“One of the ballet world’s busiest superstars is adding another role to his resume, and it’s a big one. American Ballet Theatre principal Daniil Simkin is joining Staatsballett Berlin as a principal beginning with the 2018-2019 season. Though he will be based in Berlin, the virtuoso will maintain his position at ABT, performing with the company as often as his schedule will allow.” Here he talks with Lauren Wingenroth about how he got the job and what his plans for it are.
Blog
Which Opera Do Opera Singers Think Is The Greatest Ever Written?
BBC Music Magazine took a poll of 172 prominent singers, including the likes of Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, and Bryn Terfel. You’ve almost certainly heard of the top choice, but it may surprise you (meaning it’s not by Verdi, Puccini, or Wagner); it got more than twice as many votes as the runner-up. (What made us happy is that Peter Grimes made the top five.)
ARTnews’s 2017 List Of The World’s Top 200 Collectors
“The world’s top collectors in 2017 – among whose recent acquisitions are a record-breaking Basquiat and Anicka Yi’s video from the Whitney Biennial – include newcomers like Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, the founder of Stanford University’s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, and her husband, Silicon Valley VC Marc Andreessen, comedian and Chicano art aficionado Cheech Marin, and Iranian financier Mohammed Afkhami. And media mogul David Geffen is back!”
How Florida Arts Institutions Girded Themselves For Hurricane Irma And Came Through Relatively Well
Michael Cooper and Robin Pogrebin report on the measures the organizations took – both when building their buildings and preparing for the storm in the preceding days – to keep their people and objects safe.
Kiri Te Kanawa Confirms That She Has Retired From Singing
As she tells the BBC, “I don’t want to hear my voice. It is in the past. When I’m teaching young singers and hearing beautiful young fresh voices, I don’t want to put my voice next to theirs.”
Meet The 2017 Dance Magazine Award Winners
In fact, you may already know two or three of them. They’re ballet star Diana Vishneva, hip-hop maestro Rennie Harris, Linda Celeste Sims of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and physical therapist/dance medicine pioneer Marika Molnar.
New Director Of Berlin’s Volksbühne Theater Has Been Getting An Ugly Introduction To His New Job
“The decision to appoint [Chris] Dercon, the former director of Tate Modern in London, to run the institution has spurred an angry debate, one that has
often conflated the issues surrounding his appointment with the larger challenges confronting Berlin, like gentrification, globalization and immigration. It has not always been a dignified debate. Along with the usual petition-signing, there have been ugly protests – some might call them a hazing – that even an avant-garde theater may find over the top.”
Seattle Repertory Theatre Tries To Broaden Its Audience By Broadening Its Casting
The theatre has recruited actors from unlikely sources for “a roughly 100-performer production of Homer’s “Odyssey” with free tickets and only four union actors. Everyone else onstage has arrived via a yearslong conversation between Seattle Rep and nonprofits; homeless shelters; and social groups, from the Purple Lemonade dance collective to scruffy members of the Dead Baby bike-race club.”
How The Internet Of Things Is Beginning To Own Us
“One key reason we don’t control our devices is that the companies that make them seem to think – and definitely act like – they still own them, even after we’ve bought them. A person may purchase a nice-looking box full of electronics that can function as a smartphone, the corporate argument goes, but they buy a license only to use the software inside. The companies say they still own the software, and because they own it, they can control it. It’s as if a car dealer sold a car, but claimed ownership of the motor. This sort of arrangement is destroying the concept of basic property ownership.”
Artistic Direction Isn’t Just For Artistic Directors (Ideally)
“I have grave concerns, because over the last 20 years I’ve watched as artistic staffs have become siloed in theatres, operating as if they are the only keepers of the artistic flame and increasingly relegating all contact with artists to members of the artistic staff. Functions that were handled in the past by general managers, company managers, managing directors, and production managers are now often handled by artistic administrators, line producers, and a wealth of other people with creative titles.”