“With hundreds of applicants whittled down to a shortlist of 50 – 23 women and 27 men – simply getting through the doors was a major achievement. But having got so close to what, for many dancers, was a lifelong dream, the pressure was starting to tell.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Australian Ballet Expands Its In-School Program
“The company says its Out There program is expanding this year to reach more than 9000 students aged five to 12 in NSW, Victoria and, for the first time, Queensland, with interactive lessons that move from movement skills and rhythm to language and Australian wildlife.”
Planned Cultural Center In Arles, Designed By Frank Gehry, Faces Delay And Site Changes
“Building work on an ambitious Frank Gehry-designed cultural centre in Arles will be delayed for at least six months following concerns over its effect on the French city’s heritage, which includes archaeological sites and views immortalised in paintings by artists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin.”
Alex Steinweiss, 94, The Man Who Invented Album-Cover Art
“The record sleeves and album artwork we know and love, and have come to take for granted, owe their existence to the iconic designer, who in 1940 created the first illustrated 78 rpm album package as a young art director at Columbia Records. The company took a chance on his idea – to replace the standard plain brown wrapper with an eye-catching poster-like illustration – and increased its record sales eightfold in mere months.”
Native American Design As Imagined By White People: The Strange History Of The Indian Blanket
The Pendleton woolen mill in Oregon, founded in 1893, “played a huge role – perhaps more than any one Indian tribe – in creating these distinctive patterns. Pendleton’s early designers were instrumental in shaping modern conceptions of what Native American designs look like.” (And Pendleton blankets were hugely popular among Native Americans themselves.)
The Three Rules Of Book Reviewing
Using a famously nasty evisceration of Keats’s Endymion as a starting point, Robert Pinsky reminds us of the three prime directives – and observes how rarely all three are followed.
Orson Welles’s ‘Malignant Perfectionism’
“Mr. Welles’s longstanding difficulties with Hollywood are the stuff of legend. At bottom, though, they amount to this: He was a fanatical, impractical perfectionist who was willing to spend any amount of time and money on his films. But it was always other people’s money.”
Rehearsing Outdoor Opera During A Heat Wave – How Wolf Trap Copes
“Staff members were scouring supermarkets for electrolyte-replenishing Gatorade: lemon-lime flavor, which the costume department figured would cause the least problematic stains. An assistant was sent out to buy a large box of condoms, to serve as protection for the microphone transmitter packs worn on the backs of singers.”
Master Classes On Broadway, Starring Raul Esparza
“Luckily for aspiring musical theater performers in New York, it’s not unusual for big Broadway names to offer encouraging, tough-love-based 10-minute apprenticeships to singers who don’t mind looking silly in front of strangers.”
Málaga Tries Hard To Stake Its Claim To Picasso
“Although Pablo Picasso left his native Málaga as a child,” and came back to visit once at age 19, “the city has done its utmost to call attention to its connection to him.”