Dana Caspersen, William Forsythe’s wife and a former member of his company, Ballett Frankfurt, “develops choreographic methods that let groups address differences in nonverbal ways. Many of her projects center on participatory ‘action dialogues,’ which allow groups as large as 250 to tackle fraught issues like racism and polarization.” – Dance Magazine
Author: Matthew Westphal
HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ Has Turned The Actual Town Into A Tourist Mecca
“In a strange turn more than three decades after the meltdown, the exclusion area around Chernobyl is gaining a following as a tourism destination, apparently propelled by the popularity of a TV mini-series about the blast that was broadcast in the United States and Britain last month.” – The New York Times
‘This Is Heroic Criticism, Warrior Criticism, Live-Ammo Criticism’ — Six Film Writers Give Their Takes On Pauline Kael
David Thomson: “The shrewdest thing to say about Pauline Kael – beyond recognising that she was essential – is that she was kind of crazy. Yet determined to seem rational or in control.”
Kate Muir: “Her language is spankingly crisp and her reactions that of a ticket-buying human, not someone sweating ink as they try to impress.” – The Guardian
How Do You Put An Ayahuasca Trip Onstage?
You cast an actual Peruvian shaman, of course. And you get the entire rest of your cast do ayahuasca rituals furing the rehearsal period. Lyndsey Winship talks with Peruvian director-choreographer Oscar Naters, and with said shaman, about their performance piece, Ino Moxo. – The Guardian
‘A Great Realist Novel’: Salman Rushdie On Kurt Vonnegut’s ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’, 50 Years On
“It tells us that wars are hell, but we knew that already. It tells us that most human beings are not so bad, except for the ones who are, and that’s valuable information. It doesn’t tell us how to get to the planet Tralfamadore, but it does tell us how to communicate with its inhabitants. All we have to do is build something big, like the Pyramids or the Great Wall of China.”- The New Yorker
Allen Ginsberg Annotates Gay Pride March Photos
On the backs of pictures that photographer Hank O’Neal took of the marches in the 1970s, Ginsberg commented in Ginsbergian style. “Black white brown boy girl what idealism! — Wearing their hearts on a banner for nothing but love” – Hyperallergic
Jazzercise, At 50, Is Big Business
“Countless workout fads have come along since the heyday of Jazzercise: Tae Bo, Pilates, Zumba, boxing, spinning, pole dancing. And yet Jazzercise persists: today, according to the company, there are more than seven thousand franchises, serving roughly two hundred and fifty thousand customers in twenty-five countries and grossing somewhere between ninety-five million and a hundred million dollars per year.” – The New Yorker
Anna Netrebko, ‘Aida’, And Why Opera Just Needs To Drop Blackface Already
The diva posted a photo of herself in her dressing room at the Mariinsky, all done up as Verdi’s enslaved Ethiopian princess, and one commenter wrote, “Beautiful singing! But is the blackface really necessary?” Netrebko replied, “Black Face and Black Body for Ethiopien [sic] princess, for Verdi[‘s] greatest opera! YES!” And, of course, all hell broke loose. (It didn’t help when Netrebko called her critics “low class jerks.”) Olivia Giovetti considers why, in the opera world, there still has to be an argument over blackface. – Van
Bill Wittliff, Screenwriter And ‘Primary Texas Cultural Lightning Rod’, Dead At 79
He’s known to the wider world primarily as the writer of the TV series Lonesome Dove and the films Raggedy Man and The Perfect Storm, and he was a book author and photographer himself, but in his home state he’s revered for the artistic ecosystem he made possible for writers, photographers, and filmmakers. – Austin American-Statesman
The Mainstream U.S. Theater World Is Finally Starting To Diversify — Do We Still Need Culturally Specific Theater Companies?
In a word, yes. As one such producer puts it, “There’s layers of conversation of what diversity really means in a cultural arts landscape. … We have the opportunity to go deep within multiple layers and not just check off the box.” Reporter Makeda Easter talks to members of African-American, Asian-American, and Latinx companies about that difference. – Los Angeles Times