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Clive Barnes.

The British dance critic died today. He was 81, and in fragile health, but it is still a shock: it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks ago that I last saw him at a show, frail but alert, always a gentleman, always with a grand anecdote.

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Who says dance doesn’t work on video? O.K., O.K., maybe I’ve said that to some of you. Please allow me to refine such a crude pronouncement: It’s not that dance can’t work on camera, it’s that most of the dance films and videos out there are appallingly bad. And I’m not even talking about the fuzzy back-of-the-house recordings, over which the future reconstructers of the world will surely despair. Nope, I’m talking about the stuff that’s made with cameras in mind.

But, of course, there’s good stuff out there, even through the low-quality rabbit’s hole that is YouTube (Check out frequent Art.Cult contributor Jolene Chang of Saturday Matinee choreographing her PhD). Here are a few (mostly silly) things to watch while you make your Friday night plans, waste time on Facebook, do your online banking and otherwise pretend to work today. Have a great weekend, y’all.

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“Les sept planches de la ruse.” Photos by Richard Termine.

I write fortified with Riesling.

I have just been to see Compagnie 111 and Scenes de la Terre’s “Les sept planches de la ruse” (The Seven Boards of Skill) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where it had its U.S. premiere as part of the Next Wave Festival. Call it theater, call it dance, call it cirque nouveau, whatever: no matter the genre(s), this was pure, enragingly empty, well-financed international spectacle, the kind BAM specializes in all too often these days.

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The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in “Another Evening: Serenade/The Proposition.” Photo: Paul B. Goode.

For its September 25-October 1 issue, “Time Out New York” anointed “The New York 40.” Some readers wrote in, wondering why TONY’s list of movers and shakers was almost entirely monochromatic. The editor published a response, including the following:

“…for better or worse, that list is also a reflection of New York in the past dozen years—a city whose cultural elite have been mainly white. Our Top 40 was never meant to endorse that fact, but it can’t help but reflect it.”

That, um, didn’t go over so well. Angry emails began circulating. Some of those emails were forwarded to me, and I started thinking about the state of racial politics in the arts these days: what issues are artists of color facing, what do they think of Obama’s historic candidacy in relation to their own work, what frustrates them, what are they heartened by?

I was curious. So I asked. The artists I chose to interview aren’t meant to represent any kind of cultural elite (though “The Art.Cult Five” has a nice ring to it). In fact, they aren’t meant to represent anything other than themselves: five interesting artists whose work I admire and am intrigued by, and who I thought might have thoughtful things to say about art, race and the election.

They did. And then some. The piece I did for WNYC airs today at 5:50, I am told - I’ll publish it once the link becomes available (Here it is.) Meanwhile, below you’ll find more of these artists’ thoughts, and a few of mine - after all, I’m the token white girl …

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Every Friday should have a little Ralph Lemon:

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Rosas. Photos by Jack Vartoogian

So, ok, I have, maybe, from time to time, been a little bit snarky about the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, which might better be known these days as the “Greatest Hits from the Avant-Old-Garde.” Or maybe the Icons Festival. Take the title of last night’s show, for example: “Steve Reich Evening.” Come on, people.

But. This show. Is. Amazing.

It celebrates the choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s relationship with Reich’s music. Lots (way too many) choreographers use Reich. It’s hard to take most of them seriously after you get a taste of the work De Keersmaeker has done. She is a masterful artist, and the response Reich elicits in her is breathtaking. The show runs through Saturday: get thee to the Icons Festival.

American Ballet Theater has quietly announced that Natalia Osipova, a fast rising star at the Bolshoi Ballet, will join the company as a guest artist in the spring.

Rumors of this have been swirling for months (I’ve heard talk of out-and-out defection from the Bolshoi, so let’s see…), and they of course heated up after the Bolshoi’s artistic director Alexei Ratmansky jilted New York City Ballet to be ABT’s artist in residence.

I am, of course, hoping for an out-and-out arms race between the rival companies. If the opera world gets Gelb vs. Mortier (assuming Mortier ever actually makes up his mind to come to New York City Opera), why can’t we have a little fun, too? Lincoln Center already looks like a war zone - all we need is a bit of bloodshed.

Well, it ain’t a bobblehead, but:

What better way to mark the 50th anniversary of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater than with a “Revelations” Barbie Doll? Nothing says legacy like a little merchandising!

According to the order form, the doll comes in “perfectly applied stage makeup.” ‘Cause, you know, if you’re going to Wade in the Water, you need that makeup to stick.

The price? $50, naturally.

(*I know, I know, Ailey is a modern troupe - let a girl have her alliteration)

Last week, my esteemed colleague Nathan Lee blogged about Gillian Anderson’s performance in “The House of Mirth” - this of course led to a Comments conversation about the X-Files movie, and a healthy little debate sparked by Nathan’s critique of the plot’s troublesome “strain of homophobia”:

“I’ve never seen gay marriage used as a trope of evil before! And the way the movie pits the heroic/hetero Mulder/Scully paradigm against the evil/gay Russian Frankenlovers felt really unexamined, lazy, and offensive.”

I didn’t see the movie, so can’t weigh in on that discussion. But it got me thinking, again, about the troublesome strains of homophobia lurking in the performing arts.

Venus (Joshua Cruz) gives Deity (Glenn Davis) the business in “Wig Out!” Photo by Carol Rosegg

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Last night at the Duo Multicultural Arts Center in the East Village I caught the premiere of an amazing multi-media performance piece from choreographer Keely Garfield. The piece, Eva Potranspiration Cloud 9, features herself, her partner Brandin Steffensen and her daughter Vivian Ra. The three performers use simple found objects like fluorescent light tubes, trash can lids, and ironing boards to transform the theater into both living room and world stage.

Eva is the third installment in an ongoing performance cycle Garfield is working on. Here is a video of the second part First Attempt

I spoke with Garfield to learn more about what exactly is going on here…

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