“Bolshoi soloist Pavel Dmitrichenko told a Moscow court that he had complained about ballet chief Sergei Filin to an acquaintance, who offered to ‘beat him up’. ‘It’s not true that I ordered him to throw acid at Filin,’ Dmitrichenko told the court … The 29-year-old dancer said he did not intend for the attack to cause such bodily harm.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
British Authors Back Drive For Libel Law Reform
“Some of the Britain’s most acclaimed authors and playwrights including Stephen Fry, Sir Tom Stoppard, William Boyd, Margaret Drabble, Ian McEwan and Sir Salman Rushdie have called on the main party leaders to honour their pledge and implement a defamation bill aimed at transforming 170-year-old laws they say have silenced scientists and authors as well as journalists and activists.”
Meet The Jon Stewart Of Egypt
“Inspired by the events [of the anti-Mubarak uprising], and driven partly by the state media’s outrageously misleading coverage of them, [Bassem] Youssef started recording commentary in his own home, which he broadcast on YouTube. … And he quickly became known for saying what so many Egyptians were thinking – and for being hilarious at the same time. A local network noticed and made an offer. He accepted, and left surgery for satire.”
Editors’ Feud Has Australia’s Publishing World Abuzz
It all started last month when the editor of the magazine The Monthly, John van Tiggelen, sent an e-mail (promptly leaked) to his predecessor – twentysomething whiz-kid Ben Naparstek, who had been recruited to lead the nationwide magazine insert Good Weekend – calling Naparstek a “f*cking dalek” who steals article ideas, poaches writers and underpays female contributors.
Nasty Board-Director Split At L.A.’s Watts Village Theater Co.
Artistic director Guillermo Aviles-Rodriguez’s top project, a subway-based site-specific series called Meet Me @Metro “became a sore spot for the theater’s board of directors” – who changed the company’s mission statement to rule the project out, leading Aviles-Rodriguez to resign.
What’s Good About Bunheads? It Depicts Ballet As More Than Cutthroat Torture
“Recent portrayals” of ballet in the popular media – Black Swan, Breaking Pointe – “have focused too much on the obstinacy, ambition, and perfectionism that fuels the enterprise of becoming a dancer. What makes it art, meanwhile, gets ignored.” But Bunheads “has found a way to bring ballet’s relevance – the meaning of the steps, the dancer’s feel for the movements – subtly but clearly to the fore.”
A Visit To Europe’s Largest Sculpture Foundry
“They’ve cast bronzes for Sarah Lucas, Antony Gormley and Damien Hirst. They also produced Martin Jennings’s sculpture of John Betjeman at St Pancras station. Here, the staff at Pangolin Editions in Gloucestershire reveal the secrets of the foundry.”
Fire Destroys Naples’s Great Science Museum Complex; Arson Suspected
“Where there was once a 12,000-square-metre festival of science, nothing is left – only a trail of ashes through the sky. The Città della Scienza – the City of Science – a huge science education initiative in Naples, Italy, has been destroyed by fire. Among the losses are all the hands-on interactive experiments that drew 350,000 visitors each year to the site.” Early reports suggest arson by the Camorra.
Alberta Ballet To Create Second Joni Mitchell Work
“The reclusive Mitchell will reteam with Alberta Ballet artistic director Jean Grand-Maître to create the new piece, which will feature a libretto, set design and soundtrack by the celebrated singer-songwriter.” The as-yet untitled work will premiere in May 2014.
Is The ‘Creative Class’ About To Suffer The Same Fate As Factory Laborers?
A “culture and creativity consultant” argues that, with the ever-increasing capabilities of software and the ever-increasing availability of labor from poorer countries, such occupations as designer, film editor, sound engineer and perhaps even music arranger or actor could go the way of the weaver.