Peter Boal of Pacific Northwest Ballet writes about his January trip around the US to audition dancers — and about how what he saw in the museums and galleries he visited made him think about the still-off racial balance of his and other ballet companies. – Dance Magazine
Tag: 03.28.19
With New Curator, New York’s Museo Del Barrio Tries To Make Peace With Activists Who Say It Has Abandoned Its Nuyorican Roots
The East Harlem museum was founded 50 years ago by local artists and teachers who felt that the existing museums and institutions in New York had shut them out. Since then, the museum has expanded its mission to cover art from Latin American itself, and battles have periodically broken out over that change — including this week. In response, the Museo’s director announced that he’ll be hiring a new curator focused on “the art and culture of historically marginalized Latinx communities in the United States, including but not limited to Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, Afro-descendants from the Americas and LGBTQ populations.” – The New York Times
Paris Sees Blackface Controversy As Students Protest Aeschylus Staging At Sorbonne
Denouncing the staging (which no one had yet seen) as “Afrophobic, colonialist and racist,” protesters forced the Sorbonne to cancel a performance of The Suppliants at the university’s annual festival of ancient Greek theatre. Top Sorbonne officials and government officials called the protests “absurd,” while the director insisted that the production used no blackface at all. – The Guardian
New Canadian Film Shot In Indigenous Language With Only 20 Speakers Left
“With subtitles, audiences will be able to understand a feature film titled SGaawaay K’uuna, translated as Edge of the Knife, which has its UK premiere in April. It is in two dialects of the highly endangered Haida language, the ancestral tongue of the Haida people of British Columbia. … The film is playing an important role in preserving the language, its director Gwaai Edenshaw said.” – The Guardian
Theatre Company Goes Into Welsh Schools To Teach Students About Drug-Dealer Dangers
Long-distance drug-dealing gangs known as “county lines” have hit North Wales hard, with all the attendant violence and human misery. Theatr Clwyd, a professional company in the region, is touring to area schools with a new play depicting the dangers and consequences of getting involved with a county lines gang. – BBC
Literary Prize Runners Denounce ‘False Hierarchy’ Of Prizes, Then Revise Their Own Prize Accordingly
Said the organizers of the Republic of Consciousness Prize, devoted to books from publishers with five or fewer employees, “While the competitive dynamic of prizes points readers towards ‘the best books’, they also create a false hierarchy where ‘the best’ becomes a valid category.” So, beginning with this year, judges may select anywhere from one to four titles as winners, “on the criteria that book X or Y cannot not win.'” – The Guardian
Staging The Stories Of The Women Who Faithfully Visit Their Loved Ones In Prison
Liza Jessie Peterson, playwright and star of The Peculiar Patriot: “I came to Columbus Circle [in Manhattan] at midnight and found a whole fleet of buses. All these women, children and even some men were boarding these buses to go to the upstate correctional facilities. They would ride all night, go through a long, degrading security process, just to spend a few hours with their loved ones, before taking the bus home. As I talked to those women, I knew I was witnessing one of the great love stories of our time. A writer friend said, ‘You know, you have a profound story to tell, so tell it.”” – The Washington Post
Recent Listening: Logan Strosahl, ‘Sure’
Logan Strosahl, Sure (Sunnyside)
Piping at the high end of the flute’s range, guttural near the tenor sax’s low end, sliding, slurring and sometimes punching notes on alto saxophone, Strosahl is intense and full of surprises with his trio. – Doug Ramsey
Modernism, Interracial Relations, Cultural Appropriation, And Katherine Dunham Meet (Or Collide) In A 1933 Ballet In Chicago
Liesl Olson investigates the strange and stirring history of La Guiablesse, an almost entirely lost 18-minute dance work based on French Caribbean folklore, with a white choreographer/star (Ruth Page) playing a she-devil, an otherwise entirely black cast, a colorful score by black composer William Grant Still, and the future star and pioneer Dunham as the spurned lover. (She took over as the eponymous demon the following year.) – Chicago Reader
The Recovery Orchestra – Service Organization For Recovering Addicts Starts Ensemble For Its Clients
“The Recovery Orchestra was set up by Bristol Drugs Project (BDP) to help individuals using their services. It encourages people to take up an instrument or use the skills they already had in a joint musical activity. The group, funded by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, will perform at a Bristol church this week.” (video) – BBC