You’d be hard put to find a bleaker place to live than the Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank, where Palestinians displaced by their leaders’ decades-long clash with Israel struggle terribly for even the basic necessities of life. But for the last several years, a unique project known as Freedom Theater has provided Jenin youths with an outlet for their anger and loss beyond the violence that has helped to perpetuate the conflict for so many years.
Author: sbergman
Chicago Embraces A Rising Tide Theory
One of the unique and much welcome eccentricities of Chicago’s theatre scene is the spirit of cooperation between some of the city’s largest and smallest houses and companies. “The easy flow of audiences and artists between Chicago’s large, established theaters and the scrappy up-and-comers has been instrumental in maintaining its stature as the country’s most vibrant dramatic capital after New York, allowing now-celebrated artists… to make their way from the fringes to the mainstream.”
Are Black Actors Held Back By International Racism?
There has always been plenty of talk about Hollywood’s resistance to making movies featuring black characters. But less discussed is the difficulty of marketing films with black stars in the international marketplace. “Most Hollywood executives, producers and analysts interviewed for this article delicately maintained that the resistance to black performers abroad had had less to do with bigotry than with the international audience’s lack of experience with the humor or urban situations that figure in many of their films. Some in the industry, though, were more blunt.”
Remembering Rosenblum
Forty years ago, a young art historian published his first book, and changed the way scholars and art lovers looked at neo-Classical art. Robert Rosenblum, “who died in December at 79, went on to become the most consistently edifying art historian of his generation. With a combination of iconoclasm, faultless lucidity and wit, he smashed aesthetic prejudices the way physicists smash atoms. There ought to be a Nobel Prize for that sort of achievement.”
NY City Opera Gets Its Man
As rumored, New York City Opera has announced that French conductor Gerard Mortier will take over as its general manager and artistic director, beginning in 2009. Mortier has had a long and successful (if sometimes controversial) tenure with the Paris National Opera, and City Opera’s success in wooing him is likely to be seen as a direct challenge to the much larger and richer Metropolitan Opera.
Are Federal Ethics Panels Stifling Academic Freedom?
“Ever since the gross mistreatment of poor black men in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study came to light three decades ago, the federal government has required ethics panels to protect people from being used as human lab rats in biomedical studies. Yet now, faculty and graduate students across the country increasingly complain that these panels have spun out of control, curtailing academic freedom and interfering with research in history, English and other subjects that poses virtually no danger to anyone.”
Picassos Stolen From Paris Home
“Two Picasso paintings with a combined value of 50 million euros (£33.7m) have been stolen from his granddaughter’s home in Paris… There was no evidence of an attempted break-in at the home in the city’s seventh arrondissement, police said. The organised crime squad of the Paris police force is investigating.”
NH Symphony Goes Dark
“The New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra is cancelling all of its upcoming performances this season and may not play next year, either, if new revenues don’t emerge, its trustees say… The orchestra, an institution since 1974, has faced difficulties before. Financial woes forced cancellations in 2004, when some of the musicians’ jobs appeared to be in jeopardy.”
Write What You Know (But Maybe Not So Literally)
What should we make of the literary trend of authors inserting fictionalized versions of themselves into their novels? “Realistic fiction demands that the details of a character’s job should be as convincing as possible, and the creation of a creative writer uses research already accrued… But there is also a deeper mental explanation.”
Should The Arts Embrace Merger Mania?
What if orchestras and theatre companies started behaving more like corporations, with the large, healthy groups snapping up and merging with smaller, struggling competitors? “Before the shout goes up about artistic integrity and creative independence, it wouldn’t have to mean a Starbucks-style homogenisation of the arts. There would be no need for a safe but dull culture house on every street corner. A better model to consider would be the major record label sheltering several niche labels under its wing.”