Roger Copeland, in
Partisan Review (NO. 1, 1983), BostonFor Dance Univ., 121 Bav State Rd., Boston, Mass.
02215.
Performers and choreographers of modern dance-Martha Graham, for example-have long stressed the "primitive" elements of their art. But a new generation is abandoning primitivism, and possibly dance itself.
So says Copeland, an Oberlin College theater teacher. Primitivism, he notes, arose around the turn of the century in reaction to the "neu- rotic character" of...
Hilton Kramer, in The New Crite-
rion (Nov. 1982), Foundation for Cultural
Review, 460 Park Ave., New York, N.Y.
10022.
Neo-Expressionism is only one of many new styles that has swept the art world since the 1960s. Nevertheless, asserts Kramer, editor of the New Criterion, it signals a real change in the direction of art.
The previous major innovation in painting occurred during the early 1960s, when Andy Warhol's Pop art displaced the postwar Abstract Ex- pressionism of such artists as Jackson...
E. L. Kircizizer's Der Theosoph (far left). An example of 1960s Pop art is Roy Lichteizstein's Girl With Ball. Mimmo Paladino's Porta is a Neo-Expressionist work.
Kramer writes. "The mystical, the erotic, and the hallucinatory were once again made welcon~e in painting." Not only did the new painters reinject emotion into art, they reversed a 100-year trend towards "de- pletion" and sparer images in painting.
The Neo-Expressionists are not the only painters who are breaking...
PERIODICALS
ARTS & LETTERS
introduced many new works Stravinsky, Debussy, and Ravel.
Most conductors included no works from the past in their musical programs. Felix Mendelssohn's controversial 1829 revival of Bach's St. Matthew Passion was a turning point. Gradually, older works came to dominate conductors' repertoires, and became "classics."
In Europe and America, composers themselves contributed to the change, Henahan concedes, by turning increasingly after World War I t...
his rival's supporters. Dissidents have been imprisoned; the press has begun to suffer government harassment. [In February 1983, Mugabe widened the campaign; thousands of ZAPU sympathizers and former guerrillas were killed government troops.]
Mugabe placates other potential rivals with patronage. Of the 80 black members of Parliament, he has appointed 54 as cabinet ministers or deputy ministers with salaries of up to $35,000. Such dubious ap- pointments, along with the departure of white civil...
Bil-
Creating Hunger lie R. DeWalt, in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Jan. 1983), 5801 South
In Honduras Kenwood, Chicago, 111.60637.
In 1976, Honduras joined a growing list of Third World nations that must import corn, rice, and other basic foods. Many of its people go hungry. Yet, at the same time, the Hondurans have stepped up their production and export of beef.
Between 1961 and 1980, such exports rose more than 500 percent, while domestic beef consun~ption dropped. In the rich...
Liza Crihfield
apan's Geisha Dalby, in Natural Histon' (Feb. 1983), Box
4300, Bergenfield, N.J. 07621.
To Westerners, Japan's "geisha girls," with their powdered faces and traditional garb, seem exotic and slightly sinful. Most Japanese, reports anthropologist Dalby, have the same reaction.
Yet the geisha are not prostitutes. The first geisha were male enter- tainers in 17th-century Japanese brothels. No women entered the pro- fession until 1751, but 1800 they had claimed the profession...
Na-
omi Caiden, in P~tblic Adnzinistratio~z Re- All Seasons view (NOV.-D~C.
19821, 1120 G st. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20005.
The battles over the federal budget seem to become longer every year. The problem, says Caiden, a political scientist at the California State College at San Bernardino, is not only that "reform" is needed, but that the very idea of an annual budget is obsolete.
Originally, the annual budget, submitted the President and modi- fied on Capitol Hill, was intended...
Na-than Glazer, in The Public Interest (Winter 1983), 10 East 53rd St., New York, N.Y. 10022.
Ronald Reagan's conservative Republican administration and Fran- qois Mitterrand's Socialist government in France have at least one thing in common. Both are pushing programs of political decentraliza- tion, trying to shift more power from the national to the local level.
For both nations, says Glazer, a Harvard sociologist, the changes rep- resent a sharp departure that suggests a new direction for the...
Richard E. Cohen, in Nutior~ulJo~~rizal (Dec. 18, 1982)) 1730 M St. N.W., Wash- ington, D.C. 20036.
Political action committees (PACs) contributed about $80 million of the $300 million spent candidates during the 1982 congressional cam- paign. But, despite growing criticism of the PACs' influence, says Cohen, National Journal staff correspondent, the evidence that they "get what they pay for" is "mixed" at best.
Corporate PACs have come under the heaviest fire. Accounting of...