One year ago, when he walked out on Britain’s Royal Ballet, the company that trained him, Sergei Polunin was a mess: late-night drinking, morning crying jags, his sensational dancing ability beginning to slip. Now, living in Moscow with a company to call home and a near-ideal mentor, he seems to be back on the road to greatness.
Author: Matthew Westphal
The Death And Defilement Of Richard III: What His Bones Tell Us
How did the archaeologists recognize the king’s body? Amy Davidson explains – and also tells us about the “humiliation injuries” his dead body suffered after the Battle of Bosworth.
What The Ancient Greeks Could Teach About Gun Control
“One of the guns used to murder children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut, was an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that’s similar to a weapon used in war by American troops. A weapon of war was turned on innocents at home. That would have shocked the ancient Greeks. The pioneers of citizen armies were also pioneers of withdrawing weapons from the places of civilized life.”
The Minefield Of Trailers For Oscar Season
“The already mistrustful relationship between moviegoer and trailer becomes even more strained during awards season, when the contenders are by and large films that deal with topics audiences would rather skip. They leave studio marketing executives and the trailer editors they hire with sensitive decisions about what to omit and what to include.”
What’s The Best Day Job For A Writer? Running A Brothel (Said William Faulkner)
“It gives him perfect economic freedom; he’s free of fear and hunger; he has a roof over his head and nothing whatever to do except keep a few simple accounts and to go once every month and pay off the local police. The place is quiet during the morning hours, which is the best time of the day to work.”
Hollywood Connects (For Once) With The Political Zeitgeist
Frank Rich: “Whatever the explanation – and little in show business happens by design – the movie industry has reconnected with the country. It has produced no fewer than four movies that have provoked animated, often rancorous public debate: Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln, and Django Unchained, a film that pushes so many hot buttons you can’t quite believe it was made.”
What Timbuktu’s Archives Mean For Africa
“One of the things that is said over and over again about Africa is that there is no written history, but that is a blatant lie. If you go to Timbuktu you will see it is absolutely not true.”
La Scala Removes One Of Milan’s Senior Critics From The Press List
After a series of paticularly harsh reviews, including one which accused conductor Daniel Harding of making Wagner so “soft” that one would think the composer was “homosexual”, the notoriously cranky Corriere della sera critic Paolo Isotta will no longer get comp tickets from the opera house.
Will The Discovery Of Richard III’s Bones Change How Actors Portray Him?
Probably not, but it’s a fine excuse to get three great actors who’ve played the role – Antony Sher, Jonathan Singer and Simon Russell Beale – and Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole to talk about Shakespeare’s portrait of the much-maligned king.
Lucian Freud Donates Degas And Corot Works To Britain
The late painter bequeathed Corot’s 1870 portrait The Italian Woman or The Woman with the Yellow Sleeve, now at the National Gallery, and three Degas sculptures – Horse Galloping on Right Foot, The Masseuse, and Portrait of a Woman: Head Resting on One Hand – currently at the Cortauld.