The choreographer’s 2006 dance-theater piece underground, inspired by the Weather Underground’s anti-war and anti-racism protests, suddenly became topical as onetime Underground leader William Ayers became an issue in the presidential campaign.
Author: Matthew Westphal
Russian President Calls For End To Media Censorship
“In a speech to lawmakers televised live across the country on state television’s flagship news show Vesti, Medvedev warned officials against trying to interfere in freedom of expression in the press, radio and television.”
The Physics Obama Needs To Know
Berkeley professor Richard Muller, author of Physics for Future Presidents, has three areas where he wants our next leader to be informed and aware: terrorism (“beware of the low-tech”), robotics (“most instruments work better when there are not humans walking around and shaking them”), and global warming (“it’s going to get much, much worse… [most of the greenhouse gases are] going to come from the developing world”).
Ballerina And Teacher Rosella Hightower Dies At 88
The Oklahoma-born Native American “became the first 20th-century American ballerina to hold a leading place on the European stage” and went on to direct the ballet companies at La Scala and the Paris Opera and to found one of Europe’s top ballet schools.
What Killed Opera Pacific?
“[T]hroughout its life span, Opera Pacific was rarely on firm footing. Its financial structure was never that solid from the start. […] Attendance was not really the problem, though that could have been improved… the pool of donors to the company was much too small. More like a puddle.”
Thinking Big As The Money Gets Tight
Mark Swed observes that the giant city-wide festival that Los Angeles Opera, the Getty, LACMA and other institutions are staging around Wagner’s Ring in 2010 is risky in the current financial climate, but that “[t]aking bold artistic chances always opens new avenues.” Meanwhile, the teetering Orchestras of Pasadena and all-but-dead Opera Pacific “represent failures of imagination.”
Shakespeare’s Globe Receives Shakespeare Archive
“A collection of rare texts by William Shakespeare is to be donated to the London theatre that bears his name. US playwright John Wolfson has pledged more than 450 works, including a first folio of 18 Shakespeare plays, to be handed over after his death.”
Switzerland Returns 4,400 Stolen Antiquities To Italy
“The items, taken from archeological sites in the eastern Italian region of Apulia and in northern Italy, were found in the possession of a married couple who are Basel-based art dealers.”
Merle Haggard Has Malignant Tumor Removed From Lung
“At the insistence of his family and personal physician, Merle Haggard had a cancerous growth removed from his lung Monday at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital [in California].” A growth had been found in the lung last May, but the country music legend had resisted treatment, saying that he doesn’t trust hospitals.
Battle Of The Dalí Movies
There are three major biopics in development about the arch-Surrealist painter: Dalí, with Antonio Banderas in the title role; Dalí & I: The Surreal Story, starring Al Pacino; and Little Ashes, a portrait-of-the-artist-as-a-young-man with Robert Pattinson as said artist.