Diego Ramalho grew up breakdancing in a small city in Brazil and reluctantly started taking ballet lessons at age 18. Eight years later, he’s a full member of Ballet Edmonton, coaching his colleagues in break-style movement for a new work opening this month. – CBC
Author: Matthew Westphal
Olga Tokarczuk And Peter Handke Win Nobel Prizes For Literature
The Nobel committee cited Polish novelist Tokarczuk, awarded the delayed prize for 2018, for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.” Austrian prose author, poet and dramatist Handke was cited for “an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience.” – The Guardian
In The 50 Years Since Caravaggio’s Nativity Was Stolen, Have The Police Been Chasing Bogus Tips?
“[A] stream of stories, boasts and false leads has kept the police busy for years and has led to just two conclusions: the painting was stolen by the mafia, and it was then destroyed. … In 2017, however, the case was re-opened by the anti-mafia commission, … [and] the situation raises a number of questions that have never been answered by earlier investigations.” – The Art Newspaper
Why “Porgy and Bess” and the Met Need One Another
More than its disappointing 1985 predecessor, the Met’s vigorous new staging of Gershwin’s opera manages to vindicate a controversial cultural landmark whose reputation, still unsettled, feeds on the fraught racial sensitivities of the current moment. – Joe Horowitz
Marshall Efron, Star Of Idiosyncratic TV Comedies, Dead At 81
“An actor and humorist, [he] was a core figure in two of the quirkiest television shows of the 1970s, The Great American Dream Machine and the children’s program Marshall Efron’s Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School.” – The New York Times
A Black, Queer Kentuckian Returns Home To Take The Helm At Actors Theatre Of Louisville
After decades living and working all over the U.S., actor-director-choreographer Robert Barry Fleming is now in his first season as artistic director of one of the country’s most important regional theatres. He tells Diep Tran, “It’s taken me 50 years to be afforded my ‘Jackie Robinson moment’: the chance to lead a large, multi-million dollar institution, and I believe that may have less to do with my ability or readiness to do the job, and more about the dominant culture demonstrating readiness.” – American Theatre
Can A Rope Bondage Show Empower Women? These Two Actor-Aerialists Think So
Everything I See I Swallow, which scored a success at this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe and is now touring regional England, involves “the art of shibari, the centuries-old practice of Japanese rope bondage … It’s the spark for a piece of theatre that speaks to something universal and pressing, about the rights of women over their own bodies, the ramifications of digital life, and that knotty old question: can it ever be empowering for a woman to take her clothes off in public?” – The Guardian
Paris Opera Director Stéphane Lissner Named Superintendent Of Teatro San Carlo In Naples
Lissner, who ran La Scala in Milan (2005-2012) before taking charge of the Opéra national de Paris, reaches France’s mandatory retirement age of 67 next year, so his contract there won’t be renewed past its expiration in August 2021. He begins his five-year term in Naples as both superintendent and artistic director that fall. (in French; for Google Translate version, click here) – Le Monde (France)
London’s Old Vic Theatre Promised It Would Double The Number Of Women’s Toilets. It Made All Toilets Gender-Neutral Instead, And Some Women Are Furious
“The push for inclusivity has angered some women who say their comfort and safety is being put at risk – and argue men are still being left with a better deal. Here’s why toilets have become a battleground.” – Reuters
‘The Stage’ Runs Pro And Con Articles On The Old Vic’s Gender-Neutral Toilets, Then Deletes Them In A Panic
“The website issued a statement on Twitter today saying it had taken the articles [about the battle of the loos] down after receiving what it described as ‘strong responses’ from readers, adding they had ‘only polarised the debate further’.” Sareah Ditum, who wrote one of the essays, called the move “gross editorial cowardice.” – Press Gazette (UK)