Nickell’s Bag

"American Ballet Theater announced Thursday that it will travel to Cuba to dance in the International Ballet Festival of Havana in November. … The upcoming festival is in honor of the Cuban-born dancer Alicia Alonso, the director of the National Ballet of Cuba, who danced with ABT in the 1940s."... […]

"The idea is that dance helps ease the symptoms - and some hope might even slow the progression - of [the neurological disorder]. … But just as important, the dance class is an opportunity for joy, creative expression and socializing - an antidote to the depression and isolation that can come with Parkinson's."... […]

"'It's important and vibrant,' says comedian Tom Roden, 'resonant and beautiful, rich and strange.' These are not words usually used by comics to describe their work, but then Roden is not your usual comic. Few standups can draw on 15 years' experience in contemporary dance."... […]

The renowned choreographer, whose widely-praised term at the head of Spain's Compañía Nacional de Danza ends this month, will be the first foreigner to head a major Russian ballet company since the days of Marius Petipa under the Tsars.... […]

The New York dance presenter's lease on its 8th Avenue headquarters, with annual rent of $1, expires in 2016. The Joyce had committed to occupying a planned arts center near Ground Zero whose construction seems ever more remote; meanwhile, the 8th Avenue site's landlord, Eliot Feld's Ballet Tech Company, wants to charge rent closer to market r […]

"The Washington National Opera, facing financial challenges and questions about its future, is exploring a merger with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. … The center would assume the opera's assets and liabilities, and the opera would cede to the center approval on artistic and budgetary matters."... […]

DSO musicians say that "management has ceased to negotiate in good faith and that talks have reached an impasse." The DSO administration "has not budged from its original demand for a 28-percent cut in the players' annual base pay of $105,000."... […]

"Fans of Fairouz, the Arab world's most famous singer, are up in arms about a bitter legal row that has stopped her performing live. From Beirut to the Gulf - and as far away as Australia - the diva's supporters are making their voices heard to complain that she is being cruelly silenced."... […]

"Does Pitchfork, Lollapalooza or anyone else who rents out a public park for a private event have the right to limit the type of cameras people can bring in? Concert promoters are trying to control something--the creation and dissemination of images taken at an outdoor concert in a public park--that is largely beyond their control, and they're star […]

"[Donald] Nally is leaving at the end of the 2010-11 season to spend more time with his Philadelphia choir, The Crossing. What wasn't said: He's leaving one of the top positions of its kind (Chicago's previous chorus master is now at the Metropolitan Opera) - with uncertain financial prospects."... […]

"The Cherry Lane Theater will not produce plays on its main stage for a year beginning in September, and possibly longer, to buy time to cope with a deficit of roughly $167,000 through the 2010 fiscal year."... […]

Marc Wolf, author and performer of Another American Asking and Telling: "I soon discovered that my worries about preaching to the choir were unfounded because, where gays in the military are concerned, there has never been a choir to preach to."... […]

"High-concept and immersive, intimate theater has been cropping up for years, but now in Europe it has reached such a critical mass that the Battersea Arts Center in London, known for innovation, hosted the largest one-person-audience festival this month." Funding problems notwithstanding, the phenomenon is growing stateside as well.... […]

"[D]uring the approximately 40 minutes I spent being pushed through the halls … I was exalted and excoriated, hailed as a genius, reviled as a charlatan and mistaken for both a rock star and a bag of garbage. I mean a real bag of garbage."... […]

"Purpose: To determine why so few good plays about maths and science are written, when fine dramas about other academic disciplines - art, literature, history, politics - abound. (And why has wood shop never yet produced even a comedy?)"... […]

"Kodachrome slide film wasn't just another commercial photographic product. There was something truly special about it. The dyes and emulsions produced an effect comparable to Technicolor motion picture film. It was hyper-real, but only slightly."... […]

Eighteen feet high and 60 feet wide, billed by Kodak as "the world's largest photographs," Colorama transparencies impressed passersby at Grand Central Station for 40 years. George Eastman House has assembled a touring exhibition of these goliaths in honor of their 60th anniversary,... […]

"In all, six of the 37 600-pound sculptures have been targeted by vandals since being installed in May. 'These aren't quickie, random acts of stupidity,' said Tom Torti, president of organizer Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce. 'These acts of stupidity take time'."... […]

"A team of experts who have examined Rick Norsigian's stash of antique negatives say they appear to be part of Adams' body of work. The photographer's family and friends remain skeptical."... […]

"For more than two decades the heirs of a world-renowned Jewish collector have been petitioning the Hungarian government to return more than $100 million worth of art, most of which has been hanging in Hungarian museums, where it was left for safekeeping during World War II or placed after being stolen by the Nazis."... […]