We will never be here again. That was the pianist’s message, relayed to us in a calm, melodious British accent, as we lie on our backs in the refectory. She’d perfumed the space with an incense-forward fragrance, and it smelled like Easter Mass. It was the end of September, and I arrived to the concert a touch overheated in an acrylic sweater I thrifted in high school. When the air conditioner pumped in—silent, or at least masked underneath the resonant gongs of the sound bath—I was grateful to have an almost cloyingly plush blanket to pull up to my shoulders. I tried not to heed the stranger to my left any mind and listened to the tinkling of Philip Glass’s “Metamorphosis.” This would be the only time that we’d all be in this exact space, in this precise configuration, experiencing the same thing.
I was served an ad for Lie Down and Listen—a concert series that started in the U.K.—sometime over the summer and bought my ticket with a simple reasoning: when else would I have the chance to listen to a live piano concert whilst lying horizontal?
This is the decision-making that drives a lot of my ticket-purchasing. I never have greater FOMO than I do when I miss a live performance. I neglected to get tickets in time or decided to sit out a show, and as I result, I have to face the pain of recognizing a missed opportunity. I had my chance, and I didn’t take it. Never again will it be presented to me.
I try to go back sometimes—revisit the performances that have stayed with me. After years of searching, I found an unauthorized recording of Sufjan Stevens’s ballet “Everywhere We Go,” which I’ve made a point of seeing every opportunity I can. Though it’s not Justin Peck’s most critically celebrated work, there are so many things about the piece that strike through to my core: the sonic harmony of the horns, the geometric shifts of the backdrop, the simplicity of a partnered sequence at the end, wherein a dancer patters around in a bourrée before collapsing, gratefully, into another’s arms. The music haunts me. When I started to play the illegal recording from the start, I heard the shifting of people in their seats. Someone coughed. It just wasn’t the same.
You kind of had to be there.
The joy of performance lies not just in the observation of it but in its context and surroundings; the sense that you, alone, are not the only one taking in the sights and sounds that are happening in this particular way for one time and one time only. How lucky I felt to witness Jake Roxander’s virtuosic performance as Basilio in Don Quixote, leading to his promotion to principal dancer at American Ballet Theatre. How special that I got to hear Gustavo Dudamel conduct the Philharmonic’s performance of John Adams’s “On the Transmigration of Souls,” a composition written in commemoration of the first anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, with Adams himself in the audience. How moving that I could hear, this September 10th, the faint cry of bagpipes from a conference room on the 29th floor of 7 World Trade.
I think fondly of last year’s Fall for Dance festival at New York City Center, where Paris Opera Ballet étoiles Hannah O’Neill and Hugo Marchand put on a surprise pas de deux from Angelin Preljocaj’s 1994 ballet “Le Parc.” I thought, after that, how incredible it would be to go to Paris in the winter and see the ballet. I didn’t. But two weeks ago, I bought a ticket for a different performance at the Palais Garnier in February. The opera house is closing for renovations for five years, starting this summer. I don’t want to miss something that could be wonderful.
The work that moved me the most at this year’s Fall for Dance was not a serious one. Pony Cam, a Melbourne-based theater troupe, put on “kinda like that,” an homage to the more than 450 dance pieces performed over the course of the festival’s 23 years. I laughed, knowingly, at the references to both choreographers I love and works I’d seen in years past. When the performers came out juggling—a reference to Gandini Juggling’s “Smashed,” presented in 2023—I felt positively self-satisfied. I’d been there.
Pony Cam watched endless hours of video footage to recreate (largely, in parody, but often with commendable effort) the works that crossed City Center’s stage. But no footage of Eiko and Koma’s 1999 work “Snow” existed. Instead, as fake snow fell, contrasted against the dark stage, a performer recited poetic lines from the New York Times’s review of the piece. It could not recreate the movement, of course—this is not what dance criticism aims to do. Instead, it captured an ethos of the experience that audience members may have enjoyed all those decades ago.
