“What started as a technique class – focused on turnout of the legs, placement of the arms, straightness of the back – became a larger kind of learning experience, when Ms. Copeland, 35, was joined for an after-class discussion by a trailblazing African-American dancer of another generation, the 86-year-old Carmen de Lavallade. The two spoke about breaking down barriers for black ballet dancers and honoring those who had done so before them.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
How Much Time Do People Really Spend Looking At The Art In Museums?
Isaac Kaplan looks at the research that’s been done on the question over the past 16 years – and finds that the answer has hardly changed over that time span.
Kevin Spacey Is Being Edited Out Of His Newest Movie
In light of Spacey’s ongoing abuse scandal, Sony decided that it couldn’t promote Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World – a biopic about the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty III and the refusal of his billionaire grandfather to pay ransom for him – with Spacey in the role of the senior Getty. (Still less could they promote the film for Oscars, and it had been expected to be a contender.) So they’re re-shooting all of Spacey’s scenes with the actor Scott originally wanted for the role anyway – Christopher Plummer.
Unknown Kurt Weill Song Surfaces In Berlin
“The piece, ‘Lied vom weissen Käse‘ (‘Song of the White Cheese’) – which was written for a Weimar-era musical revue and sung by the actress Lotte Lenya, Weill’s wife – was recently found in an archive unrelated to Weill at the Free University of Berlin and is the most significant discovery of the composer’s music since the early 1980s. The song previously existed only in Lenya’s memory and was written off as chimerical.” (includes video)
Smuckers Give $15 Million To Cleveland Orchestra
Just a couple weeks after the jam company gave $1.1 million to the Akron (Ohio) Art Museum, the company’s executive chairman and his wife have pledged the second largest donation in the Cleveland Orchestra’s history. That executive, Richard Smucker, is the new chairman of the ensemble’s board of directors.
A Pharoah’s Tomb, Re-Created By A 19th-Century English Architect, Has Been Re-Re-Created In London
“The sarcophagus of the pharaoh Seti I, carved from a single vast block of translucent alabaster, cost [Sir John] Soane £2,000 after the British Museum turned it down … Almost 900 people trooped through his rooms and into the basement renamed ‘the Sepulchral Chamber’, where the sarcophagus glowed eerily, lit by candles placed inside. [His] museum recently recreated the experiment.”
Prix Goncourt, France’s Top Book Prize, Goes To Eric Vuillard’s ‘L’Ordre Du Jour’
“[The book,] a historical work about shady business dealings behind the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, … [is] set to be translated in the United States under the title The Order of the Day.” The Goncourt’s cash prize is a mere €10, but it usually leads to a sharp rise in sales.
Grammy Organization Is Raising Millions For Music Ed In Three Big-City School Systems
“The Grammy Music Education Coalition has launched a fund-raising initiative aimed at benefiting music programs in the school districts of Philadelphia, New York City, and Nashville. … GMEC hopes to raise $5 million over three years for Philadelphia, with that money going toward both the district as well as programs run by partner education and outreach organizations.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 11.08.17
Trusty Rusty: Powell to Retire from Longtime Gig at National Gallery
It’s entirely in keeping with Rusty Powell‘s self-effacing nature that the National Gallery’s homepage today is all about the art, with no hint of its big news: The museum’s longest-serving director, who assumed that post … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-08
Camerata Pacifica and Chamber Music in SoCal
Recently I’ve enjoyed a performance by the chamber group Camerata Pacifica and several conversations with its founder, Adrian Spence. I disagree with the cheeky Ulsterman on some points – I am in some ways … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2017-11-08
Macron Magic: My Storify of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s Aborted Livestream of Opening Ceremonies
I wasn’t invited to the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s opening ceremonies today (no surprise), but I did get an emailed invitation to watch them livestreamed on the museum’s Facebook page. Below is my tweeted account of … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-11-08
Don Quixote Fights The Intellectual Property Pirates: How Cervantes Responded To Knockoffs In The Days Before Copyright Law
The first part of Don Quixote de la Mancha may not have been the first novel, but it was the first blockbuster. So some anonymous copycat tried to cash in with a bogus sequel. Cervantes, rightly thinking he had moral rights to the character he created responded with a sequel of his own – and he went meta, depicting the Don doing battle with his fake counterpart and visiting a print shop to find the counterfeit version of his story on the presses.