Creative climate: Culture Bully is running an interview with M.anifest, the Twin Cities-based Ghanaian emcee who performed at this year’s Music & Movies series. Here’s his reply when asked how Minnesota’s climate — culturally and otherwise — affects his work: “Music has a lot to do with vibes and energies – the unseen. The cold affects my social movements and my movements at different moments inform what I write. I tend to be more introspective and nostalgic in the winter. I have way more references/punchlines about the weather than I ever expected – it’s probably part of my adjustment process; talking about it that is.”
Can you say that in a dance review? In an article about last night’s dress rehearsal of the Walker-cosponsored performance Ocean by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, journalist Jeff Severns Guntzel colorfully sets the scene for a modern dance work performed in a granite quarry. Instructed not to review the performance, he says only, “Dance transfixed and reigned in the quarry last night until it didn’t.” (He’s attending Saturday night and will hopefully write up a review.) His essay may offer a historic first — the use of the terms “butt crack” and “thong” in a piece on modern dance.
Reflecting on 9/11: Dwell magazine’s blog commemorates today’s 9/11 anniversary with a look at the memorial and museum now in construction at Ground Zero. Reflecting Absence, by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker, is “a sobering reflection for sure: Two massive square-shaped pools are set within the footprints of the Twin Towers, into which the largest man-made waterfalls in the country will cascade with meditation-inducing power.” Here’s a video of the project, which should be completed by the tenth anniversary of the attacks.
A YouTube Pulitzer? YouTube and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting are teaming up to award $10,000 to a videomaker covering under-reported stories of global importance. Begun Sept. 8, the contest will give its winner funds for travel, production aid from the Pulitzer Center, high-end equipment and distribution on YouTube.
Get Walker Reader in your inbox. Sign up to receive first word about our original videos, commissioned essays, curatorial perspectives, and artist interviews.