New York Times music critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim attends a workshop led by Catherine Turocy, America’s top expert on Baroque dance. “By the end of the workshop, my feet were no closer to mastering the Sarabande than before. But my ears had learned to see Baroque music in a new way.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Do You Turn A Glenn Gould Radio Documentary Into Choreography?
“After all, the [programme] was created by a musician who, at that point, had famously rejected and expressed disdain for all forms of live performance, and the doc is about a religious group [the Mennonites of Manitoba] that at times has discouraged dancing among its members.” Yet Emanuel Gat has pulled it off.
At Hollywood Bowl, Arguments Over Giant New Video Screens
Many patrons, especially the ones way up the hillside, are grateful to be able to see what’s happening on the faraway stage; others find the screens a garish, ham-fisted intrusion on a beautiful natural setting. “The objections are mostly being raised by people who attend classical concerts; there has been no sign of protest from, say, the Vampire Weekend crowd.”
Where Do Claire Danes’s Volcanic Performances Come From?
Off-screen, she’s buoyant, goofy and inordinately fond of puns. Onscreen, she plays the sort of roles that lead her to crack, “I’m just working my way through the DSM-V” – and she produces what one colleague calls a “tsunami of emotion”. How does she do it?
Deaccessioning Battles, Usually Confined To Art Museums, Hit Shakespeare
“A proposal by the library of the University of London to auction a rare set of early printed editions of Shakespeare’s plays has been branded ‘egregiously wrong’, ‘completely unjustifiable’ and likely to result in ‘four iconic and unique books moving into private hands’.”
On The Architecture Of Prisons
“Just as prisons in the U.S. are now designed to look not just secure and largely windowless but so nondescript that they practically disappear, architecture firms often coat their prison-design work in several layers of euphemism. … But thanks to a growing number of factors – some within the architecture profession, some political, others in pop culture – prison design is shedding some of that carefully managed anonymity.”
How Has Australia’s Outgoing Government Handled The Arts?
“The national cultural policy, Creative Australia, stands as the most significant arts achievement. Launched by former arts minister Simon Crean in March, it is a pragmatic document, largely free of the national identity rhetoric … He was clearly frustrated at cabinet’s reluctance to back the cultural policy, and his forced departure from the arts ministry a week after its launch was dispiriting.”
End Of An Era For Japan’s Rubber-Suited Sci-Fi Monsters
“For decades, Japanese studios dazzled, terrified and tickled global audiences with monster movies and television shows featuring actors in rubber suits laying waste to scaled-down Tokyos … But now, in an era when lifelike digital effects have made the use of small models and suited actors look quaint and kitschy, tokusatsu is rapidly becoming a thing of the past.”
Was This The First-Ever Movie Made For The Internet?
“A one-hour, pop art-inspired version of William Shakespeare’s Richard III by the Australian director Philippe Mora, has been hailed by Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) as the first movie ever created specifically for the Internet -uploaded and shared online in 1996.”
Rupert Murdoch, Rendered In Song And Dance
“The Melbourne Theater Company has just staged the premiere of Rupert, a cabaret-style dramatization of Mr. Murdoch’s life by one of Australia’s best-known playwrights, David Williamson. … Little is left out, not even the shaving-cream pie that a comedian heaved at Mr. Murdoch when he appeared to testify before a parliamentary committee looking into the hacking scandal.”