Author: Matthew Westphal

Amar Ramasar Is Not Leaving Broadway’s ‘West Side Story’. Neither Are The Protesters Who Want Him Fired

Ramasar, who was sacked from, and later rehired by, New York City Ballet following his role in the nude photo-sharing scandal at the company, is playing Bernardo in the new production by Ivo van Hove. Protesters at the theatre most nights, and their fellows on social media, want West Side Story‘s producers to fire Ramasar and for audience members to boo him; the producers say they’re not going to discipline him for an incident that happened somewhere else two years ago. Neither side seems inclined to budge. – The New York Times

Louvre Cancels Show Of Bulgarian Icons After Bulgarian Government And Church Object

Curators intended the June exhibition, titled “Art and Cultures in Bulgaria between the 16th and 18th Centuries,” to examine the influence that Islamic art had on Bulgarian Orthodox religious art during that period, when Bulgaria was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. This approach did not go over well in present-day Bulgaria. – ARTnews

One Of Britain’s Top Dance Companies, Tired Of The Money Struggle, Gives Up And Packs It In

Marina Harss: “Imagine if one of America’s most respected modern-dance companies realized that its funding model was no longer sustainable and had to cease operations. This despite having name recognition and a highly identifiable style, and still regularly producing new work. That, in a nutshell, is what has happened to the Richard Alston Dance Company, in England.” – The New York Times

Radical Empathy

For many, many people going to a concert hall or a museum is a foreign, anxiety-producing prospect. If we want new communities to take advantage of what we have to offer, we need to develop the capacity to imagine what doing so might be like for them. We need empathy. And since the experiences of the arts can be so unfamiliar the empathy must be extreme. – Doug Borwick

“No matter what happens tomorrow”

It struck me the other day that ever since Mrs. T went into the hospital, our life has come to resemble Groundhog Day, an endless succession of repeat performances. I am, like Bill Murray, stuck on hold, the only difference being that I know what has happened to me — and that, sooner or later, it will end. In the meantime, we’re clinging to our memories, but we’re also doing our best to get what’s to be gotten out of the slow-moving present. – Terry Teachout

Opera Performed By And For The Deaf? These Folks Are Giving It A Try

Victory Hall Opera in Charlottesville is working on a production of Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites with Deaf performers acting the roles in American Sign Language alongside singers. The first workshops are happening at the end of this month. Reporter Thomas Floyd talks with the leader of Victory Hall Opera and stage director Alek Lev. – The Washington Post

Fan Fiction Has Been Around For Almost 300 Years (And It’s Been About Sex The Entire Time)

The fan-fic phenomenon seems to have gotten its start in the wake of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, with William Hogarth and Alexander Pope riffing on the adventures of Swift’s hero (and, in Pope’s case, his put-upon wife). Add to that Shamela, Henry Fielding’s lusty takedown of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, and the genre is well and truly established. – The Atlantic

This Could Be The Berkeley Public Library’s Most Treasured Collection

“The Berkeley Tool Lending Library is one of the Bay Area’s great public gifts, a free-to-use service for Berkeley residents looking for anything from saws to ladders to a hard-to-find screwdriver. You’d think a repository of free tools, some very expensive, would disappear frequently, but supervising librarian Dan Beringhele says theft is rare. It’s just that beloved.” – San Francisco Chronicle