Matthew Westphal – Page 2017 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Choreographing A Dance Piece For The Façade Of A Building (And Not A Flat Façade, Either)

For Cincinnati’s Lumenocity celebration, a choreographer and two dancers from Cincinnati Ballet create a work to be digitized and projected onto the (enormous and ornate) face of the city’s Music Hall.

College Radio Fans Fight To Keep Their Stations For Students (And Their Quirky Programs)

“Cash-strapped universities are discovering that their student stations are lucrative assets. They are finding eager partners in public-radio stations and religious broadcasters. The public and religious radio channels are looking to own the equivalent of beach-front property on the FM dial,.”

One Big Problem With Met Opera Contract Talks: All The Different Unions

Management is negotiating with 15 unions, “representing the orchestra, chorus, stage crews, hair and makeup stylists, costumers, scenic artists, cleaners, ticket takers, ushers, security guards and others. Some unions are beginning to eye one another warily, because any agreement made with one of the bigger groups is likely to set a pattern for the others.”

Ira Glass Explains How He Works

Q: “What’s your best time-saving shortcut/life hack?” A: “I’ve got nothing. Reading other people’s answers to this question on your website today made me realize I live my life like an ape.” However, Ira does offer (after the product plugs this site seems to require) an excellent description of how he organizes a bunch of interview material into a structure.

It’s The Year Of The Posthumous Performance – Is That Good For The Artists Or The Art?

Michael Jackson performed at this year’s Billboard Music Awards. Rick James has a new memoir. Tupac Shakur had a Broadway musical. James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and River Phoenix (!) are in new movies. “It’s not weird that we miss those artists who’ve died. But it is weird that, increasingly, we expect them to keep producing art. The afterlife has become just another career stage – one that’s as lucrative and, in some cases, as productive as the pre-death career ever was.”

Was The Tupac Shakur Musical A Flop? Or Just Ahead Of Its Time?

“Saul Williams, the poet and performer who played the lead role in Holler If Ya Hear Me, tells Kurt Andersen it’s inevitable that hip-hop will carve out a place for itself on Broadway. What killed Holler, Williams says, were people who wrote it off before they saw it.” (audio)

In Defense Of The Remaking Of Mecca

“At night, all lit up and crowded with apartments and hotels, Mecca now looks like a Saudi interpretation of Gotham or even Las Vegas … and shopping malls and high-rise blocks are being built in a circle around the pilgrimage zone.” The Saudis are catching a lot of flak for these changes, but Nesrine Malik argues that they are both necessary and (certain excesses notwithstanding) well-considered.

Making Genuinely Anti-War Art Is Surprisingly Hard

“Art makes its subject interesting and arresting and meaningful. To make art about war, even anti-war art about war, is to risk rendering war interesting and arresting and meaningful.”

Quentin Tarantino Is Filming “The Hateful Eight” After All

The director – who called the project off in a fit of anger after the script was leaked – confirmed the news at, of all places, San Diego Comic-Con.

Author: Matthew Westphal