“‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he says, in the flat Lancashire burr that is variously used to kill off a timorous suggestion stone dead or to give a grudging answer. ‘I still feel like I’m the same thing. I started life with an idea in my head about music and I still feel I’m in that position.'”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Trompe L’Oeil Vermeer
“Was [he] a collaborator or an artist? Or both? And if he was a genius, what was his genius? His ability to trick people? Or was he able to trick people because he was an artist of genius?” Errol Morris begins a seven-part investigation of Han van Meegeren, the WWII-era painter who forged Old Dutch Master canvases.
Grands Ballets Canadiens Exec Blasts Ottawa For Not Funding Mideast Tour
The Montreal company, which is setting out on a four-week tour that includes debuts in Egypt and Israel, “is short $150,000 because of the cancellation last year of Promart and Trade Routes, two government programs that supported the export of Canadian culture. … Alain Dancyger, Les Grands Ballets’ executive director, says corporate and private sponsors at home and abroad are bewildered that the Conservative government is not one of the tour’s supporters.”
Row In South Africa Over Interracial Onstage Kiss
“Carolyn Forword walked out of a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin after being directed to kiss fellow cast member Unathi Dyantyi repeatedly on the lips. Forword, 22, argues that the kissing was not suitable for the touring production’s audiences of young children. Dyantyi counters that her description of the kiss as ‘unhygienic’ was racially motivated, an allegation she vehemently denies.”
SOS Racisme Goes After Sarkozy Over Museum Admission
“A French anti-racism group has filed a legal complaint against the Louvre museum, arguing that a policy [introduced by President Nicolas Sarkozy] to allow free admission to European young people is discriminatory.”
Tracey Emin Says She Is So Over Sex
“‘It always was about sex, not money,’ she said. ‘Sex was what held me in bed and got me out of it again in the morning. But now it’s fading fast. I don’t have the same craziness about sex that I had – I’m more interested in ideas.’ The artist was haloed by a pink glow emanating from a neon piece in the next room. Its inscription read: ‘Oh Christ I just wanted you to f*** me and then I became greedy, I wanted you to love me.'”
Even Love Is Governed By Mathematics
“What happens to our star-crossed lovers? How does their love ebb and flow over time? That’s where the math comes in. By writing equations that summarize how Romeo and Juliet respond to each other’s affections and then solving those equations with calculus, we can predict the course of their affair.” (And then there’s the “three-body problem” …)
As NYC’s Amato Opera Dies, A Successor Is Born
“[A] group of Amato veterans – singers, administrators, a few board members – are trying to fill the void. On Wednesday, they held a meeting and formed a board, appointed officers and established a budget of $50,000. … In a tribute to its origins, the company is giving itself the name Amore Opera.”
Taking The Kids To See Hair
“Perhaps I shouldn’t draw sweeping conclusions about my kids’ cultural tastes based on the fact that they seemed distinctly more captivated by Shrek and Fiona’s brazen flatulence face-off in Shrek than by Tony and Maria’s clandestine fire-escape clutch in West Side Story.” Robin Pogrebin and her two preteens go on a seven-show Broadway bender. (Yes, they saw Hair.)
Oregon Ballet Theatre Threatened With Closure
“[The company] has become the first of Portland’s major arts groups pushed to the wall by the global recession. Unless [it] raises $750,000 by June 30 to cover expenses and pay creditors, it may have to close its doors.”