“During its four-year collaboration with REDCAT, the Wooster Group intends to participate in a series of residencies of two weeks or more, during which time it may present works in progress as well as installation art. It will also interact with CalArts faculty and students through in-person talks and Web-based activities.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Britain’s Last Piano Maker To Close
“Kemble and Co in Bletchley has been making pianos for almost 100 years. Main shareholder Yamaha decided that it was no longer viable.”
How Gay Talese Kept Going
“Fair or not, it is a commonly held opinion in publishing circles that Talese’s career can be pretty much divided into pre- and post-Thy Neighbor’s Wife – that the writer and his gift never fully recovered from the shock waves. […] ‘[My] shrink was a very nice guy. He liked the book. But he said, ‘What you did was commit literary suicide.'”
How Do You Make A Living In This Dance Biz?
“Back Stage spoke recently with six journeyman dancers, performers whose names you won’t recognize but who work consistently as dancers in every corner of show business. Their stories offer clever ideas and straightforward advice about building and sustaining a professional dance career.”
Norway’s New Ballet/Opera House Wins Mies Award
“The European Union just announced the winner of the biannual Mies van der Rohe architecture prize, and it goes to Snøhetta for its work on the Oslo Opera House. They take home an $80,000 prize – a considerable haul, in the penny-pinching world of architecture competitions.”
Cojocaru’s Comeback A Triumph
“For an improbably long time, showers of blooms rained down on Alina Cojocaru after her performance in Peter Wright’s production of Giselle at the Royal Opera House last week. So many that by the time the conductor and the other Royal Ballet dancers came out to take their bows, they were tripping over the piles with some regularity.”
Now This Is How To Celebrate Duke Ellington’s Birthday!
“[The Duke Ellington Orchestra was] standing on the platform of the 125th Street subway station at St. Nicholas Avenue in Harlem, about to board an A train – and perform – as the train sped toward the other end of the line, in Queens, picking up regular passengers along the way.”
Two Little Leonardos May Be Hiding In Plain Sight
An exhibit at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art this fall “will include the first U.S. showing of Beheading the Baptist, a silver relief depicting seven figures at the execution of John. The question is who created the relief. For centuries it has been credited to Florentine sculptor Andrea del Verrocchio, who was Leonardo’s mentor. But Gary Radke, guest curator of the exhibit at the High, believes that two of the figures are the work of Leonardo himself.”
Rolando Villazón To Have Larynx Surgery
The star tenor, whose vocal troubles and cancellations have made headlines regularly for the past few years, has withdrawn from all of his engagements for the rest of 2009 and plans to have a cyst removed from his vocal cords “as soon as possible.” Among the performances he’ll miss are L.A. Opera’s season-opener and a new Tales of Hoffmann at the Met.
U.S. State Department And BAM Launch Dance Program
“DanceMotion USA [is] an international touring series created by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.” Between January and April next year, three American companies will tour (respectively) Africa, Southeast Asia and South America, offering performances, workshops and classes.