Franco Dragone has reinvented theatre in Vegas. After a string of hits, he’s undertaken his most ambitious show yet, at Steve Wynn’s new mogul-named hotel. “Dragone’s new water-based extravaganza — which opened here last weekend — is at once deeply troubled and proudly uncompromising; arrestingly original and inevitably derivative; dripping with heart and strangely removed. You could say much the same about the much-hyped Wynn Las Vegas Hotel, wherein whimsy has been left outside on the street. And yet “Le Reve” also is at war with its surroundings.”
Blog
Shape-Shifter – Is TV Really Changing?
So VCRs and Tivo and DVDs have changed the ways we watch TV. But has it really changed TV? “Time-shifting was supposed to revolutionize the way we watch TV. But while there’s an undeniable shift towards more consumer control at work here, time-shifting hasn’t changed the overall pattern of viewing TV shows: You still watch a standard rotation of programs — you just get to juggle the rotation to fit your schedule.”
Taking The Mass Out Of Mass Media
Our consumption of mass media is dropping off. Why? “It can’t be a coincidence that the five major pillars of the American media — movies, television, radio, recorded music and newspapers — are all suffering at the same time. And it isn’t. Something major has changed over the past year, as the availability of alternative sources of information and entertainment has finally reached critical mass. Newly empowered consumers are letting the producers, creators and managers of the nation’s creative and news content know that they are dissatisfied with the product they’re being peddled.”
Hand Off To Better Story-Telling
A new study suggests that we may be able to use language better irf we move our hands. “The very fact of moving your hands around helps you recall parts of the story–the gestures help you access memory and language so that you can tell more of the story.”
Ballet Newcomers To LA Have A Rough Road Ahead
Three new ballet companies have their sights set on making a home in the Los Angeles region. But these efforts look naive to some. “Perhaps the directors of the struggling ballet companies in such communities as San Diego, Santa Barbara, Claremont, San Pedro, Anaheim and the L.A. metropolitan area ought to invite the classical newcomers for a facts-of-life session about survival in our battle-scarred ballet landscape. Even the Pentagon might learn a thing or two about strategies for existing in a constant state of emergency.”
Art Auctions: The New Generation
“Even before last week’s sales of contemporary art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in New York, the catalogs for those events indicated that art made during the last four decades has become attractive to potential buyers. And the sale results confirm the emergence of a cohort of youngish collectors eager to buy recent art at prices that continue to rise, sometimes to levels that astonish dealers. Concomitantly, interest in art that has yet to prove its historical staying power appears to be driving the market.”
Good Night For A Hot House
A 1983 work by Jean-Michel Basquiat sold at auction for $1.5 million this week, leading the way to a more than satisfactory $23.6 million night for the newly trendy boutique auction house of Phillips, de Pury & Company. Located in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, Phillips has emerged as one of the city’s art hot spots of the moment, drawing a decidedly image-conscious crowd to bid on the trendiest of contemporary art.
Clearing The Bases
Baseball writing is far more than a literary niche – more like a self-contained genre populated by both specialists and one-time visitors, all determined to capture the simple beauty of America’s game on paper. Of course, it’s not as easy as that, as scores of mediocre baseball tomes have proven over the decades. Not everyone can be Ring Lardner, or even W.P. Kinsella, but that’s never stopped anyone (no, seriously, anyone) with a ball cap and a pen from trying.
America, Lost In The Wilderness
“If there can be said to be a theme running throughout the history of American art, music, and literature, it might well be the allure, the danger, and the quiet beauty of the wilderness. “Scads of crucial American stories and images feast on the idea of wilderness, of a place apart from the so-called civilized world, of a pristine region that can rejuvenate a jaded soul.” So it’s little wonder that, when wilderness and the environment become political issues, there are considerable artistic and literary overtones to the debate.
Boston Sheds Some Russians, Gains Some Skill
This weekend marked the close of Boston Ballet’s third season under artistic director Mikko Nissinen, and the change in the quality of the company’s performance over that time has been striking. “Without the kind of wholesale purge that could have left the Ballet reeling, [Nissinen] has slowly changed the company’s personnel both behind the scenes and onstage. The coaching staff he’s brought in — especially Spanish-born Trinidad Vives — is first-rate. Those additions have largely replaced the Russian teachers and coaches whose attitude was that their dance heritage alone made them superior.”