Culture Archives - Page 8 of 40 - Pittsburgh Quarterly

Part tragedy and part myth, as well as part history and part prophecy, Pittsburgh Opera’s “We Shall Not Be Moved” (which premiered in 2017) may be one of the most modern theatrical spectacles you will see — with its synthesis of music, singing, dance, and video projection — yet it may also be one of …

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Arts

The Intersection of People and Nature

by Elizabeth Castonguay

I knew I was an artist at age 4. at 8, when studying oil painting, I knew I would speak through my art. I have always been passionate about the beautiful palette of human diversity and nature, but also empathetic to the struggles of humanity and the vulnerability of all life forms. My decades-long art …

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Arts

Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre: On the Threshold of a New Era

by Stuart Sheppard

Watching Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s latest production, “Balanchine and Beyond,” reminded me of the first time I saw the work of the visionary film director Sergei Eisenstein, and encountered cinematography as a form of rapture, instead of the mere recording of imagery. PBT’s three-work production — subtitled “The Masters Program” — comprising contemporary, modernist, and neoclassical …

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PQ Poem

Highway 491

by Lawrence Wray

If it happens that this road is heaven,close your eyes. On the drive acrosssuch a vast country as heaven must be,the road waves as this one does.Its graceful long arcs lead all the wayto the horizon. And isn’t it sothe road stretches even beyond there?You’ll find you’ve been here all alongon Highway 491. On maps just …

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Arts

Opera Shines at Maecenas

by PQ Staff

On Saturday night, 200 attendees celebrated the Pittsburgh Opera and the 38th annual Maecenas Gala at the Bitz Opera Factory. The Maecenas Award was presented to Mary Louise Gailliot and the late Henry J. Gailliot. The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Janet Sarbaugh, who served as the Vice President of the Creativity Program for The Heinz Endowments until …

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Arts

Sympathy for the Devil: Quantum Theatre Conjures a Postmodern Faust

by Stuart Sheppard

Perhaps the second most essential question in life after “Why are we here?” is “Whom should we trust?” The obvious answer would seem to be, trust in God, but we all know how often human beings end up putting their faith in that more convenient, self-serving, and nefarious alternative, the devil. In fact, one of …

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Culture PQ Poem

October

by David Thoreen

On his birthday she whispered, bereft,and understood her place in the scheme of things.The man next door walked his cocker spaniel,a plastic bag in his hand. The kettle began to steam. At the park she found her bench was takenby a man in an Irish sweater, so went a little furtherand sat beneath the linden. …

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History

Renewing the Promise of Pittsburgh

by David McCullough

Editor’s note: Historian David McCullough delivered the following words on a Pittsburgh riverboat in a speech to a select group of local leaders at the launch of the Riverlife Task Force. We are publishing this essay for the first time with permission of The Heinz Endowments on the occasion of the launch of a new …

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Arts Culture

The War Against Aesthetics in Contemporary Art

by Stuart Sheppard

Often when I walk through a gallery of contemporary art, I can hear a murmuring between the works that echoes journalist Herbert Morrison’s voice describing the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937: “Oh, the humanity!” It’s as if the depiction of suffering in any form has become the criteria by which we judge art, rather …

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PQ Poem

A Moment

by Judith Sanders

While chops sizzle and onions brown,the radio intones failures, floods, and fires,and the family cries its needs, Step out the kitchen doorTrain your eyes on the clouds, rumpled on the darkening sky How big are they, you wonder, and where is that cicada with its kazoo, and the bees that all day probed the flowers? How far is …

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Books

Ramona Reeves wins Drue Heinz with First Collection

by Jan Elizabeth Watson

Take the mordant wit of Flannery O’ Connor, combine it with the stripped-down empathy of Raymond Carver, and you just might have something like It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories. This debut collection by Ramona Reeves offers a window into the entwined lives of characters in Mobile, Alabama — a politically, socially and …

