“In less than five years at [the Seattle company], … he has added a remarkable 57 ballets to the repertory. … While many artistic directors remain in the wings, except for the occasional speech at a gala event, Mr. Boal follows almost every performance with a discussion.”
Tag: 01.05.10
New Film Version Of Dune In The Works
“It proved something of a grand folly for David Lynch, whose 1984 adaptation was a commercial and critical flop … Now [Frank Herbert’s] Dune, the bestselling science-fiction novel of all time, looks set to be revamped for the 21st century with French director Pierre Morel at the reins.”
Actor Christopher Lee Makes Metal Album About Charlemagne
“The man who played Dracula, Saruman and the Man with the Golden Gun is now … to release an album of ‘symphonic metal’, telling the story of his own direct ancestor, the first Holy Roman Emperor.”
Solzhenitsyn Fils On His Not-So-Fearsome Father
“You hear about quirks and deviations with artists, but we were very fortunate. I can’t imagine a great man being more normal than he was. … There is this notion that Solzhenitsyn was so intolerant, that everything was black and white for him and, well – bollocks!”
A Cure For Frightened Conservatives?
“The notion that ‘threat causes liberals to think like conservatives,’ to quote the title of a 2009 paper, has been repeatedly confirmed by social psychologists. But can that link – which arguably contributed to the re-election of President Bush in 2004 – be broken? A newly published paper suggests it can.”
Nude Hockey Sculpture At Winter Olympics
“A bronze sculpture of a nude hockey player taking a slap shot, that fuses the modern with the ancient, will greet visitors to the gay meeting place at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver.”
Ontario Arts Orgs, Audiences To Be Socked With 8% Tax
“The new 13 per cent harmonized sales tax, scheduled to start July 1, will mean the end of an exemption through which performing arts companies with fewer than 3,200 seats have avoided charging audiences 8 per cent provincial sales tax (PST). …[I]t’s a cost many companies operating on tight budgets can’t afford to absorb.”
MoMA And P.S. 1 Envision A Flooded NYC
“Climate experts predict that at current rates of global warming, the city will face a tidal rise of 2 feet or more by 2080. … So MoMA has commissioned four teams of young architects to anticipate the waters’ rise and come up with new ways to break up the devastating storm surges.”
Another Thing The Brain Is Bad At: Gauging Time
“Time does seem to slow to a trickle during an empty afternoon and race when the brain is engrossed in challenging work.” But one’s memory of any given period has a significant effect on the ability to judge its duration: “if very few events come to mind, then the perception of time does not persist; the brain telescopes the interval that has passed.”
Classical Music’s Red-Blue Divide
“The red states are those who love the classical tradition with a deep passion. They understand the need for contemporary music and revitalization, and subject themselves to it with a dutiful sense of obedience…. The blue states love classical music no less. But they worry that it’s dying out because it is so entrenched in the past.”