That sounds unlikely enough, but the creative team for Dragon Spring Phoenix Rise is even more unlikely: choreographer Akram Khan, director-producer Chen Shi-Zheng (The Peony Pavilion, Monkey: Journey to the West), and the guys who wrote Kung Fu Panda. – The New York Times
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Want To See A Ballet Company That’s Serious About Programming Female Choreographers? Go To Cincinnati
“56 percent of the works Cincinnati Ballet commissioned for the 2019-2020 season are created by women. Female choreographers will be featured in 71 percent of Cincinnati Ballet’s programs. [And] among the nation’s top 50 ballet companies, only 13 of the most prestigious full-length works are by women. Of those 13, two were commissioned by Cincinnati Ballet.” – The Cincinnati Enquirer
The New York Times Just Called Them ‘America’s Most Astonishing Choir’. And Just Sounding Beautiful Doesn’t Interest Them.
“[Here’s what makes] The Crossing one of the country’s most exciting vocal ensembles: an embrace of the new, a social conscience and fearless technique, brought together in a marriage that transcends mere prettiness. A Crossing program is often politically charged — taking on issues like homelessness, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster and corporate personhood — without being didactic. The group is uninterested in, ahem, preaching to the choir, preferring works that are suggestive and ambiguous.” – The New York Times
Richard Lariviere Has Steered Chicago’s Field Museum Through Some Pretty Rough Waters
When he became CEO of the city’s natural history museum in 2012, it was in enough financial trouble that its debt was on the verge of being downgraded. Then there was the “cringeworthy” Native North America Hall. Now that hall is being reworked with input from Native Americans, the debt is steady, attendance is up, and the endowment has grown by 45% to $435 million. – Crain’s Chicago Business
New U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, Is First Native American To Hold Post
“Poet, writer and musician Joy Harjo — a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation — often draws on Native American stories, languages and myths. But she says that she’s not self-consciously trying to bring that material into her work. If anything, it’s the other way around.” – NPR
Following Sexual Harassment Accusations, Stephen Lord Resigns As Michigan Opera Theatre’s Chief Conductor
One day after “allegations that he sexually harassed singers, pianists and conductors all over the country and used his position and prestige to silence them” were reported, Lord stepped down from both MOT and Opera Theater of St. Louis, where he was Music Director Emeritus. – Detroit Free Press
Remember Frances McDormand’s ‘Two Words: Inclusion Rider’? Hollywood Seems To Have Forgotten
More than a year after the 2018 Best Actress Oscar winner called for her colleagues to demand a rider to their contracts obligating producers and studios to diversify their crews, “it is hard to identify more than a handful of productions that have adopted the rider outright.” – The New York Times
Those Billionaires Who Pledged Millions To Restore Nôtre-Dame ‘Have Yet To Pay A Penny’
“Less than a tenth of the hundreds of millions promised has been donated, the French culture ministry said Friday. Only €80 million of the €850 million pledged has been handed over — and most of that has come in small sums given by ordinary people.” – France 24
At Versailles, Louis XIV’s Royal Chapel Gets Restoration
“The intricate work to clean and restore its extraordinary windows, statues and other features is being carried out under the strictest security measures to avoid any repeat of the fire that severely damaged Nôtre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in April.” – Yahoo! (AFP)
Leading Uighur Writer Dies At 70 After Detention In China’s ‘Re-Education’ Camps
Nurmuhammad Tohti was imprisoned in one of the camps, which are estimated to be holding up to one million ethnic Uighurs from China’s Xinjiang Province, from last November to this past March. Relatives say he was denied medication for heart disease and diabetes and was released only when completely debilitated. – The Guardian