The pressure was on as India Bradley made her debut as Dewdrop in “George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker.” After her first entrance, she felt the need to shift something. The spotlight was brighter than she expected, making it hard for her to see. She encouraged herself to “get it together,” open her eyes, shoulders, and not…
When British filmmaker Steve McQueen considered making a feature film about a free man who was captured and sold into slavery, his wife, Dutch journalist and historian Bianca Stigter, suggested he start with a true story. Stigter found a 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, a New York man kidnapped, sold, and enslaved for 12 years…
A federal appeals court recently ruled against the iconic grunge rock band Nirvana in a high-profile lawsuit related to the cover of their classic 1991 album “Nevermind”. The lawsuit, brought by Spencer Elden, the now-adult man who appeared as a naked baby on the album cover, alleged that he was a victim of child sexual…
The emergence of American modern dance can be compared to the development of other creative forms such as jazz and the Broadway musical, as all three served as new methods of expression for a country expanding and evolving. Traditionally, the history of modern dance has been presented as a genealogy of white mavericks and rebels,…
Cari Beauchamp, a political adviser turned historian, passed away on Thursday at the age of 74. She was known for documenting the overlooked story of women in early Hollywood, when the film industry’s chaotic beginnings allowed them to assert a surprising amount of power. Her work began with the publication of her 1998 book, “Without…
Anita Rachvelishvili was pregnant when she began to experience the loss of her voice in 2021. For years, she and her husband had tried to conceive, and it seemed that a child would be the perfect ending to the slowdowns imposed by the pandemic. The Georgian mezzo-soprano had built her reputation through a decade of…
In an interview promoting the release of “Balancê,” she said: “When I walk around with my friends, it’s a very, very interesting community. We speak Portuguese slang, Angolan slang, some words in Cape Verdean Criolo, and of course some English. In Criolo there are already English and French words. This is because slaves from all…
