Culture

Why the old man dances

Religious ritual to appease the gods or free expression of human agency? For the ancient Romans, dance could be both

Karin Schlapbach

The real Miss Julie

Victoria Benedictsson assumed a male identity, achieved literary stardom, and took her own life. Then Strindberg stole it

Elisabeth Åsbrink

How a Noh mask-maker summons a lifelike face from a single block of wood

16 minutes

Leaf through Shakespeare’s First Folio for a riveting journey into theatre history

13 minutes

From calluses to burnt shoes, the elegance of ballet is built from the ground up

4 minutes

Absorb the infectious rhythms of Setapa – a joyous dance from southern Africa

7 minutes

Technology, philosophy, randomness – how Merce Cunningham pushed dance to its limits

7 minutes

Acoustic naturalism

Our movies and offices are engineered to sound natural based on what rang false in the theatres of 18th-century Paris

Joseph L Clarke

The formidable female rumba group shaking up Cuba’s conservative music scene

20 minutes

Phantasia

Imagination is a powerful tool, a sixth sense, a weapon. We must be careful how we use it, in life as on stage or screen

Paul Giamatti & Stephen T Asma

To the core

A devastating loss can shatter the façade we put up for others, exposing our deepest, rawest self. A work of art can do the same

Julia F Christensen

Dancers tumble in and out of love as the ground spins beneath their feet

6 minutes

How dancing helps me think, and thinking helps me dance

Glory M Liu

For Nietzsche, life’s ultimate question was: ‘Does it dance?’

Kimerer LaMothe

The pandemonium of modern celebrity began in 19th-century theatre

Sharon Marcus

The dancing species: how moving together in time helps make us human

Kimerer LaMothe

How ballerinas defy the corporeal in a quest for the ethereal

Olivia Campbell

Classical ballet transforms into a dance of the surreal in this duet from 1968

14 minutes