Arts Fuse critics select the best in film, dance, visual art, theater, music, and author events for the coming weeks.
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Latest in Visual Arts
Visual Arts Review: The National Academy of Design — Another New Chapter?
This fascinating exhibition surveys the entire history of the National Academy membership and, almost incidentally, provides a potent cross-section of the history of American art and its discontents.
Latest in Music
Jazz CD Review: John Bailey’s “Can You Imagine?” — Diz For Prez
I’m not sure Can You Imagine? will be able to summon back Dizzy Gillespie from the great beyond, but it’s not a bad way to pass the time while we wait.
Latest in Dance
Dance Review: Boston Dance Theater — Going Berserk
The Boston Dance Theater’s talented group of dancers spent much of the performance nervously twitching and swaying.
Latest in Television
Watch Closely: The Latest “Dracula” is Bold and Bloody
This BBC/Netflix production is an audacious rekindling of the undying appeal of literature’s most famous vampire.
Latest in Books
Book Review: The Holocaust’s Jewish Calendars — Protecting the Sacred Value of Time
Alan Rosen’s book thoughtfully illuminates the perilous calendrical devotion of Jews during the Holocaust, seeing it as a form of resistance.
Latest in Theater
Theater Review: “Pass Over” — An Unforgiving World
If one of the aims of art is to create a distinctively imaginative world, than Pass Over succeeds in generating a landscape of devastation, a hopeless place filled with gaping wounds and visible scars.
Latest in Film
Film Review: “Just Mercy” — The Tragedy of Justice Deferred
Artful films like Just Mercy remain necessary — these are the kind of stories our troubled nation needs to hear if we are to move forward.
Latest in Food
Book Feature: Joan Nathan — Sitting at “King Solomon’s Table”
There are 170 recipes in King Solomon’s Table . Joan Nathan, a sort of culinary archeologist, tracks down the details of their origins to Biblical times.
Read the Latest
Theater Review: “The Effect” — Beware the Nasty Side Effects
The Effect is about the brain, pharmaceuticals, and how little we know about each.
Opera Album Review: The Operatic Artistry of Leonardo (Not “da”) Vinci
A world-premiere recording of Siroe, King of Persia makes it clear that Leonardo Vinci (1690-1730) was as fine a craftsman as the painter with a similar name.
Theater Review: “The Cake” — Thoughtfully Baked
Dramatist Bekah Brunstetter sidesteps easy answers and pat revelations to produce a nuanced comedy about people coming to terms with who they are and where they are from.
Music Commentary: Grumbling About The Grammy Awards
After 61 years – and a slew of rule changes and category alterations – the Grammys remain the most philistine of our major shiny statue ceremonies.
Rock CD Review: The First Punk Rockers? The Damned Release “Black Is The Night”
Melody is one of the things that keeps a song from floundering, no matter how in-your-face its rhythm and chord structure might be, which is something a lot of spunky punk bands tend to forget. The Damned always kept that well in mind.