Coming Attractions
Our expert critics supply a guide to film, visual art, theater, author readings, television, and music. More offerings will be added as they come in.
The Arts Fuse Currents
Music
The Blue Note Records president, producer, and bassist leads his Pan-Detroit Ensemble through original material and a freewheeling tribute to the Grateful Dead’s Blues for Allah at the Sinclair and Groton Hill Music Center.
Visual Arts
At New York’s Art Students League, Robert Cenedella’s grotesque group portrait turns the MAGA elite into a gathering of horned grotesques.
Film
Mikey Madison shines as whistleblower Frances Haugen, but Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook drama preaches more than it provokes.
Books
These new children’s books explore different aspects of fall—starting school, understanding yourself, and Indigenous storytelling.
Poetry at The Arts Fuse
This week’s poem: Whit Griffin’s from “Parting Gifts”
Dance
“Jazzed” makes a persuasive case for Jack Cole’s artistic importance, even as its overly admiring portrait evades some of his darkest behavior.
Theater
Dawn M. Simmons directs a taut Southern Gothic thriller in which thwarted longing and the promise of escape turn a Georgia household into a cauldron of suspicion.
Television
The real-life friends play fictionalized versions of themselves in a genial but thin comedy built around a long-running family rumor.
Podcasts
Guest host Jessica Khan talks to DJ and broadcaster Kwame Daniels about his immersive live musical performance, “North Star.”
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: Superman, Spider-Man, and the American Art of Slugging Nazis
William Nicholas Love’s punch heard round the internet belongs to a long comic-book history of fighting homegrown fascism—from Captain America to “The Clan of the Fiery Cross.”