“Dancers will forego eating to take classes,” says Yvonne Chow. So, once a month, DanceMart, operated by H+ | The Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory in New York City, will cook and serve a dinner, teach a class in cooking healthy and inexpensive meals, and send them home with a recipe and the groceries to make it. (There’s a party, too.) Any and every kind of dancer is invited. – Dance Magazine
Author: Matthew Westphal
Dave Samuels, RIP
A Grammy award winner, Samuels was best known for more than three decades as a member of the crossover jazz-fusion band Spyro Gyra. – Doug Ramsey
René Char on Rebirth and Phantoms
Two short excerpts taken from Char’s WWII writings. One concerns a walnut tree; the other speaks about the phantoms of our “empirical souls.” Why post them? And why now? Read them. – Jan Herman
Playwright Lucas Hnath — A 21st Century George Bernard Shaw (Via Wallace Shawn)
“Hnath is a master of Socratic dialogue … In a Hnath play, you repeatedly find yourself agreeing with a pointed speech, then agreeing with its rebuttal. … Many playwrights promote the beleaguered liberal values of tolerance and skepticism, but Hnath enacts them onstage. This, you feel, is what it means to think something through.” – The New Yorker
La Jolla Playhouse And Goodman Theatre Co-Commission Plays By And For Artists With Disabilities
“National Disability Theatre has announced a partnership with La Jolla Playhouse and Goodman Theatre to commission two new works written, directed, and designed by artists with disabilities for casts featuring only actors with disabilities. The selected playwrights are Gregg Mozgala … and Christopher Shinn.” – American Theatre
James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ And The Politicians Who Love It (And Keep Telling Us So)
“In the current political environment, name-checking the writing of James Joyce may not seem like the canniest move. It’s a dog whistle, meant to appeal to refined impulses, to élite rather than populist sympathies. How shall we put it? Joyce is a snob whistle.” – The New Yorker
Generosity? Noblesse Oblige? Or Reputation-Laundering? The Century-Old Bargain Behind Big-Ticket Philanthropy
The debate has arisen a lot over the past few years: BP, the Koch brothers, the Sacklers, that board member at the Whitney, Notre-Dame. Bob Garfield talks about the issue with Anand Giridharadas, author of Winners Take All: the Elite Charade of Changing the World. (audio) – NPR’s On the Media
How The Roxane Gay-Christina Hoff Sommers #Feminist Debate Tour In Australia Turned Into An Ugly Mess
If it had happened in a radio or television studio, it might have gone well. But having an audience turns out to have been a bad idea. (And some ill-advised moves by either Gay or her management didn’t help.) – New York Magazine
What Will Art, And The Art World, Look Like In 2039?
“Devon Van Houten Maldonado asks artists and curators to imagine the changes and trends that will influence the art world in the next two decades.” – BBC
Is ‘Jeopardy!’ Winning Machine James Holzhauer Breaking The Game? If So, Does That Matter?
Emily Yahr: “After all, we’re in an era where television is more fractured than ever. Big TV events are increasingly rare, and it’s refreshing to have one topic to discuss around the virtual water cooler of the Internet — especially something that you could easily catch up on in one episode.” – The Washington Post