Author: Matthew Westphal

Four Nonwhite Ballet Professionals Talk About How They’re Addressing The Ethnic Stereotypes In Classic Story Ballets

“[Lyndsey Winship] talked to dancers and choreographers [Shobana Jeyasingh, Céline Gittens, and Final Bow for Yellowface co-founders Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin] about ballet’s slow pace of change, which problematic ballets should be thrown out and which ones could be creatively reimagined.” – The Guardian

*What* Teutonic Efficiency? Germany’s Cultural Building Projects Plagued By Delays, Budget Overruns, And Shoddy Construction

The gut renovation of Cologne’s opera house is running eight years late and more than double the original budget — and that’s only up to now, since the basements are full of ductwork, cabling and pipes that were badly coordinated and may need to be completely redone. Munich’s Deutsche Museum renovation, Berlin’s Humboldt Forum and the Pergamon Museum are all similarly late and roughly half a billion euros or more each; the Stuttgart opera house renovation may cost a billion. “For a country that thrives on a reputation for efficiency and engineering prowess, its recent record is sobering.” Catherine Hickley looks at why things are going so wrong. – The New York Times

Smithsonian American Art Museum Provides Long-Distance Learning To Schools On U.S. Military Bases All Over The Globe

“The museum’s educators provide lessons in art and art history as well as English language arts, social studies and even science and math. … The list of past subject areas includes surrealism, the Harlem Renaissance, the art of persuasion, the Civil War and Italian mathematician Fibonacci.” – The Washington Post

Can An Artist-In-Residence Really Transform A Big-City DA’s Office? This One Means To Try

Muralist James “Yaya” Hough, 44, was released last year after 27 years in prison, and within a few months he was hired for the new artist-in-residence position in the office of reformist Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. “Hough told Hyperallergic that he was looking to program workshops that will foster conversations between the DA’s 600 or so employees, survivors of crimes, and those currently serving time in the criminal justice system.” – Hyperallergic

He Left The Philadelphia Museum Of Art After Hitting On Subordinates. Now He’s Running Another Pennsylvania Museum

Joshua Helmer, 31, had been an assistant director at the PMA and was viewed as a rising star in the art world when, in early 2018, he “was separated” from the museum. Several female staffers say that he both asked them out (some said yes) and belittled their abilities, and two months ago he was actually barred from the PMA building. Just a few months after leaving Philadelphia, though, he was named director of the Erie Art Museum at the other end of the state — and he’s already been accused of trying to date an intern there. – The New York Times

One Day After Judge Banned Gay Jesus Satire, Brazil’s Chief Justice OKs It

In overruling the lower court’s injunction barring Netflix from continuing to stream The First Temptation of Christ, Supreme Federal Court President José Antonio Dias Toffoli said, “One cannot suppose that a humorous satire has the ability to weaken the values of the Christian faith, whose existence is traced back more than two thousand years.” – Yahoo! (AFP)

Pakistani Authorities Paid No Mind To This Satirical Novel When It Was In English. Now That It’s In Urdu, They’re Confiscating It

“First published, in English, in 2008, [Mohammed Hanif’s] A Case of Exploding Mangoes is a dark satire about the possible reasons for the death of [dictator] General Zia [ul-Haq] in a plane crash in 1988. Featuring bumbling generals and homosexual romance, it was shortlisted for the Guardian first book award, longlisted for the Booker and won the Commonwealth prize for best first novel.” The Urdu translation of the novel has just been released, and men claiming to be from the Pakistani military spy agency ISI raided the Karachi offices of the book’s publisher, seized all the copies, and demanded a list of booksellers who had ordered it. – The Guardian

The Problems With Translating Shakespeare Into Modern English, And How The Playwrights Who Did It Dealt With Them

Writer and dramaturg Loren Noveck was skeptical of the Play On Shakespeare project, and not because she’s a purist: “The Bard,” perhaps the paradigmatic Dead White Male, takes up so much space on stages, in season schedules, and in the minds of theatre folk that there’s not nearly enough room for newer voices dealing with contemporary issues. (Not to mention the now-abhorrent 17th-century attitudes in some of the plays.) But the playwrights tell Noveck that they were well aware of these questions, and they talk to her about their answers. – HowlRound