Blog

The Last Two Years Were The Biggest Of Camille A. Brown’s Career — And She Nearly Died. Twice.

“The outside eye saw the success of Once On This Island, Jesus Christ Superstar Live, ink [at the Kennedy Center], and my cover on Dance Magazine,” the dancer-choreographer writes. “But over the course of 2017 and 2018, my appendix ruptured twice, I was in the hospital at least four times, and had two surgeries. For over a year, my attire consisted of baggy clothes to hide my stomach, PICC line, and bandages.” — Dance Magazine

Daniel Barenboim Is Brilliant. But He’s Also An Egotistical Tyrant. Why?

Barenboim’s life work is awe-inspiring. But “in musical circles, Barenboim’s temper is legendary. He has thrown fits because a violist rolled his eyes, because a singer bowed in the wrong place, because a favored principal player was on vacation. He once berated a musician who lacked concentration because someone in their immediate family had died.” – Van Magazine

‘I Want To Make People Shit Themselves And Throw Up’: Theatre Director Ned Bennett

“Essentially, Bennett is creating a contemporary Theatre of Cruelty, giving the visceral and ritualistic techniques that Antonin Artaud advocated 80 years earlier a pyro, DayGlo twist. … He delights in designs that ‘bombard the audience with information, whether that’s sonic or physical or visual’. This is a director who abhors theatre ‘that doesn’t go beyond the cerebral’ … and for whom theatre has to make itself felt.” — The Guardian

Tanglewood To Go Year-Round With New Linde Center For Music And Learning

The new four-building, $33 million complex “will be the home to the Tanglewood Learning Institute (TLI) … The schedule of 140 ticketed events includes four deep-immersion weekends, numerous special events, guest speakers, master classes. a seven-week Sunday evening film series in collaboration with the Berkshire International Film Festival, and a new 200-seat indoor/outdoor cafe open to the public for mingling with artists and students.” — The Berkshire Eagle (Pittsfield, MA)

Minnesota Opera Purchases 350-Seat Theater

The Lab Theater, a converted warehouse, is right next door to the company’s own rehearsal and office space (called the Opera Center) in Minneapolis’s North Loop. Since 2006, independent dance and theater troupes have performed there, and Minnesota Opera expects to continue renting to such groups when not using the space itself; the company also hopes to expand its youth training program there. — The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

Treasures From The World’s Largest Archive Of Dance Materials

That would be none other than the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. “It regularly films dance productions in the city, preserving the present for the future; it aims to have a copy of every dance book ever published; it possesses treasures going back centuries. And its doors are open to the public as well as to specialist researchers.” Alastair Macaulay looks at a few of its gems, from a 1453 treatise to 1933 films of Balinese dance. — The New York Times

Why The Academy’s Attempt To Shorten The Oscars Telecast Is Wrongheaded (And Probably Futile)

“The Academy’s thinking is that awards for Sound Editing and Documentary Short eat up minutes and help push the show’s barnstorming conclusion — winners in the lead acting, directing, and Best Picture categories — later into the night. But that was also the case when the Oscars’ ratings were high. The Academy Awards are meant to be about more than giving airtime to famous people; they’re fundamentally about recognizing the hard work and magic that goes into every level of filmmaking, from development to postproduction. Instead, the 2019 show is being optimized for a more casual viewing audience that’s been slowly diminishing anyway.” — The Atlantic