Though Breandán de Gallaí did manage to win the All-Ireland championship, he “had a streak of originality that did not endear him to the judges monitoring the orthodoxy of Irish dance competitions … his long hair and flashy leg beats raised disapproving eyebrows.” His and others’ struggles with the genre’s conformity have led him to create a work titled Noctú (Irish for “bare” or “stripped”).
Author: Matthew Westphal
Artists, Funding Bodies, And The Expectation Of Gratitude
“Nothing wrong with wanting great plays, concerts and books. But I have a sneaking suspicion that we want something more from artists. We expect them to be grateful. This is a sensitive subject that is rarely spoken about publicly: the relationship between artists and the funding bodies, sponsors and donors who enable them to do what they do.”
Popular Palestinian TV Comedy Strikes Nerve, Gets Cancelled
“The hit Palestinian TV satire show Watan ala Watar began its Aug. 14 episode with a sketch featuring Palestinian Attorney General Ahmad Mughani getting besieged by Palestinians filing lawsuits over Watan ala Watar making fun of them.”
Where Hollywood Shies Away, Theatre Celebrates Old Age
From Falstaff and Lady Bracknell to King Lear and Samuel Beckett’s doomed geezers to the monstrous old mother in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, the stage, “largely unbound by Hollywood’s obsession with youth, has always been a good place to play out the threats and opportunities posed by age.”
Do Humans Think Like Quarks? Does Quantum Math Explain How The Mind Works?
“Human thinking, as many of us know, often fails to respect the principles of classical logic.” One researcher “has shown that these errors actually make sense within a wider logic based on quantum mathematics. The same logic also seems to fit naturally with how people link concepts together, often on the basis of loose associations and blurred boundaries.”
Tenor Salvatore Licitra Dies From Head Injuries
“The Italian tenor Salvatore Licitra, whose powerful voice and sunny personality landed him center stage on the opera houses of the world, died Monday morning in an Italian hospital, eight days after a Vespa accident in Sicily.”
South Africa Providing Bumper Crop Of Young Opera Singers
“South African black opera voices have burst onto the international stage … Experts say their rise is no sudden outpouring of new talent but rather that all-race freedom in 1994 levelled the playing field to allow those with remarkable gifts who were stifled under apartheid to enter the game.”
Degas, Seen Through The Eyes Of A Dance Critic
“His views of dance … include those who aren’t dancing, those who can’t dance well yet, those who once danced but can do so no longer, and a great many of those who can but happen not to be doing so just now. … [C]ertainly no great artist has ever returned to the mechanics and sociology of the professional dancer’s art more often than Degas or has understood them so well.”
Degas’s Debt To Newfangled Photography
“Degas’s enduring images of dancers owe much to the radically experimental world of early photography and film. Ann Dumas, co-curator of [the exhibition] Degas and the Ballet, explains how photographic inventions helped him so eloquently animate his figures in pastel and paint.”
The 9/11 Commission Report, In Graphic Novel Form
“In 2006, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón published part of their graphic novel, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, in Slate. The book interprets the 9/11 Commission Report with images. To mark the [atrocity’s] anniversary, Slate is reprinting the first chapter.”