Art Scatter chief correspondent Martha Ullman West sends along this note about the Portland memorial service for Mark Goldweber, the founding ballet master of Oregon Ballet Theatre, who died last month from lymphoma at age 53. Goldweber, who made and kept many friends here, moved on to ballet-master positions at the Joffrey Ballet and then [...]
By Bob Hicks
The fun thing about art is that it always seems to come with a story. Not that the stories are more important than the art — at least, not usually — but they do have a way of getting a potentially esoteric subject down to the nitty gritty.
Martha Ullman West, whose tale about [...]
By Bob Hicks
Titian did not live starving and penniless in an unheated artist’s garret. He was wealthy and famous in his own time — more Andy Warhol or Damien Hirst, at least as far as the fame game goes, than Vincent Van Gogh.
At least partly, that’s because he had a good press agent.
Mr. Scatter has [...]
Patrick Weishampel
By Martha Ullman West
I’ve already expressed my outrage at the comments posted on Marty Hughley’s preview of Oklahoma! in The Oregonian that confirmed what I already knew: We are decades away from a post-racial society, whatever that means. It will be a joyful day when we celebrate our differences rather than [...]
James McGrew
By Martha Ullman West
Last night I returned to Keller Auditorium because I wanted to see again Nicolo Fonte’s highly detailed urban rendering of Petrouchka, and to see Haiyan Wu dance Micaela in Carmen. I’m very glad I did.
Apparently, for some readers, I failed to convey in my original review for The Oregonian that [...]
By Martha Ullman West
I have had an addiction to detective stories (and coffee, I confess) since I was fourteen years old, when I read Agatha Christie late into the night, using a flashlight, in my dormitory room at the Quaker boarding school I loved.
We sometimes had interesting vespers speakers on Sunday [...]
In the past few months Art Scatter’s chief correspondent, Martha Ullman West, has been (as The New Yorker likes to say about its own correspondents) far-flung. We could tell you how much flinging she’s been up to, but it seems more appropriate to let her tell you herself. We will mention, however, that one of [...]
Excellent news has arrived: Martha Ullman West, Art Scatter’s chief corespondent, will be presented with the Senior Critics Award when the national Dance Critics Association holds its annual conference next month in Seattle.
Because Art Scatter World Headquarters has shifted temporarily nine hours east to Amsterdam, we got the word a little late — first, in [...]
Groundbreaking ballet dancer Jacques d’Amboise, who created memorable roles in works by Balanchine and other stars of ballet’s American golden age, will be in Portland on Thursday, April 14, to talk about his new book I Was a Dancer. D’Amboise also choreographed for Balanchine’s New York City Ballet, and appeared in dancing roles in the [...]
By Martha Ullman West
So I put on my black leather jacket and my uncut corduroy black jeans, but balked at a nose ring, and attended the Dance Talks panel at the Pacific Northwest College of Art yesterday afternoon. This outreach program for adults usually takes place at the Keller or the [...]