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Culture

Essays and videos on the arts, literature, travel, rituals and celebrations
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Stories and literature

The real Miss Julie

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

Elisabeth Åsbrink

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Thinkers and theories

Dancing and time

For Rachel Bespaloff, philosophy was a sensual activity shaped by the rhythm of history, embodied in an instant of freedom

Isabel Jacobs

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Dance and theatre

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

16 minutes

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Dance and theatre

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

13 minutes

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Biotechnology

What it’s like to wear a prosthetic that ‘feels’

6 minutes

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Dance and theatre

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

4 minutes

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Dance and theatre

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

7 minutes

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Dance and theatre

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

7 minutes

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Wellbeing

A unique theatre performance explores what touch means in an age of lockdown

17 minutes

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Architecture

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

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Dance and theatre

Close-up on kabuki – the colourful ‘pure entertainment’ of Japan’s Edo period

31 minutes

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Music

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

20 minutes

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Dance and theatre

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

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Dance and theatre

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

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Dance and theatre

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

6 minutes

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Future of technology

Ceramic coral reefs and sawdust houses – the architects 3D-printing the future from scratch

4 minutes

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Dance and theatre

How dancing helps me think, and thinking helps me dance

Glory M Liu

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Dance and theatre

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

Kimerer LaMothe

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Neuroscience

Acting changes the brain: it’s how actors get lost in a role

Christian Jarrett

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Dance and theatre

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

Sharon Marcus

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Dance and theatre

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

Kimerer LaMothe

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Dance and theatre

How ballerinas defy the corporeal in a quest for the ethereal

Olivia Campbell

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Dance and theatre

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

14 minutes

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Personality

Is acting hazardous? On the risks of immersing oneself in a role

Samuel Kampa