Japanese dancers Eiko and Koma, accompanied by the Kronos Quartet, take on their own history. But “we don’t even need the music,” Eiko said. “As a performer I’m not much more than a slime or a maggot.”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Cutting Out Photographic History – And Now Pasting It Back In
“The history of the [New York Photo] League has receded from our collective psyche, despite its influence on documentary photography as the field developed in the ’30s. While we may easily recognize the migrant workers of Dorothea Lange’s Oklahoma or the tenant farmers of Walker Evans’ Alabama, we know little about the Harlem streets of Jerome Liebling.”
So Experimental Fiction Usually Makes Your Realist Heart Quail? Here’s Some Advice
“The tenets of modernism dictate that real literature needs to be difficult, otherwise it’s kitsch. I’m no unreconstructed modernist, and I’m not going to tell you that Marcus’s novel is good precisely because the dribbling masses wouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole. Rather, I’m telling you to read The Flame Alphabet because it’s unique, continually surprising, and often flat-out disgusting.”
What Does It Mean To Be Isolated (Really, Truly Isolated) In This Google Earth World?
“Once upon a time, the ancestors of each and every one of us lived in a premodern culture. Those cultural origins have now been completely erased from our collective memory. Do any of us regret the loss of this memory? Would any of us prefer to return to our ancestral condition, rather than to live in the modern world?”
Nadine Gordimer Hasn’t Stopped Writing (Beautifully) About A Changing South Africa
Gordimer “has always taken the line that what a writer must do, in times of oppression, is write to the best of her ability; to articulate her truths and examine her conscience.”
Playlist: Eight (Delightful! Well, Ravishing, Anyway) Days Of Schubert
As the BBC preps for The Spirit of Schubert – everything ever recorded, March 23-31 – Jessica Duchen can’t wait. “Previously we’ve been treated to days or weeks of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and more – but Schubert is different, so intense, intimate and direct is his idiom and so raw the sensibility it contains.”
T.V. Shows Can’t Quite Keep Up With The Economy
Maybe the recovery’s in full swing (maybe), but television shows are just now catching up with the recession – not because they’re contrary, but because scripted shows take time to develop.
Edinburgh International Fest Artistic Director To Step Down
The Edinburgh International Festival’s Jonathan Mills has overseen a dramatic expansion of the festival and two extensions of his original four-year contract – but he announced that it will soon be time to go.
Does Our Love For Downton Abbey Mean We’re Culturally Stuck – Or Looking Backward?
“Art, film, literature and television all appear to be backward-looking, if not reactionary – as epitomised by the success of Downton Abbey. But perhaps there is a more subtle narrative at work here.”
It’s All A Sham(rock): There Is No Such Thing
You can wear a trefoil on St. Paddy’s Day, but do you know which plant it comes from? In the 1890s, a naturalist found “five very different species of plant which were being used around the country as shamrock: the yellow, white and red clovers (in that order of popularity); also wood sorrel; and, a small herb called black medic (Medicago lupulina ), that resembles a cross between a clover and a small creeping buttercup.”