Show Ponies for a Young Nation

Collecting my last writing for New Matilda, part 1.

Let me finish the sentence…

Excellent article (book excerpt, more precisely in The Age today about unconscious sexism. It compares the cases of two Stanford biologists, both tenured professors, both transgender, and both have undergone sex change late in life:
“Ben once gave a presentation at the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A friend relayed a comment made by someone [...]

Of dogs and people

On Mother’s Day, Maria Tumarkin wrote what I thought was a beautiful, heartfelt and effective plea for a less hysterical immigration policy, describing aptly what a horror it was not to be able to take care of your parents. It was published in The Age, SMH and on National Times.
The comments have since closed [...]

Review: Africa

“There are four big problems that emerge from aid. One is the obvious one: the corruption, the fact that you’re giving somebody something for free, no strings attached. The second problem is aid dependency, which is the whole notion that you create a society heavily burdened and laden with bureaucracy, which is very inefficient and [...]

The Hunger Artists of St Petersburg

Writes Dmitry Vilensky on the global arts newswire:
+++
On May 15, the young contemporary artist Artem Loskutov was arrested
in his native Novisibirsk and charged with possession of a narcotic
substance (marijuana) by the local branch of the Interior Ministry’s
notorious Center for Extremism Prevention (Center “E”). Loskutov and
his supporters claim that the police planted the marijuana in his [...]

Journalism, exquisite journalism:

Michail Gorbachev did not make a public appearance until nine days after the accident. Was this embittering?
You know, journalists always ask the same thing. Were you lied to? The Soviet power never told the truth. That was nothing new! What interests me is something else. The pause.
The pause?
In the zone helicopters were taking off, technicians [...]

Riječke ljetne noći: Penelope / Song of songs

A version of this text was published on vibewire.net.
…practically all metaphors for style amount to placing matter on the inside, style on the outside. It would be more to the point to reverse the metaphor. The matter, the subject, is on the outside; the style is on the inside. As Cocteau writes: “Decorative style has [...]

on form and theatre; vignette

My most cherished discovery has been a generation of very young Croatian theatre-makers, absolutely fearless. This year, Gordana Vnuk, the iron lady of Eurokaz and an uncompromising believer in new forms of expression, pulled out these kids that haven't even graduated yet, and what beautiful things they have shown. I have seen so much brave, [...]

Biennale di Venezia: 6. Festival Internazionale di Danza Moderna

 
 
A slightly different version of this text has appeared on vibewire.net.
 
 

Wayne McGregor / Random Dance Company. Photo: Ravi Deepres.

1. dance in is the air
It is impossible to adequately explain the artichoke-like nature of Venice, with its layers beneath layers: paths for American tourists, paths for Italian tourists, paths for cultural tourists, paths for temporary residents, [...]

On horror and criticism: a review of reviews.

My careful reader by now knows that a moment of great opinionatedness is coming right after the word 'Anglo', paired with this or that. However, Anglo theatre criticism has again genuinely disappointed, via Londoners' professional reactions to Relocated by Anthony Nielson.
Giulia Merlo, the future star of London's criticism, offers a swift explanation of why it [...]