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Wednesday, December 6, 2006 @ 11:30 pm
State of the Arts explores the concept of "Impossible Love", as embodied in theater, dance, music, and literature.
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anna
in the tropics
 Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz, whose play "Anna in the Tropics" had its Northeast premiere at the McCarter Theatre, says that all his plays are about "Impossible Love" - the love that grows between the cracks where you would least expect it. "Anna in the Tropics" is set in a cigar factory outside Tampa, FL in the 1920s, where Cuban immigrants roll cigars while a paid reader - a lector - reads aloud from great literature. The book he's reading to them is Tolstoy's tragic love story "Anna Karenina", and soon the characters in the play are starting to mirror the characters in the book. The production was directed by Emily Mann.
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le
spectre de la rose
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Nijinsky
in Le Spectre de la Rose
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Stephen
Campanella and Laura Fuchs both aspire to
professional careers in the ballet. It may
not be an impossible love, but, as choreographer
Graham Lustig points out, it is an incredibly
demanding career during which dancers must
always strive to use their bodies in new
and almost impossible ways. Stephen and
Laura are students in the American Repertory
Ballet Professional Training Workshop, an
elite group of teenagers within ARB's Princeton
Ballet School. Under Graham Lustig's guidance,
Stephen and Laura perform a classic duet
created in 1911 for Nijinsky and Karsavina
by the famous choreographer Mikhail Fokine.
Le Spectre de la Rose tells the story of
a young woman whore turns from a ball holding
a rose given to her by a handsome young
man. She falls asleep and the spirit of
the rose floods her dreams as she imagines
herself dancing with the young man. Choreographer
Graham Lustig learned the work himself 25
years ago when he was young dancer from
a choreographer who had, himself, danced
for Fokine and the Ballet Russe.
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peter
cincotti
 A new kid on the block, Peter Cincotti, is a headliner while still in his 20s. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz talked to the jazz pianist, singer, and composer when he was a 20-year-old sophomore at Columbia University prior to a Jazz Room concert at William Paterson University. Since then, the major performing career predicted has arrived – Cincotti’s second release, “On the Moon,” debuted at #2 on Billboard’s jazz charts. Jazz great James Williams says "he's the real thing, an incredible talent." Cincotti has appeared in films, television, and is now the “face” of Zegna’s Sartorial & Couture collection. Cincotti says, "The songs I sing are all about love." He picks music he feels in his heart, songs with lyrics that touch him personally.
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 dear
scott
F.
Scott Fitzgerald was showing signs of the
writer he was to become when he became infatuated
with a 16 year old debutante, Ginevra King.
It was 1915, and he was a 19 year old student
at Princeton University; she went to a nearby
girls' school. Zelda may be better known,
but it was the beautiful, wealthy, and popular
Ginevra who was the model for some of Fitzgerald's
most enduring heroines, most notably Daisy
Buchanan in "The Great Gatsby." They exchanged frequent letters for two
years until the romance faded (or was perhaps
called off by Ginevra's father). Ginevra's
letters to Scott and her diary were recently
donated to the Princeton University Library.
Professor James West of Penn State University
says that letters are revealing, and that
Fitzgerald turned to them often in his career
as raw material for his art.
 
Read
a 1915 letter from Ginevra King to F. Scott
Fitzgerald
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