“Colin Wolfe was killed in Iraq in August 2006. A roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle in Anbar province just a few weeks after he arrived. … Nearly seven years later, on the heels of the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, his mother paid tribute to her son with a ballet.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Fifteen Tips For Making Micro-Performance Work
The Guardian‘s Culture Professionals Network rounds up the best reminders and suggestions from its recent live chat on very-small-scale performance.
Artist Stages Pop-Up Burqa Fittings
Marie Rim “sets up on street corners, in parks, outside stores and offers passersby, both male and female, the chance to experience not just what they look like, but what it feels like, physically and emotionally … to put on the traditional all-black, full-body cloak and veil worn by some Muslim women.” (The kicker comes when subjects look in the mirror.)
What Our Bodies’ Behaviors Reveal
“Ever wondered why yawns are contagious, you can’t tickle yourself and we don’t speak from our bottoms?”
The Archive Of Magical Thinking: Visiting The World’s Top Prestidigitation Library
“The Conjuring Arts Research Center, located a few blocks from the Empire State Building … has over 15,000 books, plus manuscripts and letters serving magicians, historians and screenwriters. The documentation is all created by magicians for magicians.”
A North Korean Romantic Comedy? Yes
“This unusual movie is in the feel-good style of a Doris Day-Rock Hudson picture, only in this case ‘Rock’ is a circus acrobat, swooning at the sight of ‘Doris’ hauling coal and mixing cement. To Westerners, this is bound to sound like a cheesy product of the Hermit Kingdom’s propaganda machine. But North Koreans have never seen a film like this.”
Persepolis Barred (Messily) From Chicago Public School Classrooms
The school district’s administration sent out a memo asking that Marjane Satrapi’s award-winning graphic memoir be removed entirely from one middle school – and, predictably, anti-censorship protests ensued. The clarifications the district sent out in response, while backing away from any outright ban, may have made things worse.
Opening May 28: Spider-Man In Federal Court
“A federal judge has set a May 28 trial date for the director Julie Taymor, Bono and the Edge of U2, and the producers of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark to battle in court over a lawsuit stemming from the spectacular implosion of their years-long collaboration on the show.”
L.A. MoCA Board Rejects LACMA Merger
“Despite the recent offer from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to acquire the cash-strapped Museum of Contemporary Art, the contemporary museum’s board of trustees says that its members agree that ‘the best future for MOCA would be as an independent institution’.”
Why The Gardner Museum Art Thieves Probably Won’t Be Going To Jail
The term “S.O.L.” is applicable in more than one sense.