Author: Matthew Westphal

An Israeli TV Series Shows The Jewish State Locked In Civil War

“In [Autonomies], set in the near future, civil war has cut the land into two countries. The coastal State of Israel is nonreligious, with the cosmopolitan city of Tel Aviv as its capital. Jerusalem is a walled, autonomous city-state, run by [ultra-Orthodox] Haredi rabbis. At first glance dystopian, the show is in fact an artistic extrapolation of real-life rifts in Israeli society.” – The Guardian

Choreographer David Bintley On 24 Years Running Birmingham Royal Ballet, And On Why He Left

“I haven’t made anything for three years. First, there is no money, second the job has tilted so much towards administration there is no time to make stuff. I have always said there are two different kinds of AD – those that choreograph and those that don’t. At certain times in a company’s history you will need one or the other. At this point in my life I simply want to make dance. I’m happy not to be a director any longer. I don’t want to be stuck in an office again.” – The Stage

Art Institute Of Chicago Plans Major Long-Term Makeover Of Its Campus

“For its first North American commission, the prize-winning firm Barozzi/Veiga … has begun formulating ideas aimed at making an inward-looking museum rooted in the 20th century more extroverted and modern via methods that could include adding new buildings, reconfiguring existing ones and rethinking the presentation of art within them.” – Chicago Tribune

Ex-L.A. Opera Staffer Gives Eyewitness Testimony Of Plácido Domingo Kissing And Groping Women

Former production coordinator Melinda McLain: “In rehearsal I saw him, at least once, grab one of the supernumeraries and just lay a kiss on her. … I also had young singers come and seek advice about how to repel his advances. And older singers, more principal singers, were concerned about their own marriages because of the inappropriate touching — some of which I saw myself, but also was reported to me by these singers so that we could figure out how to keep them out of his way.” (audio) – KCRW (Los Angeles)

Robert Frank, Influential Photographer Of Postwar America, Dead At 94

“[His] book, The Americans, published in this country in 1959, inspired generations of photographers, writers, filmmakers and musicians and made Mr. Frank one of the most important visual artists of the 20th century. … His images of lonely people, lonesome roads and smoldering tensions of urban life were a riposte to the honey-hued picture essays of popular magazines of the time such as the Saturday Evening Post and Life.” – The Washington Post

Neil Montanus, Who Took The Enormous Colorama Photos Displayed At Grand Central Station, Dead At 92

“Every weekday [for four decades], 650,000 commuters and visitors who jostled through the main concourse could gaze up at Kodak’s Coloramas, the giant photographs that measured 18 feet high and 60 feet wide, each backlit by a mile of cold cathode tubing, displaying … the wonders of color film.” Neil Montanus shot more of those photos than anyone else. – The New York Times

In 1913, Edith Wharton Created An Anti-Heroine For The 21st Century

Jia Tolentino: “More than a century after The Custom of the Country was published, Undine’s habits, given a superficial makeover, could be rebranded not just as aspirational but feminist. Today, she would learn how to defend her life story as that of a woman going after what she wants and getting it — and what could be more progressive than that? This pitch would be bullshit, but plenty of people would believe it. Our twenty-first-century Undine would have a million followers on Instagram. She’d be a Page Six legend.” – The New Yorker

There’s One American TV Show That Depicts Labor With Real Dignity

“On its face, [The Science Channel’s] How It’s Made is arguably about science and engineering rather than the vicissitudes of the working class, but its depiction of the everyday worker nonetheless makes it a kissing cousin to socialist realism — or at least a kissing cousin to social realism, which is itself a kissing cousin to socialist realism.” – The Baffler

PBS NewsHour Visits Cambodia’s All-Gay-Male Classical Dance Troupe

“In 2015, artist Prumsodun Ok formed Cambodia’s first all-male and gay-identified Khmer dance company — in his living room. Part of his mission was to support the revival of an art form all but destroyed by the reign of the Khmer Rouge. Ok told his dancers they would need to be brave in order to give voice to a marginalized community. He shares his brief but spectacular take on honoring tradition.” (video plus transcript) – PBS NewsHour