Says one 79-year-old dancer, “While I am dancing, I am very focused. I listen to the music and the lyrics. I also think about my movement: How can I dance beautifully? I actually forget that I am aging.” – The New York Times
Blog
Who Helped Save The Reagan Presidential Library From A Wildfire?
Vincent van Goat, of course. – Hyperallergic
Brian Tarantina, Actor On ‘Mrs. Maisel,’ Has Died At 60
Tarantina was known on New York stages before he got involved in movies and TV shows including The Gilmore Girls and, more recently, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. – The New York Times
Actors In Canada Go Through A Lot Of Emotional Wear In Their Training
Student mental health, teacher favoritism, inequities in class makeup and in casting … it’s all stressful for the young actors of Canada (and there are ways that some of these things could change … if performance instructors wanted them to). – HowlRound
Former Royal Ballet Dancer Jailed For Molesting Girls
Stephen Beagley was a leading classical ballet dancer in the 1970s and 1980s in Britain, and starred in CATS as well. He’s been jailed for 10 years for molesting girls ages 9-13. – BBC
TV’s Time Shift Is Accelerating
This may be the last bow for the idea of fall TV. “The more that streaming becomes the default way people watch, the less that the concepts of time on which TV has operated — seasons, schedules, time slots — will matter. And with those customs will change the very culture of America’s essential medium.” – The New York Times
Musician Stephen Morris Left His Priceless Violin On The Train
That was October 22, and the train was in southeast London. The soloist from the Royal Phil eventually received a private message on Twitter from someone who said he recognized (from a security photo) the man who took the case, with the violin and a couple of special bows as well, off the train. And then? “Both the violin and the bows were ‘in tune,’ when they were returned to him Friday night at a supermarket parking lot in Beckenham.” – The New York Times
As Developers Buy The Setting Of James Joyce’s Greatest Short Story, Dublin Mourns
The place that Dubliners call the House of the Dead (really, the House of “The Dead,” of course) has been sold. “Last week city authorities announced a plan to turn the House of the Dead into a 54-room hostel, prompting an outcry that property deals were trashing culture and zombifying Ireland’s capital to make way for foreign tourists, students and tech workers.” – The Observer (UK)
East German Art Makes A Relevant Return
Themes of surveillance, sexuality, gender inequality, and evading censors are certainly, sadly relevant in 2019. East German artists knew all about all of that, and “their subversive and often humorous paintings, performances, prints, collages and texts have lost none of their provocative power.” – The Economist
This Film Festival Goes Way Beyond Inspiration Porn
The only time you’ll see an actor with a disability in a Hollywood movie is when the actor isn’t disabled, and the movie is the kind of thing that disability activists call “inspo porn.” (Think Rain Man, The Upside, etc.) But at the Reelability Festival, “actors with a wide range of disabilities got to play an equally wide range of richly developed roles. … They were bolstered in this effort by something else notably unusual: A lot of those writing and directing and working on the films’ crews also were disabled people.” – Los Angeles Times