Paul Taylor has been choreographing for 50 years. “It’s his passion for observation that has fuelled a lifetime of making dances — funny ones, tender ones, bitingly satirical or just plain beautiful ones. About 120 in all.”
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Subtitle This
The hidden world of movie subtitling is a “challenging, arcane milieu that’s a mandatory stop when launching a new film – or, sometimes, a reissued classic – into the global marketplace. The haiku of the screenwriting world, subtitles are a spare distillation of foreign-language dialogue that are more ‘adaptation’ than ‘translation,’ practitioners say. Artistic license and judgment calls come with the turf, affecting how the movie plays with the audience and the critics.”
Power Board – Who Directs Culture
Artistic directors and managers come and go. But the power behind them is in boards that oversee arts organizations. “Their numbers include hard-charging entrepreneurs, top executives, retired moguls, heiresses and the occasional full-blown celebrity, and they operate in a chandelier-lighted, by-invitation-only realm full of fiduciary responsibility and social opportunity. In this largely white and mostly over-50 world, lunches with Frank Gehry and cocktails with David Hockney are entirely possible and getting tickets is never a problem. But it’s likely to cost a five-figure donation, maybe six, every year, just to get a foot in the door. And the price of admission is rising fast.”
Star Turns – Hollywooders Up For The BWay Song And Dance
“What gives suddenly with Hollywood stars and musicals? Inside every movie and TV actor is there an inner Merman screaming to get out? Has every screen star who played in ‘Peter Pan’ in grade school remembered that long ago in drama school there were three audition songs and a pair of tap shoes in the closet? And while we’re asking, how many of the moonlighting movie stars would be on Broadway now if they had to sing without a mike – or if they had to dance in a movie without a virtuosic editor?”
Did US Congress Just Outlaw Dance Clubs?
“Dancing, or at least clubs that offer dancing to electronic DJ music, could be in the fast lane to extinction thanks to an act of Congress. Last week it passed the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, also known as ‘the RAVE Act,’ as part of the larger PROTECT Act. The RAVE Act strengthens existing ‘Operation of a Crackhouse’ legislation, under which owners of a property are held responsible for any drug use on their premises. Penalties for violating the Crackhouse statute can include fines of up to $500,000 for an individual or $2 million for a corporation, a potential 20-year prison sentence and asset forfeiture. When used against a real crack house, where individuals gather for the specific purpose of doing drugs, the law makes sense; when applied to music venues where a determined patron can always find a bathroom stall or dark corner to imbibe a chemical, it’s lunacy.”
Baghdad – Land Of Opportunity (For Marketing American Culture)
Ever in search of new markets to conquer, American culture is set to flood into Iraq. “From Dan Rather to Britney Spears, Fox News to MTV, Madison Ave. to Hollywood, fashion magazines to new school textbooks, every extended limb of American pop culture is stretching to grab Baghdad.”
Who’s Earl? The Critic Who Loves Everything…
Just who is Earl Dittman? He’s blurbed for even the foulest of movies as “absolutely loved it” and declares even the sorriest effort as “a cinematic masterpiece.” “The figment of a movie publicist’s wet dream, an avatar of agreeability who never fails to salute whatever bomb is launched out of Hollywood. No matter how soundly a movie is trashed by critics, Dittman can be counted on to declare it a masterpiece in his ubiquitous newspaper ad blurbs.” But does he really, truly exist? Peter Howell goes hunting…
New Gehry Bows
Bard College’s new $62 million Frank Gehry performing arts center is alluring, writes Nicolai Ouroussoff. “Wrapped inside its shimmering steel container, the main performance hall faces a lush, rolling meadow. The smaller theater and rehearsal rooms are plugged into one side of this form. A dense patch of woods acts as a backdrop for the center, with the Catskill Mountains rising in the distance. The arrangement allows Gehry to create a mesmerizing architectural narrative.”
Making A Joyful Noise
Bard College’s new performing arts center makes a goo impression on Mark Swed. “During a noisy and exuberant opening weekend, this marvelous new facility for music, opera, dance and theater, at a small liberal arts college in the Hudson River Valley, has already begun making a statement that is hard to ignore.”
Bard’s New Gehry
Bard College’s new Frank Gehry-designed 900-seat adaptable auditorium “is an inviting and intimate place to hear music. The simple décor is handsome, with smooth concrete walls, wood-paneled balconies and a soft-hued wooden proscenium (retractable to accommodate the staging of opera and theater works). On first hearing, it’s hard to assess fully the work of the acoustician, Yasuhisa Toyota.