Mr. B. may or may not have actually said, “Ballet is woman,” but he thought that way. (Sometimes, teaching class, he’d forget the men were there.) “But when Balanchine made dances for men, the picture changed. … And many of those Balanchine roles for men were without precedent or equal.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Struggle Over L.A.’s Southwest Museum Becomes Lawsuit
“Years of wrangling over whether the Autry National Center has a right to shed a costly and inconvenient subsidiary, the Southwest Museum, has spilled, perhaps inevitably, into the courts.” The Southwest Museum has a highly regarded collection of Native American artifacts.
Orange County PAC’s $10 Ticket Program And The ‘Forrest Gump Principle’
“The Segerstrom Center for the Arts plans to celebrate its 25th anniversary season by selling 10,000 tickets to assorted events for just $10, in a discount program dubbed ‘Access for All’.” The promotion uses what the LA Times calls the Forrest Gump principle: “these discounts are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get.”
Who’s The Single Most Influential Person On Twitter? (And Have You Ever Heard Of Him?)
The top name on the Twitalyzer Influence Index is – comedian Rafinha Bastos, “a pioneer of Brazil’s burgeoning stand-up scene [who] appears weekly on two popular television shows… and has 2.7 million followers on Twitter.”
Nicholson Baker And His (Inventively) Dirty Mind
“Nicholson Baker does not look like a dirty-book writer. … He wears round, owlish glassesÂ, and in early book-jacket photographs, when his beard was darker and more closely trimmed than it is now, he reminds you of one of those earnest Russian intellectuals of the 19th century. Nowadays, with the beard grown out and nearly white, he could easily get seasonal work as a shopping-mall Santa.”
There’s No Space Too Run-Down For This Theater Company
The Woodshed Collective – “an ambitious New York theater company with a commitment to low-budget, site-specific productions (past locations have included an empty swimming pool and a ship)” – has taken over a decrepit old church for a new play about a decrepit old apartment and a suicide.
If Funding For Your Museum Extension Is Denied, Go Back and Ask For Ten Times As Much
That’s what the director of the Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts did. In February, politicians cancelled a planned €18 million underground extension of the museum. Now Laszlo Baan has gone to back to the government with a €150 million plan to add two new buildings to the existing one.
In Scotland, Dance Is More Popular Than Soccer (Says Report)
“Dance is more popular as a participatory activity than football in Scotland, according to a new report published by the Federation of Scottish Theatre.”
Alfred Hitchcock’s First Movie Found In New Zealand
“The National Film Preservation Foundation and the New Zealand Film Archive are announcing … the discovery of the first 30 minutes of a 1923 British film, The White Shadow, considered to be the earliest feature film in which Alfred Hitchcock has a credit.”
Classical Theater Of Harlem Stakes Its Future On Henry V
The Shakespeare history play is “Classical Theater of Harlem’s first full-scale production in nearly two years, since its founders departed after friction with the board. And the company is kicking off its new life in debt, with no endowment or permanent home, and dependent on corporate, foundation and government financing at a time when such money is harder than ever to come by.”