If These Walls Could Talk
My first play (of a kind)! Imagine what the figures in Jose Clemente Orozco’s mural at The New School might have to say
A New Commissioner of Cultural Affairs
When Mayor Mamdani appointed a new commissioner of cultural affairs this week, he proclaimed what mayors have long said: the a
Dreaming Big
The New School is engaging with Nona Hendryx’s The Dream Machine at Lincoln Center! Join us for a conversation on Tuesda
Cullman Center Institute for Teachers
I’m delighted to be in teaching in the Cullman Center Institute for Teachers from July 15-19, 2024. We’ll be talki
The Creative Life of San Juan Hill
I’m on an upcoming panel about the creative activity of the neighborhood that was demolished in the building of Lincoln
The Ground Beneath West Side Story
I was asked to write an essay for the Legacies of San Juan Hill website that Lincoln Center has created to interrogate and exp
San Juan Hill: A New York Story
The jazz trumpeter and composer Etienne Charles has written a composition on the neighborhood that preceded Lincoln Center. An
Culture City: The Rise of the Arts in New York
The consolidation of a municipal cultural policy in New York since the 1950s has shifted the debate about the role of the arts
Borough Arts Councils
Where the arts occurred in New York City changed in the 1960s-70s. Grand cultural complexes such as Lincoln Center consolidate
Festival Trucks, etc.
A year ago, I visited the archives at Yale to look at the papers of John Lindsay, the mayor of New York City from 1966-73. Iâ€
More Robbins
The Robbins’ events continue: a discussion at the Gotham Center with Carol Oja on Bernstein and Robbins; a showing of sn
Happy 100, Lenny!
Leonard Bernstein was born 100 years ago on August 25. A German documentary titled “West Side Story—Bernstein’s Broadway
On Aesthetic Education
In my attempt to understand the rise of New York as a “culture city,” I am focusing on the rise of Lincoln Center. Thereâ€
Back to Dance
Perhaps you can never really leave it. But dance has become more central in my life again this year. Primarily it’s because
Paramodernities #5
I’m returning to a previous life as a performer…. I’m delighted to be a part of Netta Yerushalmy’s Par
New York on Canvas, Page, and Stage
I get to talk in public about one of my favorite subjects, the rise of New York as a capital of culture. Join me and Fran Lead
Musicals and New York
I wrote a meditation on this theme for the new annual journal, Musical Theater Today, which came out last year. Working on the
Voice of My City: Jerome Robbins and New York
In the ballets Fancy Free, Age of Anxiety, and Glass Pieces, and especially the musical and film West Side Story, the choreogr
Paramodernities #5 (Fosse)
Dancer/choreographer Netta Yerushalmy’s Paramodernities is an experimental project that bridges dance, critical theory,
Don’t Stop and Criticize–Go
Dances at a Gathering (1969) is one of Jerome Robbins’ most acclaimed ballets. Danced to Chopin, it is a meditation on relat
Happy WSS Debut Day!
More thoughts from me about the production that debuted 60 years ago today. On the Gotham blog, I look at how West Side Story
West Side Story at 60
The Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center is hosting a celebration of West Side Story, sixty years after its debut.
Creating City People
New York City just released its first cultural plan. My response (published in Public Seminar). Last week the city released it
Martin Segal: Dollars and Joy
I’m back in the archives going through the papers of Martin Segal. Few in the arts might know Segal now but his legacies are
Culture City
My fellowship year at GIDEST proved to be immensely enjoyable. One of the outcomes was a video conversation about my research
Mambo!
May I suggest that no book party is complete without dance—at least not one that looks at West Side Story! Here are Michael
Masterpieces of Everyday New York
In 2013, the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center initiated an exhibition on “objects as story,” prompted by curricular
“Life Deflated.”
Today I read a novel, The Camellia City by Phillip Routh. I rarely read all day long; I rarely want to. Today I wanted to.
