Feeling like she didn’t quite fit in at the august New York City Ballet (“I felt like if I didn’t do something exactly the same way they wanted me to, it made me look bad, or like a rebel”), Melissa Barak fled in 2007 for Los Angeles Ballet. But NYCB ballet master Peter Martins “doesn’t hold a grudge. Last year, he sent her a letter asking her to return, this time as choreographer of a major work for her alma mater.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Pinched By The Recession? Offer Your Head As A ‘Cranial Billboard’
Air New Zealand is the latest of several companies to advertise using temporary tattoos on willing participants’ bodies. “For shaving their noggins and displaying the ad copy [on their bald heads] for two weeks in November, they received either a round-trip ticket to New Zealand (worth about $1,200) or $777 in cash (an allusion to the Boeing 777, a model in the airline’s fleet).”
There Will Be No Jimi Hendrix Vodka
As if life weren’t bad enough already. “[The] owners of Jimi Hendrix’s music, trademarks and licensing rights won a legal victory in their trademark infringement case against local businessman Craig Dieffenbach and Electric Hendrix Spirits, which created an ‘Electric Hendrix’ brand of vodka.” The defendants must pay a $3.2 million judgment and remove all Electric Hendrix from the shelves.
Ballerina And Dance Teacher Marina Svetlova, 86
After dancing in Ida Rubinstein’s experimental dance company and the Original Ballet Russe, she was the chief soloist in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet from 1943-50. Her biggest legacy may be as an instructor: she headed Indiana University’s ballet department from 1969 to 1992 and trained hundreds of dancers at her summer programs in Vermont.
As Baltimore Opera Languishes, A New Company Pops Up
With Baltimore Opera in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and its season cancelled, some company members who found themselves available have launched Baltimore Concert Opera. The troupe takes its first public steps on March 25 with a concert performance of Don Giovanni. “And [there will be] no orchestra; to keep things financially manageable, there will be only piano accompaniment.”
The Youth Of Britain Love Music So Much (More Than Sex), They’ll Steal It
“More than 60% of young people would rather give up sex than music, rising to 70% for 16-19 year-olds. […] 70% said they don’t feel guilty for illegally downloading music from the Internet. 61% feel they shouldn’t have to pay for music. And around 43% of the music owned by this age group has not been paid for.”
What Gets Weirder Than An Oscar Acceptance Speech?
An Oscar presentation speech. The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw offers ten nominees for Most Startling Performance by an Academy Award Presenter.
Technology Will Save The Smithsonian, Says New Secretary
Wayne Clough: “Our job is to authenticate and inform the significance of the collections, not to control access to them. It is no longer acceptable for us to share only 1% of our 137 million specimens and artifacts in an age when the Internet has made it possible to share it all.”
In Defense Of Shame
“[T]he fear of shame triggers a deep, probably pre-verbal, instinctive part of our brain. Think about a time when you were publicly caught doing something you shouldn’t have–your heart rate increases, the back of your neck crawls with the beginnings of a blush, you instinctively look away from wherever your eyes were just focused. No one has this sort of immediate and uncontrollable physical reaction to the prospect of a tax deduction a year or more hence.”
Oscar Niemeyer Denied Chance To Make One Last Monument In Brasilia
The man who designed Brazil’s once-futuristic capital (“widely considered an architectural masterwork and an unparalleled urban catastrophe”) is still working at age 101, so he was invited to design a monument for the city’s 50th anniversary in 2010. But when he revealed his plan for a new plaza, architects and preservations cried that Niemeyer’s new design just wouldn’t fit with Niemeyer’s old design.