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Culture

Pittsburgh Opera’s Laced/Unlaced Fashion Show

by PQ Staff

A capacity crowd of 275 recently filled the Bitz Opera Factory for Pittsburgh Opera’s ‘Laced/Unlaced’ fashion show. The event combined ‘Gothic romance’ opera fashion assembled from pieces in Pittsburgh Opera’s costume shop vault with elegant, accessible luxury fashion from Skye Douglass’ House of Couture Designs, and seductive lingerie from Pulchra Intimates. Pittsburgh Opera’s Resident Artists and local tenor Ben Werley sang dramatic operatic …

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Arts Culture

Pitt Stages’ “Seven Guitars” Gives Life to a Dream Deferred

by Stuart Sheppard

It has been said that the sign of great actors is that they don’t care if you watch them perform or not – as they disdain “playing to the crowd” — and I would argue that the same can be said of great playwrights, who write in a way that invites you to listen to …

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Culture PQ Poem

Homewood Poem

by Doralee Brooks

Stranahan, steepest hill in Homewood, pulls my primary-school bones like iron filings across an etch-a-sketch from Belmar at the top to flat Apple Street running across its base near 7101, Mystery Manor. Bought by Woogie Harris, the gangster banker, in the 30’s. In rabbit fur maxi-coats, chinchilla-draped shoulders, jewel-studded t-straps, and wingtips, people stepped from …

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History

An Overdue Obituary – The McKeesport Daily News

by Tom Waseleski

When I was growing up in Elizabeth, a small town in the Mon Valley, and uncles, aunts and neighbors learned that I wanted to write for a newspaper, I would hear this common refrain: “Maybe you can work for The Daily News.” Although my sights were set elsewhere, I knew their words were less about …

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Books Culture

Small-town Characters Drive “Wings & Other Things”

by Fred Shaw

Story endings can be famously tricky to land, with Hemingway once claiming he wrote 39 different endings to A Farewell to Arms. Yet, when the writer Chauna Craig delves into the messy lives of her female protagonists, the resolution happens so effortlessly it can feel like sleight of hand. The Indiana University of Pennsylvania professor’s …

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Culture PQ Poem

February Night

by Ralph Culver

—for Hil Winter rain drummingthe pond ice beyond the gate.One light burns overthe stove, bright enough that hecan make out the easy drift of her hip slopinginto the turned-down blanket.The warm length of her.The warm length of heragainst him. Cold rains. He feeds the fire.

Arts Culture

Pittsburgh Opera’s “Ariodante” – A Sublime Marriage of the 18^th and 21^st Centuries

by Stuart Sheppard

Nearly a century ago, the iconoclastic dramatist Bertolt Brecht wrote that “Since it is precisely for its backwardness that the opera-going public adores opera, an influx of new types of listener with new appetites has to be reckoned with; and so it is.” This is a felicitous way to describe what Pittsburgh Opera has done …

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Books Culture

Fitting into West Virginia

by Fred Shaw

In writing, place can be both problematic and inspirational. Take James Joyce’s troubled relationship with his Irish homeland. Ireland’s Catholic, nationalist values were reasons enough for him to never enter his native land after 1912. And though he died in 1941, his masterpieces remain redolent of Dublin. In her captivating debut memoir, Another Appalachia: Coming …

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Culture PQ Poem

When Life Could Be a Dream

by Andrena Zawinski

When American Bandstand dancersin Philly skipped across our TV screenson the pony, hip swiveled to the twist,jumped up and back in the locomotion,our Platter Pushin’ Papa in Pittsburgh’sroller arenas and high school gyms spun usonto slick dance floors for slow grindsto doo-wop love crush melodies highon falsetto and low blow of saxophone.Sent us us out on …

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PQ Poem

Poem Ending With a Line from Tomas Tranströmer (via Robin Robertson)

by John Repp

Oh to be veeringalong Baum Boulevardto the beatus via north,where the squalls of Mercer vanish for a minute, horizon a violet knife-cut, curtainof snow throbbingat the grade’s bottom—none of which you’ll know, my dear,no matter how loudthe ringing tambourines of ice.

Arts

What About Aesthetics?

by Vicky A Clark

The latest iteration of the Carnegie International dropped in the era of the pandemic. What would it say about our world situation as reflected in the work of contemporary artists? How would it fit within the historic framework of the exhibition that has been instrumental in shaping the character of the Carnegie Museum of Art? …

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