“Wizards like Gandalf and Romans like Russell Crowe’s gladiator share a common trait: Hollywood’s insistence that all of its fantasy and epic heroes speak like a Brit. And it’s not just because the British accent sounds grandiose and glorious. Well, a little bit. The real answer is rooted in the obsession with Empire – and how accents were actively cultivated by society elites as signifiers of global power and stature.” (video)
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Inside The Audition That Lets Dancers Try Out For Ten Ballet Companies At Once
“‘Our main goal is really to help dancers,’ says David Makhateli, a former principal with The Royal Ballet who launched the Grand Audition with his wife, dancer Daria Makhateli. With 10 artistic directors from a wide range of countries present, a dancer who might not fit one company’s requirements has many more opportunities to be noticed. … Most [participating] companies are based in Europe, but American directors have also taken part in past editions.”
Rich Guy Buys Picasso Painting, Renames It After His Nightclub
Richard Caring reportedly spent somewhere between £20 million and £30 million last year to buy The Girl with a Red Beret and Pompom. Picasso evidently did not give the painting a title himself – so Caring decided to rename it “Annabel”, after a nightspot he owns in London’s Mayfair district. As one might expect, art historians are aghast.
Eli Manning And Odell Beckham Jr. Are The Real Dance Champions Of The Super Bowl
So pronounces no less an authority than Dance Magazine about the two New York Giants players about the commercial in which they recreated the famous duet from Dirty Dancing. “And yes,” writes Courtney Escoyne, “they did The Lift.”
Nicholas Von Hoffman, 88, Washington Post Columnist And ’60 Minutes’ Commentator
“When reporter Nicholas von Hoffman joined The Washington Post in 1966, he brought with him a flair for controversy that eventually triggered a resignation threat from a top editor, a boycott from advertisers and, according to Post historian Chalmers M. Roberts, ‘produced more angry letters to the editor than the work of any other single reporter in the paper’s history.'”
Are There Any Artists Left In San Francisco? City Survey Tries To Measure The Damage
With rents having risen by 70% or more this decade, “San Francisco’s city government has launched an online census in an effort to find out how many artists and arts professionals have left the city.”
Broadway’s Smallest Theater Is Reopening, This Time As A Nonprofit
“The theater was so small, it was named the Little Theater. That was 106 years ago, and since then it has been reincarnated many times – renamed, repurposed, rehabilitated. Now known as the Helen Hayes Theater, … the 589-seat playhouse has a new mission: … to present work by living American playwrights, a form of counterprogramming at a time when Broadway is dominated by musicals, revivals and British imports.”
Actor John Mahoney, Of Steppenwolf Theatre Co. And TV’s ‘Frasier’, Dead At 77
He didn’t begin his acting career until his 40s, but he worked steadily ever since – winning a Tony for John Guare’s House of Blue Leaves, earning several Emmy nominations for playing the Crane brothers’ father on Frasier, taking character roles in such films as Moonstruck and Say Anything. Above all, he was one of Chicago’s favorite stage actors; he took more than 30 roles with Steppenwolf alone, and he performed with many other companies there, large and small.
UK Publishers Pressure Man Booker Prize To Re-Exclude American Authors
A letter from 30 publishers “argues that the rule change to allow any writer writing in English and published in the UK to enter has restricted the diversity of the prize and led to the domination of American authors since it came into effect in 2014. Previously, the prize only allowed citizens from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland to enter.”
40,000-Year-Old Rock Art Endangered By Chemical Plant
“The petroglyphs at the Burrup Peninsula, also known as Murujuga by the traditional custodians, are Australia’s largest and oldest collection of rock art. … But a kilometre away are some of Australia’s largest and dirtiest chemical plants. The air that hangs over this remote peninsula is often fouled with a yellow haze.”