“In the past, Baryshnikov has been openly critical of dancers continuing beyond their prime. He’s redefined “prime.” The works he commissions for himself are by choreographers completely familiar with what he can do physically – which is a surprising amount. Unlike other older dancers, he has not deleted jumps from his vocabulary. ‘I’m doing almost a full class every day, so I have to jump’.”
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NYCB Steps In To New Full-Length
Throughout the Balanchine centennial, New York City Ballet is “contextualizing this or that facet of Balanchine’s wildly eclectic canon with material by other choreographers, contemporary and long gone. The notion of these ‘tributes,’ as the offerings are called, is far more quixotic than it may appear.” And now a full-length ballet from Broadway choreographer Susan Stroman.
James Levine In Boston
James Levine reveals his opening lineup for the Boston Symphony. “He is just past 60 and has more or less run the musical end of the Metropolitan Opera for more than 30 years. His health is both a mystery and a cause for concern. He walks gingerly and conducts sitting down. His musical energy, on the other hand, is as high as ever and his graphic if understated conducting style just as compelling. He talks as if he is planning on a long future.”
Big Brother’s Watching… Does Anybody Care?
It used to be that surveillance was thought to be a bad thing. But a new book argues that reality TV makes being watched cool. “Reality shows glamorize surveillance, he writes, presenting it as one of the hip attributes of the contemporary world, an entree into the world of wealth and celebrity and even a moral good.”
Coming To A Blurb Near You: “I Loved It!” – Pope John-Paul
“In what is surely the most bizarre commercial endorsement since Eleanor Roosevelt did an ad for Good Luck Margarine in 1959, the ailing pontiff has been recruited, however unwittingly, to help hawk “The Passion of the Christ,” as Mel Gibson’s film about Jesus’s final 12 hours is now titled. While Eleanor Roosevelt endorsed a margarine for charity, John Paul’s free plug is being exploited by the Gibson camp to aid the movie star’s effort to recoup the $25 million he personally sank into a biblical drama filmed in those crowd-pleasing tongues of Latin and Aramaic.”
Acropolis Museum – Epicenter Of Controversy
Greece has built a new museum in hopes of getting the Parthenon Marbles back from London. “But the structure intended to settle a controversy has become an object of controversy itself. The design clashes with the setting, some critics say. It jeopardizes an archaeological site, others claim. And perhaps most dispiritingly, the Olympic deadline is hopelessly out of reach. Like an athlete who trains for a lifetime and then sprains her ankle the week before the games, the New Acropolis Museum may have missed its best chance to make an impression. When the Olympic torch is lighted on Aug. 13, the museum will look like something that Athens already has plenty of: a giant excavation.”
How To Win That Elusive Orchestra Job
In any given year there are few jobs that open up in full-time professional orchestras. Winning one of those jobs is a matter of determination, discipline, and sometimes, a little luck…
Foreign Investors Eye Bollywood
Foreign investors are putting money into Bollywood films. The Indian film industry is the most prolific in the world, turning out 1000 movies a year. “The cost of producing and marketing the average Indian film ranges from $2 million to $4 million, a fraction of the average cost of a Hollywood film that ranges from $70 million to $80 million, industry observers say.”
Toronto Theatre’s Diversity Problem
Toronto theatre has a diversity problem “The current population of Greater Toronto consists of 43 per cent visible minorities. In their current seasons, the seven largest not-for-profit professional theatres in the city employed 79 actors from visible minorities out of a total of 394, a rate of 20 per cent. If you add the two major festivals — Stratford and Shaw — to the mix, the figure becomes 106 out of 622, or 17 per cent. That’s a considerable gap, and while everyone agrees the winds of change are blowing, they’re not moving rapidly enough for many people.”
A Theatre Beyond Its Size
Ari Roth’s Theatre J is a small Jewish theatre in Washington DC that is making much more of a splash than its size would suggest. “What he (Roth) puts on the Goldman stage often feels like the product of a much bigger operation than his, which chugs along with a skeletal staff in a cramped suite of offices and a budget of $500,000. Major regional theaters like the Shakespeare and Arena spend 20 times as much. Last season alone, he had several major successes.”