I asked people on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram if they’d send their stories or reports of sex in the museums. Here’s just a few of the stories I got back.”