Deborah Jowitt: “Robbins wanted dancers to approach classical steps as if rising onto pointe was no more unusual than an intake of breath, and a turn could seem a giddy impulse (no showing a planted preparation to spin as if it were interesting in itself). … He came down hard on artificiality and dancers who played to the audience. He wanted them to look ‘real’ despite their virtuosity, to see and react to the others onstage. If a plot was involved, he might want a dancer to know what his/her character had eaten for dinner the night before.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why Do Orchestras Tune To A, And Why Is That A From The Oboe?
After all, concert bands (as some of us remember from high school) tune to a B-flat from the clarinet. Turns out that there are sound practical reasons for both choices, concerning the strings (for the choice of A as the pitch) and the oboe (a fussy and obstinate instrument).
‘If Verbing Weirds Language, Nouning Is Its Weirdification’
Stan Carey makes the case that the practice of verbing nouns and nouning verbs is perfectly dandy, and is one of the things that makes English such a versatile and vocabulary-rich language. There’s even a grammatical term for the phenomenon – three of them, in fact. So, as Carey says in the caption to the photo, “Let’s chocolate.”
It Takes People Longer To Say Nouns Than Verbs
“A study published this week … found that nouns actually take longer to spit out than verbs do, presumably because they require more thought to produce. … Which is to say, the future word casts a shadow over the present one. And that shadow is measurable: the researchers found that, in all nine languages, the speech immediately preceding a noun is three-and-a-half-per-cent slower than the speech preceding a verb. And in eight of nine languages, the speaker was about twice as likely to introduce a pause before a noun than before a verb.” (The outlier was English.)
A Career Making And Performing Dance For The Visually Impaired
“Showcasing dance, without the audience’s necessarily seeing it, is [blind performer and choreographer Mana] Hashimoto’s life’s work. Her performances and workshops bring dance, a medium with a strong visual component, to those without sight while also providing a new experience for a sighted audience.”
Why We Review One Classical Concert And Not Another: Anne Midgette
Surprised (happily) by a reader outcry that The Washington Post didn’t cover Washington National Opera’s performances of The Barber of Seville last month, Anne Midgette explains the limits she and the paper have on how much can be covered, how she decides which events among those on offer will get reviewed, and the unusual run of bad luck that affected critics that particular weekend.
‘What Makes Internet Writing Uniquely Internetty’
“Because I hate myself, and because I want my future robots to remember my contributions to this wild weird world before it all dissipates into the ether, or becomes a wasteland of Russian bots and Incels, I spoke with writers, journalists, novelists, and normal people to come up with a definitive list of essential internet reading. … It comes as no surprise that finding and creating a cohesive understanding of internet writing is just as dubious, problematic, and maddening as the internet itself.” Even so, Lyz Lenz has given it a try – and found some very funny pieces which would probably never have made it into dead-tree print.
How The Internet Is Killing Off Arts Criticism, And What’s Replacing It
“In a world of hot takes, criticism is cold, slow and distant … and, once everyone can voice an opinion, their value is diminished. … Readers want to consume art, not consider it. They’ll take recommendations, sure – but reviews? Save your prose for Medium.” What the Web and social media have nurtured instead, writes Rowland Manthorpe, is fandom. “Fandoms do provide criticism, albeit of a different sort. For one thing, it’s more likely to be well-informed. … [Fans] also have a more creative relationship with the creator, so criticism takes the form of remixes, or fan fiction, or animation, or cosplay. The critic has been replaced by the co-creator.”
How Steve Wynn’s Picasso Got Damaged (It Wasn’t His Elbow This Time)
A dozen years ago, the casino mogul punctured the famous Picasso in his collection, Le Rêve, with a wayward elbow. (His peripheral vision is impaired.) So when word got out this week that another of his Picassos, Le Marin, was pulled from its scheduled auction because it had been damaged, folks wondered if poor Mr. Wynn was humming “Oops! I Did It Again.” But it seems he’s not the culprit this time, as reporter Katya Kazakina learned from a source.
Director Of Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera Resigned Due To ‘Sexual Misconduct’
Last week, general director William Florescu resigned unexpectedly, just a few days before a Magic Flute production he was directing opened. (Two years ago, he had renewed his contract through 2023-24.) Now the company’s board has revealed publicly that Florescu’s departure was because of “violation of the Florentine Opera’s policies and prohibitions concerning sexual misconduct.”