The essay is beyond our ability to summarize, and well worth your time. A snippet: “In the end I had to come to terms with the truer nature of my duty. Why do we commit our work? Why do we perform? It is above all for the entertainment and transformation of the people. It is all for them. The song asked for nothing. The creator of the song asked for nothing. So why should I ask for anything?”
Author: ArtsJournal2
This Ballet Dancer Was Assaulted By An Instructor – And Now She Makes Ballets About Assault
Lissa Curtis’ instructor assaulted her on a plane and in Romania – but the FBI can only prosecute the plane portion. Now, she “advocates on behalf of survivors through her ballet, even as that very art triggers her severe PTSD and pushes her to her mental and emotional limits. ‘I feel as though I live with a ticking time bomb inside my chest,’ Curtis says.”
The Golden Globe Nominees Are Announced, With Some Notable Exceptions
Mel Gibson is back, but movies from Tom Hanks’ Sully to Denzel Washington’s Fences and (surprisingly) Martin Scorsese’s Silence get snubbed.
Beatrix Potter Was A Careful Scientific Recorder Of Mushrooms (She Also Happened To Write ‘Peter Rabbit’)
Her mushroom drawings hang in the Science Museum in London. “These drawings, most of them from the 1890s, are so accurate that even today, they are still consulted by scientists.”
The First-Ever Indigenous Comic Con Took Place A Few Weeks Ago, And It Was Impressive
From comics about life on the rez to video games about blood quantum to little girls who said they were superhero Water Protectors, the Comic Con featured nerd culture for Native peoples.
Zadie Smith, Accepting A Literary Award, Gives A Scorching Speech About Her Books And ‘Multiculturalism’
“I did not realize that the life I was living was considered in any way provisional or experimental by others: I thought it was just life. And when I wrote a novel about the London I grew up in, I further did not realize that by describing an environment in which people from different places lived relatively peaceably side by side, I was ‘championing’ a situation that was in fact on trial and whose conditions could suddenly be revoked.”
The Sacramento Ballet Has Been On Shaky Footing, But Then A Patron Died And Left The Company… Everything
A gift the organizations didn’t expect or look for, from a patron who had attended many private ballet functions and climbed the Great Wall with the dancers when they went to China, surprises – and helps – the Sacramento Ballet .
Twelve Of 2016’s Biggest Classical Music Stories
WQXR in New York recalls the biggest stories in classical music this year. Stravinsky’s back, baby! Plus strikes, deaths, promotions, conductors stepping down and much more.
Five Takeaways From The Critics Choice Awards
The race for the Oscars seems on, with a four-way race among four serious movies (La La Land, Moonlight, Jackie, Manchester-by-the-Sea) … and a comedy contender out of left field as well.
The British Writer A.A. Gill, Acerbic And Brilliant Restaurant Reviewer, Has Died At 62
The writer, who battled alcoholism in his 20s but emerged one of the most elegant writers in the language, announced last month that he had cancer – and used his final column to rail at the British National Health System.