“There seemed to be an explosion of young men in knit caps and young women in leather pants watching as New York City Ballet recently performed a trio of Balanchine classics. In fact, the average age in the David H. Koch Theater seemed to have dropped by years, if not decades.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Ballet Dancers Learn Their Steps: Music, Muscle Memory And Mystery
Jenifer Ringer, late of New York City Ballet, explains the process and the factors that affect it.
Dutch Restorers Offer To Repair Roman Fountain Damaged By Soccer Hooligans
“A Dutch restoration firm has offered to repair a 400-year-old fountain that was damaged last week when supporters of Rotterdam soccer team Feyenoord went on a drunken rampage in Rome’s historic center.” The Dutch government has rejected any responsibility to pay for restoration, though it says it supports private efforts.
Hard Feelings: Science’s Struggle To Define Emotions
“The debate over the nature of emotion has been reinvigorated in recent years. While it would be easy to paint the argument as two-sided – pro-universality versus anti-universality, or Ekman’s cronies versus his critics – I found that everyone I spoke to for this article thinks about emotion a little differently.”
Early To Bed And Early To Rise Does Not Make You More Moral (Take That, Ben Franklin!)
“Early birds aren’t ethically superior. And, to the extent that other research suggests that they are, it may just be that they are luckier: modern society, for the most part, is built around their preferences.”
The Man Who Saved Impressionism
The story of Paul Durand-Ruel, who repeatedly risked bankruptcy to support Monet, Degas, Manet, Pissarro, and their fellows – and created a market for their work, especially in the United States.
Unknown Harold Pinter Script To Premiere, 33 Years After It Was Written
“The work, discarded by Pinter when plans to make it into a film fell through, has been adapted for radio by the film and stage director Sir Richard Eyre.”
Ancient Frescoes In Roman Catacombs May Undermine Church Teaching About Women Priests – Or May Not
The wall paintings in the Catacombs of Santa Priscilla “have sparked controversy over the role of women in the Church, and helped scholars re-evaluate the importance of the Virgin Mary in early Christian history.” Some claim that one fresco even provides evidence that female priests served the Eucharist, though others are skeptical.
Thai Actors Jailed For Insulting Monarchy With Student Play
“Student Patiwat Saraiyaem, 23, and activist Porntip Mankong, 26, had pleaded guilty to defamation” under Thailand’s lèse-majesté law, the world’s strictest, “following their arrests last August, nearly a year after The Wolf Bride – a satire set in a fictional kingdom – was performed.”
“Amadeus” The Movie At 30 – And Everything It Got Wrong About Mozart And Salieri
BBC Radio 3 presenter Clemency Burton-Hill reviews the liberties writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman took with the historical record (and the device they used to get away with it) – and nevertheless finds that Amadeus is “arguably the finest movie ever made about the process of artistic creation and the unbridgeable gap between human genius and mediocrity.” (text-only)