Author: Matthew Westphal

Conductor Daniele Gatti, Fired After Sexual Harassment Allegations, Gets Big New Job In Rome

Four months after Gatti was sacked as chief conductor of Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, one of the most prestigious jobs in the entire music world, he has been appointed music director of the Italian capital’s opera house, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, effective immediately. Gatti is the first person to hold the music director post since Riccardo Muti resigned in frustration in 2014. — Gramilano (Milan)

The Opposite Of Dance? What It’s Like For A Dancer To Perform As A Human Sculpture

“There is someone less than a foot away from me, just off of my right shoulder, observing the way I’m holding my hand strangely, but perhaps gracefully? I hope my nails are clean. My arm is starting to tremble. I’m not even sure how much time has gone by. I let my arm gently, almost imperceptibly, fall, allowing my shoulder to melt with it, and stop myself mid-breath. “I am…right here,” I say to myself with my director’s voice in my head. I am ON DISPLAY .” Victoria Dombroski of Heidi Latsky Dance describes the experience of being in Latsky’s ON DISPLAY, a “human sculpture court.” (includes video) — Dance Magazine

Case studies in community engagement

The Community Engagement Training offered by ArtsEngaged is also preparing new trainers. As a culminating part of their work, they prepare a case study critiquing a project they know well. Here are the first four: Classical Roots, an ongoing program of the Cincinnati Symphony with choirs from the city’s African-American churches; a partnership between the Segerstrom Center for the Arts (Orange County, CA) and the service organization Alzheimer’s Orange County; the Cincinnati Arts Association’s production of a concert with the Urban Appalachian Community Coalition; and the productive merger of two film festivals, one larger and of general interest and the other smaller and LGBTQ-focused.

Ben Jonson Wrote A Play So Scandalous That It Got All London’s Theatres Shut Down And Was Wiped From History

“In 1597, Jonson and Thomas Nashe co-wrote a satirical play called The Isle of Dogs. Not much is known about the plot or contents of the show; what is known is that almost immediately after it took the stage, the British authorities not only banned it from ever being performed again, but they also threw Jonson in jail and shut down the entire London theater scene. While the curtains eventually began to ascend again, the play at the center of the controversy lived on only in whispers.” — The Daily Beast

How ‘Creed’ Has Changed The Entire ‘Rocky’ Franchise

“The director Ryan Coogler’s 2015 film, … was an act of subversion by Coogler and his co-writer Aaron Covington, and an oddly moving act of humility by Sylvester Stallone, who allowed his career-defining character, an avatar of white masculinity, to be transformed into a vehicle of redemption for Creed’s black protagonist — a role traditionally played by black actors [for white protagonists]. … This is how the meaning of the series itself, particularly the first four films, changed: from the story of an indomitable white boxer, to one about the roots of a friendship that created a debt Rocky must repay.” — The Atlantic

How MoMA’s Exhibition Designers Do Their Jobs

“When you walk through an exhibition in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, every step you take is part of a deliberate design that takes you from piece to piece in just the right way. And it all starts with a dollhouse-like version of the gallery and teeny-tiny art replicas called ‘chips.’ In this episode [of Slate‘s podcast Working], Jordan Weissman talks to Lana Hum and Mack Cole-Edelsack, director and senior design manager, respectively, of MoMA’s exhibition design and production department.” (audio) — Slate

‘The Tinder Of Television’ — The Advantages And Problems Of Anthology Series

“One of the biggest criticisms of the Peak TV era is the phenomenon of Netflix Bloat. We’ve all constantly got so much good television to watch that we’ve become much less tolerant when serialised programmes take their foot off the . … But with an anthology series, you can just dip in and out.” Problem is, “by their very nature, anthologies are notoriously patchy affairs. Every episode requires a brand new idea, and good ideas are hard to come by.” — The Guardian

John Waters Talks About Film, Art, And His Careers In Each

“I’m always trying to question those two businesses, art and film, in a way that’s celebrating the mistakes, and what goes wrong, and insider knowledge. … I would say that still many people who know my films have absolutely no idea that I have an art career. And I kept that very separate on purpose, because … celebrity is the only obscenity left in the art world, and it is the one thing I will always have to fight.” — The Believer