“The Taubman Museum of Art’s biggest financial supporter said he and the museum’s new board of directors … have infused the cash-strapped museum with about $1.5 million to help it cover operating costs for the rest of the year … [and promise] that the arrangement will continue as long as it needs to. The museum’s annual budget is about $3.4 million.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Thirty Years Of Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet
“It took King years to find the right balance of stylistic elements, but there is little doubt that he is redefining ballet for a generation that wouldn’t find itself within a mile of Swan Lake. And, as a kind of apotheosis, Jennifer Homans, the notoriously demanding dance critic of The New Republic, has pronounced King one of dance’s great hopes for the future.”
Turning Puccini’s La Bohème Into A Ballet
Milwaukee Ballet music director Andrews Sill was skeptical about undertaking such an adaptation – until he discovered that Puccini and his publishers sanctioned all sorts of adaptations (as long as they made money). Sill believes a Bohème-without-words works well – and it allows choreographer Michael Pink to make what he sees as a crucial rebalancing of the lead characters.
Clybourne Park Author Cancels Berlin Production Over Use Of Blackface
“Bruce Norris, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright of Clybourne Park, … withdrew rights to the production [at the Deutsches Theater] after learning that the staging would feature a white actor wearing makeup for the role of an African American character.”
White South African Rappers Use Blackface In Video (Yes, They Really Went There)
“Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for ‘The Answer’), a South African rap-rave duo” – known for trying very hard to be provocative – “have just released a new video for their song ‘Fatty Boom Boom.’ Among the many batshit elements of the NSFW production is a get-up donned by one of the two that looks an awful lot like blackface.”
Is American Cinema Turning To Magical Realism?
“Generation X always had a fondness for surreal diversions and episodes of gentle, self-imposed exile from reality. And this spirit of pothead poesie – not too far from magical realism – has been breaking through with ever-greater frequency as Gen-Xers continue their directorial careers and get closer to the mainstream.”
Nashville Symphony Hangs Onto Giancarlo Guerrero Until 2020
The South American maestro has been credited with leading a renaissance at the orchestra since his arrival as music director in 2009. In his three seasons, he and his band have already won four Grammys – all for contemporary music, no less.
Britain Needs Thomas Cromwell’s Welfare State, Says Hilary Mantel
In 1536, as Henry VIII’s chancellor, Cromwell tried to get through Parliament a Poor Law providing money to those unable to work. Says Mantel, “We have reached a period where we are going back to the Middle Ages; where poverty is once again being viewed as a moral failing or a weakness, and relief by the state is a privilege and not a right.” (She also thinks Cromwell could sort out the banking system.)
So This Is What Joan Didion Thought Of Writing?
“It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions … but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writer’s sensibility on the reader’s most private space.”
The Guardian Is Considering Going Online-Only, Says Rival Telegraph
“Senior figures at Guardian News & Media are seriously discussing the move to an entirely online operation, it has been claimed, leaving [editor-in-chief Alan] Rusbridger increasingly isolated.” The newspaper is said to lose tens of millions of pounds each year.