“I am turning 80 on April 19, and this is one of those ‘woulda-gonna’ projects that is finally happening,” Surls said. “If I’m going to do it, I have to do it now.”
There is actually no way to know how many artists support themselves solely through their artwork, but most people agree that it’s a fairly low percentage.
During a visit to the Getty Research Institute years ago, on an informal tour through the archives, I caught a glimpse of a box filled with Walter Hopps’s letters, marked “Top Secret” or some such about how the contents were to remain sealed until a certain date.
Now as spring blooms, we find Austin’s Fusebox, the state’s largest multidisciplinary arts festival, carrying the trend into 2023 with five days (April 12-16) filled with its usual innovative and experimental work, but also a particularly playful and fun lineup.
In summer 2022, a little-musical-that-could defied the odds in Dallas. Produced as an independent entity, Cabaret at Arts Mission Oak Cliff had no established theater company backing it, no built-in subscriber base, and no big names attached.
As everybody knows, the University of Texas at Austin has transformed its hometown thanks to its role as a hotbed of research. There’s more to that than churning out innovations in computers and technology.
In 1995, South African novelist and playwright Zakes Mda wrote a book called Ways of Dying that features a character named Toloki, a professional mourner at township funerals in post-Apartheid South Africa.
PART TWO: Think about classical ballet’s signature repertoire—The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Cinderella. Each of these canonic story ballets is drawn from a European folk tale or story, and set to music by a European composer. Is it time to ask, “what other stories can ballets tell?”
Think about classical ballet’s signature repertoire—The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Cinderella. Each of these canonic story ballets is drawn from a European folk tale or story, and set to music by a European composer. Is it time to ask, “what other stories can ballets tell?”
Now as spring blooms, we find Austin’s Fusebox, the state’s largest multidisciplinary arts festival, carrying the trend into 2023 with five days (April 12-16) filled with its usual innovative and experimental work, but also a particularly playful and fun lineup.
A longed-for royal baby, a series of blessings and curses from a good-to-evil spectrum of fairies, a bit of a prick, a bead of blood then a century of sleep until a spell-breaking kiss brings the great awakening, happily ever after.
In summer 2022, a little-musical-that-could defied the odds in Dallas. Produced as an independent entity, Cabaret at Arts Mission Oak Cliff had no established theater company backing it, no built-in subscriber base, and no big names attached.
