As the age of COVID-19 wanes, Arts Fuse critics have come up with a guide to film, dance, visual art, theater, and music. Please check with venues if the event is available by streaming or is in person. More offerings will be added as they come in.
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Latest in Visual Arts
Letter from New York: Visual Arts — Alice Neel and All the Rest
In New York, museums and galleries are racing toward a new normal, whatever that might be. Most exhibitions that opened earlier in the year will stay open into the summer.
Latest in Music
Jazz CD Reviews: Dave Holland and Ben Goldberg — Venturing into New Lands
Bassist Dave Holland’s new album, Another Land, will take you to interesting places. Clarinetist’s Ben Goldberg’s latest, with its guitar/bass/drums core, might do the same.
Latest in Dance
Dance Review: Abilities Dance Boston’s “Firebird Ballet” — Taking Inspiring Flight
Re-envisioning and performing this beloved classic ballet with dancers that identify as disabled seems to me to be the definition of courageous.
Latest in Television
WATCH CLOSELY: “Halston” — Gifted, Greedy, and Gregarious
There are stunning scenes full of energy and visual beauty, but Halston left me feeling somewhat cold.
Latest Short Fuses
June Short Fuses – Materia Critica
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.
Latest Podcast
Short Fuse Podcast #40: Inviting Readers into a Brightly Lit Room
Book sales are up, but indie bookstores are struggling. In this podcast, Lauren Cerand suggests ways to promote new titles, particularly those published by independent presses or written by emerging authors.
Latest in Books
Book Review: “What You Can See From Here” – Hopefully Romantic
There is enough candor and humor, along with a handful of bracingly moody characters, to make Mariana Leky’s vision of perpetual love compelling.
Latest in Theater
Book Review: “Broadway Goes to War — American Theater During World War II”
For many dramatists, the label of ‘leftism’ was not pejorative: it was about fighting for human decency and political reform.
Latest in Film
Film Review: “All Light, Everywhere” — Darkness Visible
Do you believe your eyes? Should you?
Latest in Food
Book Review: “Cheese, Wine, and Bread” — On the Menu, Confession and Fermentation
The current rage for inserting the personal/confessional in everything from cookbooks to literary criticism can go too far.
Read the Latest
THE ARTS FUSE TURNS 14! — Our Spring Appeal
Please help us bring the arts and culture community roaring back to life by supporting the magazine and its independent coverage.
Film Interview: RoxFilm’s Lisa Simmons — Embracing Cinematic Independence
“It is wonderful to see the variety, diversity, and the opportunities for Black artists to tell their stories and present themselves in ways that are not ‘traditional.'”
Arts Commentary: Small Business Administration — Cut the Red Tape and Distribute Fed Money to Shuttered Venues!
Boston’s independent theatres and music venues are joining thousands from around the country to call on the Small Business Administration to immediately release Shuttered Venue Operators Grant funds.
Book Review: “Seeing Sideways” — Parenting on the Edge
Those who have followed Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh’s career over the past three decades are the target audience for this memoir. But she is a good enough writer to interest people who may never have listened to her music.
Book Review: “Refugee: A Memoir” — A Powerful Story of the Plight of Millions
Refugee: A Memoir was not written to entertain but to outrage and activate.
Book Review: “Hard Like Water” — The Revolution Will Be Eroticized
There is no gainsaying that Hard Like Water is, in English, an important book, if only because of its refreshingly sensual vision of the appeal of the Cultural Revolution.