“After a year and a half of negotiations and controversy, the city of Paris has still not found a site for the controversial sculpture the American artist gifted to the city in memory of the victims of the 2015 terror attacks. The French Culture Minister has now publicly stated that the work will not be installed at the Place de Tokyo square in front of the Eiffel Tower, as the artist had initially proposed.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Artists Try Out Ideas To Rebrand The EU
“The German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has teamed up with a friend, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, to encourage artists and other creative people to brainstorm ways for Europe to better present itself to the public. They put out a call in March for rebranding proposals, asking: ‘How can the European Union be valued by its citizens and be recognized as a force for good, rather than as a faceless bureaucracy?’ They requested ideas ‘for communicating the advantages of cooperation and friendship amongst people and nations.’ More than 400 proposals from 43 countries poured in.”
With Record-Breaking Production, Australian Ballet Posts $5.5 Million Surplus
While the company had its challenges this year – most notably, having to find an alternative venue for its Sydney season, with the Sydney Opera House’s Joan Sutherland Theatre under renovation – its staging of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon, sold 75,840 tickets over 41 performances in Sydney and Melbourne.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 05.29.18
Odd ducks and different buds
‘You must have been quite an odd duck as a boy,’ I said to Barry Humphries, as the entertainer described his unusual devotion to Berlin cabaret artists, fostered in stuffy suburban Melbourne. … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2018-05-29
From stage to screen
Time was when hit plays on Broadway and London’s West End were routinely turned into big-budget films. Most of the time, alas, the plays in question were recast and “adapted” within an inch or two … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2018-05-29
Movies Are More Like Religion Than You Think, And On A More Fundamental Level
“Both religion and cinema [involve] practices of community formation, the generation of meaning through myth and ritual, and the creation of a sacred space that contrasts with the everyday world.”
What Improv Does To Your Brain
“Does the brain of a comedy improv actor or freestyle rapper work in a particular way? Is it measurably different? Is it processing language (or sound) faster than a regular, lower-improvising brain? … We asked our pal Ari Daniel from our partner program NOVA to look into this. As it happens, he found a group of researchers and a group of professional improvisers working together on some of these questions.”
Tom Wolfe’s Notorious Critique Of The Architecture Profession Still Has A Point
“Wolfe was wrong to mock Modernism as purely utilitarian, and to let its worst abuses speak for the entire genre. … What Wolfe got right — and it’s a criticism that still rings true today — is his skewering of what can be an insular, snotty, tone-deaf culture, from the almost religious zealotry of the early days of Modernism to now.”
How A Bearded, T-Shirted 38-Year-Old Is Remaking The Times Literary Supplement
“A fixture in England and on the Western world’s literary landscape, the TLS is a weekly book review journal with a reputation for being a bit dowdy — less progressive than The London Review of Books, a biweekly, and less agile than the books section of The Guardian, to name two of its competitors.” So where did they go to find an editor to shake things up? To The Sun, the British tabloid best known for its topless “Page 3 girls.” And in his two years there, Stig Abell really has changed the TLS, mostly for the better.
John Kander And Susan Stroman Construct A Henry James Musical Out Of Waltzes
“It was fun for me to find out how many things you could express in the waltz form,” says composer Kander (Cabaret, Chicago) of their adaptation, with librettist David Thompson, of James’s The Beast in the Jungle. “The first thing I said was, ‘How much do I have to pay to do this?'”
What Are The Ailey Dancers Demonstrating For? The Same Things All Their Peers Are Getting
“The statistics are certainly compelling. The five highest earning workers in the Ailey organization make more than all 34 dancers and stage managers combined. [Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater] is the fourth largest American dance company based on budget, but the dancers make 30-35% less than their colleagues in other companies. AAADT performs 175-200 times per year, more than any other major dance company in the United States.”