A Center for Dance
Yesterday I gave a talk at the Center for Ballet and the Arts about other centers–City Center and Lincoln Center. The ta
Ballet Class
Today the fellows of the Center for Ballet and the Arts took a ballet class given by Melissa Barak, another fellow. CBA boasts
New York Arts Center: 1953
Mecca Temple, 135 55th St., 1929 (later City Center). New York Historical Society. The Rockefeller brothers, long committed to
Objects and Space
My class on “Arts and Social Engagement” ends with a look at institutions and policy. Bricks-and-mortar and intell
Aaron Shkuda and I co-edited a special section in the Journal of Urban History on arts and urbanization in postwar U.S. cities
Critiquing Critics
In class recently we discussed the role of critics. Much like a curator (our previous week’s topic), critics mediate an artw
Painter History
Nell Painter, “Locke Harvard with Gradient 72,” Art History Volume XXVII, Ancestral Arts (2013) Writing History: t
Curating the Archives
The summer 2014 exhibition is now online! The virtual version includes reflections about the unusual demands of the exhibition
Hamilton, the Musical
Lin-Manual Miranda has combined some of my favorite things — musicals, hip-hop, and history. It’s a compelling spectac
The City Lost & Found
This exhibit on “Capturing New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, from 1960-80,” is on view at the Princeton Art Museum until
Abounaddara
The Vera List Center for Art and Politics gives a biennial prize to an artwork that advances social justice. Theaster Gates’
West Side Story: A Life
A writing experiment: to describe the book as a biography. Biography (A Life). Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. James Joyce:
Creative Justice
For two intensive weeks that covered 40 hours of class time, students in Piper Anderson’s “Creative Justice” class read
What Did We Do?
The final class of “Arts and Social Engagement” included group presentations of a diorama of an exhibit about advertisemen
The Art of Structure
John McPhee has been writing about writing in The New Yorker in the past few years and one notable essay was about the central
Arts and Social Engagement
We are launching a new curricular area at The New School as of Fall 2014!
Bodies in Motion
As shocking as the balloon nudes of Matisse and fractured bodies of Duchamp were, at least they stayed on the canvas. There bo
“The Rite Of Spring”
Spring 1913: artwork that caused outrage, derision, acclaim, and confusion. Movement never seen before: feet pounding, torsos
Sailors, Fancy Free
Exhibition Object and Text, Masterpieces of Everyday New York: Objects as Story (Kellen Gallery, Shelia Johnson Design Center,
Theaster Gates’ Dorchester Projects
Theaster Gates received the first Vera List Center Prize for Art and Social Justice in 2013; this essay, with others, on Gates
Lincoln Center, The Rockefellers, and New York City
Rockefeller Archives Center, Research Report (Fall 2005) Rockefeller explained his interest in Lincoln Center both by the part
“My Feet are Again on This Earth”
in African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, ed. Daniel Schulman (Spertus Museum and Northwester University Press, 2
Offense + Dissent: Image, Conflict, Belonging
Exhibition at Kellen Gallery, The New School (2014); Curators: Julia Foulkes, Mark Larrimore, and Radhika Subramaniam Twenty-f
The (Rural and Urban) Lives of Bees
I had the privilege to go to Mildred’s Lane on a work retreat recently. Founded by the artists J. Morgan Puett and Mark Dio
A Place for Us: West Side Story and New York
The musical and the film West Side Story reveal the dynamics of urban life in mid-20th century New York City, both the intra
Dancing in the Streets: The Arts in Postwar U.S. Cities
This collection of essays on the arts in postwar U.S. cities offers a historical perspective on the contemporary embrace of th
Arts and Social Engagement
A poem can change the world. Or just one person’s life. What explains the connection between an artwork and an individual,
Art + City
Cities are hubs of artistic activity. People are drawn to cities because of their artistic offerings and they are the pla
Where Urbanization and the Arts Meet
The rise of Lincoln Center and the transformation of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) reveal how tied stages are to streets
The Arts in Place
Specialists of specific genres of art dominate scholarship on the arts — art historians examine visual art; musicologist
To the City: Urban Photographs of the New Deal
The United States has moved from a rural to urban to suburban nation. The rural past holds symbolic sway, the suburban present
Miss Hill
Appearance as a guest speaker in Miss Hill: Making Dance Matter A formidable administrator and advocate, Martha Hill fought to
Anything Goes
Kurt Andersen at Studio 360 examines – and re-imagines the title song of – one of America’s Icons, with commentary by Ju