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
At Brighton Music Hall, Boston’s avant-punk legends capped Mark Kates’s label anniversary with a surprisingly potent four-song set and a tribute to the late Jeff “Monoman” Conolly.
Visual Arts
We need to sustain where the Muses live — Somerville’s The Museum of Modern Renaissance.
Film
Sunny Sandler gives a quietly affecting performance in a heartfelt, unsentimental coming-of-age drama about a high school musical, a mother’s cancer recurrence, and the precarious coexistence of sorrow and joy.
Books
Carter Vaughn Findley’s “Dreams of Empire” charts the endurance, diversity, achievements, and eventual dissolution of a state that bound East and West for nearly six centuries.
Poetry at The Arts Fuse
This week’s poem: William Lessard’s “Father”
Dance
At Jacob’s Pillow, Brinae Ali’s “Baby Laurence Legacy Project” reanimates a jazz tap master’s bebop musical brilliance through choreography, live music, and technology.
Theater
Double Edge Theatre revives its 2015 roaming spectacle of ecological grief, political resistance, and communal art.
Television
HBO’s docuseries on the illegal reptile trade is less wild than its predecessors, but its sorrowful, criminal undertow makes it unsettling in a different way.
Podcasts
Guest host Jessica Khan talks to DJ and broadcaster Kwame Daniels about his immersive live musical performance, “North Star.”
Short Fuses
Spotlight
Few things more clearly attest to the endurance of the human spirit and the drive for creativity than the uninterrupted and unstoppable torrent of brilliant new jazz albums we’ve already seen this year.
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.
August Short Fuses — Materia Critica
Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, television, film, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.