China isn’t known for a great ballet tradition. Yet, writes Ismene Brown, she came away this week “dazzled” by the National Ballet of China, now “reinventing themselves after decades of Maoist chauvinism. Here are long-limbed dancers whose grace and attack are knit together with a unison you’d almost call superhuman. But what, asks the suspicious westerner, of personal expressiveness in this oppressive land?”
Blog
Crisp: Chinese Ballet Is A Player
Clement Crisp writes that Chinese ballet has come a long way from “The Red Detachment of Women.” “Chinese ballet has latterly come a long way, and what we saw was a fascinating step on the road to a more modern image. I have long believed that out of China will come an influential identity for classic ballet, born of the dancers’ beautiful physiques and dedication, and of the traditions of Chinese theatre.”
Why Non-Profit Theatre Doesn’t Belong On Broadway
John Heilpern says the Manhattan Theatre Club’s latest offering is just more evidence why it’s a bad idea for non-profit theatre to go to Broadway. “The Manhattan Theatre Club’s expansion into Broadway at the Biltmore as another dangerous example of nonprofit-theater “Broadwayitis.” In my view, the entire purpose and lifeblood of the uncommercial theater isn’t to become part of Broadway, but to offer a radical alternative to it.”
ABT’s Bitchin’ Boys
Robert Gottlieb is impressed with the quality of male dancers at American Ballet Theatre. “The ranks of dazzling boys just keep swelling. Has there ever been an American company this strong in the male division? I think I’ve suggested it before: How about trading a couple of these guys for a world-class ballerina…”
Miami: We’re Banning Giant Puppets. Really?
“Over 100,000 protesters are expected at next week’s Free Trade Area of the Americas summit in Miami. In anticipation, the city is considering an ordinance that would, according to Reuters, ban “glass bottles, slingshots, signs on wooden sticks and giant puppets.” Can Miami really ban giant puppets?”
Greek TV Fined For Showing Men Kissing
A Greek TV network has been heavily fined after showing a program in which two men kissed. “The National Radio and Television Council which imposed the fine called the scene ‘vulgar and unacceptable’. But TV critic Popi Diamandakou called the decision ‘hypocritical’ after shots of Britney Spears kissing Madonna at the MTV Awards were repeatedly shown.”
Lloyd-Webber: West End Theatres At Disadvantage
Andrew Lloyd-Webber tells a parliamentary committee that London’s commercial theatres are at a big disadvantage to non-profit theatres. ” ‘We are not on a level playing field with the public sector’. He said central London’s theatres were crumbling while state-backed venues picked up grants to fund revamps.” There is a proposal to grant tax breaks to the theatres to help refurbish them.
Who’s This?
So the Tate mis-identified a portait in a painting last week. And it was embarrassing. And insulting. But “how do you identify portraits, anyway? The names often come down by tradition, and if a portrait was named as such and such a person in an inventory a hundred years after it was painted, historical fact is hard to separate from myth. The best mistakes have some plausibility, and some are inevitable, even poetic.”
Mario Merz, 78
Merz was a leading member of the Italian Arte Povera movement. “Merz and his colleagues, who included his wife Marisa, used ordinary, ‘poor’ materials, both natural and manufactured, to create the most poetic, extraordinary effects. Their work gained international prominence in the late 1960s
Mozart Mass Reconstructed
A lost setting of a mass Mozart wrote for his wedding, has been reconstructed and will be performed for the first time since the ceremony. “Passages plundered for later works, after Mozart decided not to finish the piece, have been re-assembled and a final section written. The jigsaw puzzle has taken two years of research and composition, using records of Mozart’s work.”