Instead of facsimile, it transformed the loss of the dance to time into something new—something decidedly memorable. It was beautiful to witness. You had to be there.
Thank you for your patience as I have returned from my unplanned and unannounced hiatus. Since the last time you’ve heard from me, I’ve written three feature stories—all to run in the winter issue of Inc.—and started a new full-time job outside of journalism. Going forward, you can expect a return to our typical weekly-ish programming. Now, the news:
BTS leader RM is getting people to the museum. The singer opened an exhibit of his art collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art last week; RM x SFMOMA: Between You and Me has sold more than 50,000 tickets, the Art Newspaper reported. RM worked with SFMoMA curators América Castillo and Hyoeun Kim to curate art from his collection, plus 36 of the museum’s works, with a particular focus on contemporary and Korean art, including the late abstract artist Kim Whanki, a pioneer of the Dansaekhwa1 movement. The exhibit runs through February 7.
Another artist you should know: Mavis Pusey (1928-2019) was a Jamaica-born abstract artist who worked as a printmaker and painter. Last year, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania put on the first major survey of her 50-year career with Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images, and now it’s on view at UCLA’s Hammer Museum through the end of February.
After much debate with the Dutch government, the Van Gogh museum has secured the funding for necessary renovations, which will begin in 2028. The museum will remain partially open during the project, with the permanent collection on view.
The highly anticipated Shanghai Grand Opera House, designed by global architecture firm Snøhetta, opens this week for its 2026-2027 season. More than a decade in the making, the complex includes public spaces, production facilities, and three performance halls.
A year after the Louvre heist and art thieves in France are still on the prowl. In Issoire, thieves stole a Salvador Dalí-made bronze book jacket weighing 330 pounds, which is considered a French heritage treasure and valued at several million euros, ArtForum reported.
One bright spot: also in France, two stolen Renoir paintings were recently recovered and six people suspected to be behind their disappearance were taken into custody, Le Monde reported.
I’m very glad I got to see Paris Opera Ballet étoile Dorothée Gilbert at City Center earlier this year with Hugo Marchand; she’s taking her final bow this week, at age 43 (typically, Paris Opera dancers are required to retire at 42). She’ll be performing Manon with Marchand as her last show.
I loved this quote from her interview with Le Monde: “Moving toward purity means allowing yourself those moments, just a few seconds long, when it seems like nothing is happening, but emotion suddenly emerges. When you’re young, you don’t dare to do this—you’re afraid to reveal yourself, and you hide behind choreography instead of being yourself.”
More orchestras are fighting for their rights as workers: the Minnesota Opera Orchestra unanimously authorized a strike ahead of the 2026-27 season, as their previous contract expired in June. Negotiating committee chair and cellist Rebecca Arons says that management’s current proposal does not include cost-of-living increases for wages.
Last month, the Cleveland Orchestra went on strike, securing a deal that will grant them a five percent annual raise over the next three years, the New York Times reported. The San Francisco Symphony also averted a strike just hours before its season-opening gala; musicians’ weekly base pay will increase 15 percent over the course of their new three-year contract.
If you’re still wondering about AI’s impact on art, perhaps consider what Pope Leo had to say earlier this month:
The British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry blockbuster hasn’t rolled out entirely smoothly. After a blind visitor sued the museum for not including detailed audio descriptions for the exhibit, it will add an audio tour to its offerings; Yusuf Ali Osman reached out to the museum to inquire. The museum also said to would be extending its hours to accommodate the million-or-so visitors expected to view the tapestry, as many have already contended with long queues, the New York Times reported. One complicating factor: the tapestry can only be exposed to light for a few hours each day.
The exhibit runs through July 11. For those of us who can’t make it, there’s always the online gift shop.
The Dansaekhwa movement was not a formal school of art in Korea, but rather an after-the-fact categorization of abstract art made in South Korea beginning in the mid-1970s, characterized by its focus on artistic process, a lack of figuration, and repetitive patterns.