Coming Attractions
Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.
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The Arts Fuse Currents
Music
What is most striking here is Paul Bley’s patience as a pianist, his practice of playing a chord or even a couple of notes and letting them hang in the air as if he were an outside observer, listening to their gradual fading.
Visual Arts
The exchange proved to be as fruitful for the artists as it was for the Shakers.
Film
Director Alain Guiraudie’s latest film is a darkly hilarious, polymorphously perverse paean to compassion.
Books
Historian Tsuyoshi Hasegawa’s towering achievement is to show that, while Nicholas II was betrayed, he lost his throne because he had made it impossible for anyone who loved Russia to be loyal to him.
Poetry at The Arts Fuse
This week’s poem: Gloria Monaghan’s “The Catbirds”
Dance
The five performers with Down syndrome danced along with three professionally trained dancers without disabilities — and they all looked wonderful.
Theater
The Russian dramatist’s expansive application of ridicule, his picture of human society as an endless chain of fools fooling fools fooling fools, couldn’t be more fitting — it is a funhouse mirror of our times.
Television
The fourth and final season of Danny McBride’s demented comedy comes to a satisfying conclusion.
Podcasts
In this engaging conversation, Elizabeth Howard speaks with Sonya Chung, the director of Film Forum in New York, about the intersection of film and literature, the relevance of the Oscars, and the impact of independent films.
Short Fuses
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Spotlight
About the Arts Fuse
The Arts Fuse was established in June, 2007 as a curated, independent online arts magazine dedicated to publishing in-depth criticism, along with high quality previews, interviews, and commentaries. The publication's over 70 freelance critics (many of them with decades of experience) cover dance, film, food, literature, music, television, theater, video games, and visual arts. Support arts coverage that believes that culture matters.
Arts Commentary: Climate Crisis Cabaret — Marching Orders
Why did I help organize the Climate Crisis Cabaret? Because these are not normal times. And we need more theater like it.