“[He] first received acclaim while living in the United States in the 1960s. When he returned to South Africa after the fall of apartheid in the early ’90s, he was welcomed as a national hero. In 2006, he became the second person to be named the country’s poet laureate. His poetry addressed themes of black solidarity, displacement and anticolonialism with an uncompromising directness.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Russia’s Leading Avant-Garde Theatre Director Sees House Arrest Extended Again
“[Kirill] Serebrennikov was charged in August 2017 with embezzling state funds at Moscow’s famous Gogol Center theater, in a case seen in the Russian artistic community as politically charged.” His house arrest, already extended once last October, was due to expire on Jan. 19. He has spoken out about Russian actions in Ukraine and Crimea, and he was the stage director of the controversial ballet about Rudolf Nureyev that premiered at the Bolshoi late last year.
Moscow To Complete Its Own ‘Museum Mile’ Next Year
When the contemporary-art space GES2 (designed by Renzo Piano) is completed in 2019, “it will be possible to visit the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts on the north side of the Moscow River before walking over Patriarchy Bridge to GES2 on Bolotny Island. From here people can stroll to the Tretyakov Gallery on the south side of the water and finish up at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Gorky Park.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.16.18
Baby Steps
Over the last eighteen months I have begun to put greater emphasis on the need for (and advantages of) simplicity and gradualism in beginning community engagement efforts. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2018-01-16
Pay-to-Play? Maezawa Bankrolls Brooklyn Museum Show of His $110.5-Million Basquiat
Should a museum accept money from a private collector to show a work (or works) from his personal collection? Unless the work in question has been promised to the museum, such arrangements reek of pay-to-play, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-01-16
America’s Most Exceptional Orchestra
Setting aside PostClassical Ensemble, the guerrilla DC chamber orchestra I co-founded fourteen years ago, the most exceptional American orchestra I know is the South Dakota Symphony. South Dakota’s “Copland and Mexico” festival, which concluded last … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2018-01-16
Tracking Everyday Mysteries
RoseAnne Spradlin’s X at New York Live Arts, January 13 and 14. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2018-01-16
Marlene VerPlanck Is Gone
From New York comes news that the singer Marlene VerPlanck died today at 84. She reportedly had pancreatic cancer but managed to keep the illness a secret from nearly everyone. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2018-01-16
Reconstructing An Ancient Board Game (Now There’s A Challenge For You)
“Imagine you find a Monopoly board and a handful of street cards plus one little tin hat and a little tin shoe, nothing else,” says game historian Ulrich Schädler. Reporter Natasha Frost looks at some games from the ancient world – and at the ways scholars try to figure them out.
‘Am I A Bad Feminist?’ Margaret Atwood Worries About Fairness And Due Process In #MeToo, And About The Backlash She Suffered For Worrying
“The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn’t get a fair hearing through institutions – including corporate structures – so they used a new tool: the internet. … [But] if the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? … In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn’t puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated.”
The Problem With One-Person Plays
Michael Billington grants the genre its virtues – low cast, adaptability, the chance to spotlight an actor’s skill – but wonders about its limits of perspective.
The Biggest Questions Facing the Dance World About Sexual Harassment
“What would dance-specific sexual harassment training and policies look like? How can we protect freelancers working outside an institutional setting?” Lauren Wingenroth spells out the issues.
What We’re Losing When Arts And Music Get Whittled Away In Schools
After asking the 10- and 11-year-olds in her French class to make a picture book with their new sentences and having them tell her that none of them could draw at all (they’d never had an art class in their young lives), The Guardian‘s Secret Teacher argues that it’s not just that arts education increases test scores in other subjects …
England’s Largest Medieval Stained-Glass Window Has Been Restored
At York Minster, one of the great cathedrals of northern England, the Great East Window – completed 1405-1408 and roughly the size of a tennis court – has undergone a ten-year rehab costing nearly $15 million.