Author: Matthew Westphal

Four Major Dance Critics Stepped Down Last Season. What Does That Mean For Dance Criticism As A Whole?

“Last May, The Guardian reported that Judith Mackrell would step down from her post after a 23-year run, and Alastair Macaulay announced he was giving up his position as The New York Times‘ chief dance critic, effective this past January. Luke Jennings left The Observer in the UK in December, and this winter, The New Yorker quietly replaced Joan Acocella with the historian Jennifer Homans. … In one fell swoop, criticism has lost decades of experience and memories, and these writers won’t be easily replaced.” – Dance Magazine

Is Dance A Sport Or Not? Does It Matter?

Lauren Wingenroth: “A Google search of that question will yield hundreds of results of impassioned arguments about whether or not we should consider dance a sport. The fact that breaking was recently provisionally added to the 2024 Summer Olympics program is certain to make the conversation even more heated. I would like to make a counterargument: Those on both sides of the issue seem to agree more than they disagree. So who cares?” – Dance Magazine

Watching A Play, In Black And White: Two Critics Discuss How Who You Are Affects The Way You See African-American Theater

“In a cultural medium whose producers, audiences and critics are still predominantly white, [Jackie Sibblies Drury’s] Fairview challenges playgoers to think about how the different backgrounds and assumptions they bring to the theater may produce vastly different results once inside.” Jesse Green and Salamishah Tillet talk about that issue with respect to Fairview and African-American plays more generally. – The New York Times

Finally, There’s A Distributor Willing To Handle Errol Morris’s Steve Bannon Documentary

“After [premiering at] Venice, American Dharma screened at the Toronto and New York film festivals and picked up strong reviews. But the idea of Bannon getting a platform at all ignited a backlash … that made the film radioactive for buyers. … [Now] Utopia, co-founded in February by musician and director Robert Schwartzman (nephew of Francis Ford Coppola), has acquired U.S. rights to the film from the Oscar winner behind The Fog of War.” – The Hollywood Reporter

Yeah, The Nicholas Cage New York Times Magazine Interview Is As Weird As Everybody Says

Not David Marchese’s writing; he does a fine job. But Cage showed up for the interview wearing “oversize sunglasses, a dragon ring the size of a walnut and a black velveteen jacket over a Bruce Lee T-shirt.” He says that he has based various performances on his pet cobras, Woody Woodpecker, Stockhausen, and Pokey. (That’s Gumby’s sidekick, the orange horse.) He talks about his grail quest that was and was not metaphorical. (The Holy Grail, he has determined, is the Earth.) And he says about his acting, “I’m [now] at the top of my game.” – The New York Times Magazine

The Shanghai Symphony Has Been Playing For 140 Years, Even Through The Cultural Revolution

It was the first symphony orchestra in the entire Far East, founded in 1879. (That’s only 37 years after the New York Philharmonic, the United States’ oldest orchestra.) Says music director Long Yu, “You can find all the programs through the First (World) War, Second (World) War, Cultural Revolution and till today – they have not stopped playing concerts. … They did function in the Cultural Revolution – Chinese folk songs, but they still played. It is amazing.” – Chicago Tribune

Woodstock May Have Been An Amazing Event, But It Derailed American Rock Festivals For Decades

“In almost all the ways that concert promoters measure the success and smooth operation of their events, Woodstock was a failure.” Crowd control. Sanitation. Traffic. Profit. (The producers ended up more than $1 million in debt.) What’s more, “what young fans saw as groovy gatherings, with clothing optional, were viewed by local governments around the country as dangerous and disruptive events that they did not want in their backyards, and they passed laws accordingly.” – The New York Times