“By reputation, Kenneth MacMillan was the dark genius of British ballet – its destroyer, if you listen to some. They think this country’s classical ballet reached its pinnacle under the Apollonian hand of Frederick Ashton, before MacMillan stomped in with his working-class neuroses and rape simulations and took ballet down to the psychological underworld.” Ismene Brown looks at his body of work – especially the little-performed short ballets – in this 25th anniversary year of his death.
Author: Matthew Westphal
After Four Years Off, Mabou Mines Revives Itself And Gets A New (Old) Theater Of Its Own
The 50-year-old company, a legend of the late 20th-century downtown avant-garde theater scene, is back at the old P.S. 122 building, just renovated, in Manhattan’s East Village. Reporter Zachary Small visits the new Mabou Mines HQ and talks with co-artistic director Sharon Fogarty and company co-founder Lee Breuer, who – at age 80 – is premiering a new play there.
When Nazis Hired Jewish Intellectuals To Assemble A Yiddish Archive, The Scholars Hid The Best Stuff (Which Is Now Found)
“In one of their odder and more chilling moves, the Nazis occupying Lithuania once collected Yiddish and Hebrew books and documents, hoping to create a reference collection about a people they intended to annihilate. Even stranger, they appointed Jewish intellectuals and poets to select the choicest pearls for study.”
Sam Shepard’s Final Work To Be Published In December
The novel Spy of the First Person, on which the playwright/actor began working just after he was diagnosed with ALS (of which he died in July) and which his daughters and his old friend Patti Smith helped him complete, is “the story of an unnamed narrator who retraces the memories of his life as he undergoes treatment for a medical condition that renders him dependent on the loved ones who are caring for him.”
Two Picasso Murals And The Anders Breivik Bombing Make For A Bitter Battle In Oslo
A few hours before right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik shot 69 people dead at a summer camp outside the Norwegian capital in 2011, he left a car bomb in the city’s government district that killed eight and severely damaged two landmark Brutalist buildings which have been empty ever since. Now the Norwegian government plans to tear down and replace one of those buildings and relocate its two murals, created by Pablo Picasso with Carl Nesjar. “Opponents of the decision see it as an affront to Norwegian and global artistic heritage, and a capitulation to Mr. Breivik.” Says one official, “We don’t want the ministry to tear down the building when the terrorist didn’t manage to do that.”
Danielle Darrieux, Great Beauty Of French Postwar Cinema, Dead At 100
“[Her] poise, languid glamour and fine singing voice catapulted her to stardom as a teenager in the early 1930s and kept her there for decades, whether in melodramas, frisky comedies or light musicals. … If her pre-war movies emphasized her sparkle and charm, the postwar years elicited some of her most riveting dramatic performances. Much of her critical legacy rests on three celebrated films she made with director Max Ophuls: La Ronde (1950), Le Plaisir (1952) and The Earrings of Madame de … (1953).
Harlem School Of The Arts, Back From The Dead And Growing
“Just seven years ago, the school, founded in 1964, was $2 million in debt and temporarily closed. Today, the school has not only recovered, but is pivoting from a place that primarily provided arts education for children to a full-fledged performing arts center.”
Looted Benin Bronzes To Be Lent Back To Nigeria
“A group of major cultural institutions in the UK and Europe … is seeking a way to end decades of wrangling over the estimated 4,000 bronze and ivory artefacts looted by the British army from what is now southern Nigeria as part of a punitive expedition in 1897. Since the 1960s, Nigeria has repeatedly called for their repatriation.”
Chicago Launches A Citywide Dance Festival
“This weekend, Chicago dance artists and venues are opening their doors and inviting the public to stages all over the city to witness excerpts, works-in-progress and studio processes from our rich community of independent artists and small to midsize dance companies. Called Elevate Chicago Dance, the Chicago Dancemakers Forum (CDF) is the presenter of the multiday, multivenue, mostly free festival aimed at highlighting Chicago dance and increasing the visibility of established dance artists across a range of genres and disciplines.”
Edinburgh Plans Its First Newly-Built Concert Hall In Over A Century
“The [£10 million] fundraising drive for the £45m New Town project, which will be known as The Impact Centre, has been triggered ahead of the first plans being unveiled next month. The 1,000-capacity venue, earmarked for a site behind the Royal Bank of Scotland’s historic head office on St Andrew Square, will become home to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, but will also be available for performances of all kinds of music.”