Tobi Tobias got to understand over the years of watching Balanchine work that “how to bow, how to faint, how to waltz” were crucially important skills for his dancers to understand. “I came to understand that these skills were as important to the choreographer as a breathtaking mastery of the classical dance vocabulary he did so much to advance. I think it disturbed him at the core when dancers (even child dancers, because they represented his art’s future) couldn’t execute convincingly the moves that any citizen of civilization can perform almost instinctively…”
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Broadway Perking Up After Disappointing Fall
“After a disappointing October and much of November, the New York theatre has seen, in less than a week, the best reviewed shows of the fall: an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, starring a rapturously received Kevin Kline, and a revival of Wonderful Town, the Bernstein-Comden and Green musical, with the equally acclaimed Donna Murphy. Along with the good notices has been good box office.”
NY Phil: Looking To Future Talent
David Robertson conducts the New York Philharmonic. So? There is a sense that younger conductors are being given chances to work with the orchestra with an eye to the future. “To the credit of the current music director, Lorin Maazel, the orchestra has done a much better job of introducing promising younger conductors — and potential successors — to its podium, musicians like Robert Spano and Alan Gilbert, as well as Osmo Vanska and Gianandrea Noseda, who made their debuts recently.”
Bolshoi Ballerina Feels Vindicated
Anastasia Volochkova, the glamorous ballerina fired by the Bolshoi on the grounds that she was too heavy, says a court ruling that would reinstate her to the company is proper vindication. “I’ve had to endure much in all these legal processes, but on the other hand it shows that in our country there’s a law that defends the rights of performers.”
Did A Jackson Pollock Really Sell For $105 Million?
“The hottest rumor in the art world — that one of Jackson Pollock’s greatest drip paintings was sold for a staggering $105 million — just won’t go away.”
Closure Of Small Saskatchewan Gallery Draws National Protest
The decision to close a small but important gallery attached to the Regina (Saskatchewan) Public Library, has “sent waves of shock and dismay through the national visual-arts community. This nationally recognized institution has been a critical thread in the Canadian cultural fabric since 1949.”
Caravaggio Experts Gather
Caravaggio experts from around world are gathering in Sydney this weekend to examine works by the master. “The exhibition includes nine works experts agree are genuine Caravaggios and about 50 works by his contemporaries or those influenced by him. Some of those works may turn out to be genuine Caravaggios. ‘There is no definitive view on what is and isn’t Caravaggio’.”
Best-Selling Caravaggio Author Excluded From Confab
An Australian expert of Caravaggio is miffed that he hasn’t been included in the Caravaggio Confab. Author Peter Robb, who wrote the award-winning fictional biography of Caravaggio, M, will not be taking part. “He has been ‘excluded’ from the line-up, claimed his publisher. He has also been ‘excluded’ as a contributor to the catalogue of essays that accompanies the exhibition. ‘We have here someone … acclaimed around the world as a Caravaggio expert. But here they fly in people from elsewhere when they have someone on hand who is just as much an expert’.”
Harlem Boys Choir In Trouble
The famed Boys Choir of Harlem has declared a financial emergency after corporate and individual donations have fallen dramatically. “Everybody thinks we must be rich. Well, we’re not. This is the worst time period in our 35-year history.”
Mao’s Greatest Hits
For the 110th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s birth, Chinese officials are releasing an album of great songs by the former Communist leader. The songs have been re-recorded, one even remade as a rap. “Ten years ago, the album ‘A Red Sun’ brought a crimson tide of songs rushing through our music industry. This year … the China Record Company has finished the production of the powerfully red ‘Mao Zedong and us’.”