DANCE
In the Arts, Repeating Our Actions and Expecting a Different Result Defines Insanity
by Diane Ragsdale | Jumper
About a month ago I read an article in the Atlantic on the phenomenal success of Finland’s primary and secondary education public school system—a success which, the article suggests, the US has failed to understand.
There are some notable differences between the US system and Finland’s:
1. Teachers in Finland are given prestige, decent More...
Victoria’s Secret Soundtrack of Desire
by Marcia Alesan Dawkins | Sounding Out!
As a consumer, you’ve experienced desire: that longing for someone, that appetite for something more, that expectation of pleasure and satisfaction that comes from getting what you want. Whether what you want ranges from an ideal body type, to a cool technological gadget, to fashionable clothes or new cars, someone beautiful is out there selling More...
Michael Jackson’s Contributions to Dance Overshadow All the Tabloids
by Debra Levine | arts•meme
When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, I was attending a three-week learning symposium/writing workshop for dance critics run by the National Endowment for the Arts at Duke University — an honor. This dance-criticism “Institute,” staged annually at the American Dance Festival (the NEA institutes are now defunct, we can't afford 'em any more; More...
Creative Beauty of Tender “July”
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
“July,” a stirring dance duet whose refined physical beauty gives form to its tender emotions, had its premiere Wednesday night before the great open backstage door of Jacob Pillow Dance Festival’s Doris Duke Theater.
The gifted duo, Jodi Melnick, a former Twyla Tharp dancer, and David Neumann, a dance-theater-comedy specialist, create More...
Carmageddon Cannot Crush Communist Caper-Ballet
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
Despite best efforts, California authorities (the people who brought you Ronald “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!” Reagan) could not put the kibosh on American Ballet Theatre’s “The Bright Stream,” choreographed by their new in-house guy, Alexei Ratmansky. Clearly controlled by Soviet agents, ABT foisted a clever piece of communist More...
Rennie Harris’s ‘Reign’ Rains on China
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
A woman stands at stage center, her knee-length black dress draping loosely over trousers. She’s trembling. Flashing lights — a disco? faux lightening? — cut the stage’s darkness. The sound of thunder, then rain, pours from the speakers. It’s loud, overpowering. The woman suffers, she’s convulsing; her corn-rowed hair flies in the s More...
Cuban National Ballet’s ‘Don Quixote’
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
Our Cuban brothers and sisters cruised into the Los Angeles Music Center last night driving their charmingly ramshackle “Don Quixote,” a vehicle purring on high-octane Russian ballet technique that’s been passed through generations — similar to the classic cars parading Havana’s island coastline.
The ballet was choreographed in 198 More...
The Mad, Mad Chase for Innovation in the Arts
by Diane Ragsdale | Jumper
A few weeks back, I wrote in a post that I’m beginning to wonder whether the process of adapting to a changing environment has become harder for arts organizations than it needs to be because many arts funders seem to be fixated on the idea that future success will come only through ‘radical innovation’. I suggested that perhaps we More...
