Review
A groundbreaking book explores the music written for Hollywood’s animated cartoons and how the tunes shaped the characters and stories that are now a vital part of American culture. Read More
Audacious as it sounds, a new dance work by an innovative choreographer explores how human beings have expanded our ability to articulate the nature of crimes against humanity. “Small Dances about Big Ideas” by the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange Company. By Debra Cash It was counterintuitive, to say the least, when Professor Martha Minow asked…
Read MoreThe new film North Country gives superb dramatic life to a fictionalized version of the first class-action sexual harassment lawsuit in the U.S. By Betsy Sherman Niki Caro’s last movie on female empowerment, Whale Rider, was about an exotic culture and centered on an irresistible girl with royal blood in her veins. Caro’s new film…
Read MoreFor fans of jazz, world music, Americana — in short, for fans of all the genres guitarist Bill Frisell has explored over the past decade — “East/West” is a must. By James Marcus Will the real Bill Frisell please stand up? It’s a question his admirers have been asking with increasing frequency over the past…
Read MoreFrank Black of the Pixies and bad boy Ryan Adams have put out new albums that, at their mellow best, skillfully substitute pedal steel for screams. By Danielle Dreilinger The 2005 Newport Folk Festival made an unusual decision when it came time to pick their Saturday headliner: seminal indie-rock band the Pixies, famous for the…
Read MoreBy Vincent Czyz In his latest book, acclaimed writer Orhan Pamuk has penned an intriguing memoir that focuses on his relationship with Istanbul, the city in which he has always lived. Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk. Knopf. Ottoman poets were fond of referring to Istanbul, then known to the world as Constantinople,…
Read MoreBy Debra Cash Tap superstar Savion Glover effortlessly bridges the jazz and rap generations. Improvography is a word coined by the late Gregory Hines. Neologisms are about grabbing the power to make definitions; they assert that language is not specific or expressive enough to make your meaning clear. When tap dancer Savion Glover uses “Improvography”…
Read MoreA new novel by a Chinese dissident provides a comically stinging vision of his homeland.
Read MoreA new book gives a philosophical analysis of American culture’s obsession with nonsense.
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