The Music Division is proud to offer two new web presentations in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia. The collection of notable dancer, choreographer and teacher Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972) contains a diverse variety of materials documenting dance and the arts in the twentieth century. Available here are over 200 collection items, including manuscripts, books, diaries, choreographic notebooks, …
The following is a guest post by David H. Plylar, Music Specialist, Concert Office. Update: Out of concern for our patrons’ safety and in consideration of the extreme weather in the Washington area, the Library of Congress has rescheduled the concert originally scheduled for Tuesday, October 30, 2012. LUCY: Song & Dance, an Opera without Words will …
The following interview was conducted by frequent In the Muse contributor, Senior Music Cataloger Sharon McKinley. How did you come to be an intern in the Music Division? I heard about this program through my honors courses. As a member of Renaissance Scholars Honors program at Montgomery College, I was frequently told to apply to …
Google’s new search tool had would-be researchers wracking their brains yesterday. Based on the “Six degrees of Kevin Bacon” game, which In the Muse wrote about in July, if you enter the words “Bacon number” and an actor’s name in the Google search box, you get the number of degrees removed that person is from …
It wasn’t your typical mid-day lecture on Capitol Hill. This week the Copyright Office sponsored a special presentation in the Coolidge Auditorium, “Copyright and the American Songwriter.” Copyright regulations have helped many songwriters make a living by their craft, and one songwriter in particular graced the Coolidge stage to humbly represent his fellow songwriters: ASCAP …
Henning Lohner’s riotous film, Musicircus is a three-and-a-half-hour documentary of the “Musicircus” homage to John Cage, presented at New York’s Symphony Space shortly after his death in 1992. Preceding and following this film, screened for the first time in the United States, is Elliot Caplan’s haunting “Beach Birds for Camera,” an adaptation of a dance …
The !!!! Beat was a pioneering blues, soul and R&B television show broadcast from WFAA in Dallas, Texas and hosted by radio d.j. William “Hoss” Allen. The series, which began production in January 1966, ran for 26 episodes with stellar performances by national and regional stars, including Little Milton, Esther Phillips, Etta James, Gatemouth Brown, Louis …
Caped crusaders are not the only ones who don masks as a career choice. A recent show and tell in the Music Division curated by the Music Division’s Elizabeth Aldrich, with Dance Heritage Fellows Nicole Topich and Kirsten Wilkinson, showcased items from special collections in dance. This mask was used by Armgard von Bardeleben (1940-2012) in …
I recently toured the Archives of American Art’s new exhibit, “Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon. ” The exhibit riffs on the idea of “six degrees of separation” popularly associated with actor Kevin Bacon, and uses as its central figure New York artist Peggy Bacon, who is little remembered today but was a well-connected member of …
