A previously unknown groups calling itself the “Popular Nationalist Insurgency Command of the Large Brazilian Integralist Family” has claimed credit for a Christmas Eve incident in which Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Rio de Janeiro offices of Porta dos Fundos, the comedy group that created The First Temptation of Christ, which depicts a stoner Mary and put-upon Joseph throwing a 30th-birthday party for Jesus as he returns from his 40 days in the desert with a “close friend” named Orlando. – BBC
Author: Matthew Westphal
She Was *Not* Going To Play Princess Jasmine: Shereen Ahmed, First Arab-American To Play Eliza Doolittle In Major Production
“I don’t want to be Jasmine. She’s one of my favorite princesses, but I don’t want to perpetuate that stereotype: completely powerless, or overly sexualized,” says the Baltimore-born daughter of an Egyptian immigrant father. After understudying Laura Benanti on Broadway (she went on a dozen times), Ahmed is headlining the national tour, currently at the Kennedy Center. – The Washington Post
The Year in CultureGrrl, 2019 Edition: Museums Become Easy Targets in Difficult Times
This was the year of our national discontent and contentiousness, as manifested in the artworld by the rallying cry, “Decolonize Museums!” – Lee Rosenbaum
Choreography For Business: Teaching The Corporate World Dance
After Rachel Cossar retired from Boston Ballet, she started a class called Choreography in the Kitchen to teach restaurant workers healthy ways to lift, bend and reach with poise. Then she was asked to create a similar program for the fundraising department at Harvard. Both classes became popular, with long waiting lists, and Cossar has now turned Choreography For Business into a thriving enterprise. – Dance Magazine
How International Multi-Company Ballet Auditions Work
“For directors, they provide a way to evaluate dancers they might not otherwise see. For dancers, they expedite the cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming auditions process. But multi-company auditions don’t follow one recipe. As these three examples prove, they’re varied in their goals, demographics and pricing, so it helps to know what each offers.” – Pointe Magazine
It’s Time To Stop Limiting The Caldecott And Newbery Medals To Americans
“When the American Library Association introduced the Caldecott in 1938, the United States was an industrial giant but still a cultural stepchild of Europe. … So librarians wanted to jump-start American creativity by limiting Caldecott eligibility to American citizens and permanent residents just as they had done for their literature award, the Newbery, over a decade before.” Needless to say, the situation has changed. – The New York Times Book Review
A 19th-Century Opera That Flipped The Script On The Passive-Princess-Versus-Wicked-Queen Narrative
And that opera, Le Dernier Sorcier (The Last Sorcerer), was composed by a woman — Pauline Viardot, remembered mostly for being one of the century’s great mezzos. Amy Lorette Damron Kyle, a musicologist at the Sorbonne and a singer herself, compares Viardot’s Sorcier to one of opera’s classic passive princess/wicked queen stories, Mozart’s The Magic Flute. – The Conversation
2019, The Year Lesbian Culture Finally Went Viral
“In 2019, there was a paradigm shift in how social media, and pop culture broadly, perceived gay women. It was as if lesbian culture — its memes, language, and stories — was suddenly mainstream.” (However, writes Jill Gutowitz, “As the self-identified Overlord of Lesbian Twitter, I may have a skewed vantage point here.”) – Wired
Disney Cuts Lesbian Kiss From Singapore Release Of Star Wars ‘Rise Of Skywalker’
“The country’s media regulatory body said Disney removed the clip to avoid the film being given a higher age rating. It is PG13, which means parental guidance is advised for children under 13. … Singaporean censorship guidelines state that films containing LGBT themes or content as a subplot may be restricted to viewers aged 18 and above, while films focusing on homosexuality may be hit with a 21-and-over rating.” – The Guardian
Ugly Eddie Murphy-Bill Cosby Exchange Bespeaks History Of Bad Blood
In response to a quip about Cosby that Murphy made during the opening monologue of his return to Saturday Night Live, the now-jailed rapist‘s publicist said that Murphy “was given his freedom to leave the plantation, so that he could make his own decisions; but he decided to sell himself back to being a Hollywood Slave.” Reporter Elahe Izadi reviews the long and unhappy relationship between the two comedians. – The Washington Post