What makes a choreographer great? This has been the question plaguing the dance world for the last thirty or so years. Is it their feeling for music, the originality of their combinations, the world they create?

Perhaps it lies in a name. On a screen near the back of the stage at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre last Thursday was projected, in bold letters, PAM TANOWITZ. Taking my seat, I couldn’t help but think of other similarly four-syllabled choreographers: George Bal-an-chine, Jer-o

“Dancing was about learning to disassociate,” the narrator of Lola Lafon’s 2022 novel Reeling informs us early on. “Feet like daggers, wrists like ribbons. Power and languor. Smiling despite persistent pain, smiling despite nausea.” This declaration, only five or so pages in, strikes as piercingly as the daggers Lafon imagines for feet. What in this compulsion towards violence, I wondered, is so imperative when telling a story about dance? Scarcely a narrative arises that is not characterized by

is a master’s student at the University of Cambridge, England. Phoebe’s worked at InkWell Management and the, where her piece "In a Lonely Place: On Gaito Gazdanov's An Evening with Claire" was published in November 2021. She’s originally from New York.

Happy Scary Aries season! The first (and best) sign of the zodiac ushers in the start of a new astrological year. Mercury also enters Aries on the 27th, officially leaving the murkiness of Pisces behind. Remember to read for your rising sign. Ram on!

Aries (21 March – 20 April) With both the Sun and Mercury in your first house of self, all eyes are sure to be on you. You might feel more daring than usual or meet circumstances that require you to be bold—nothing an Aries like you can’t handle.

Happy Aquarius season! Omicron is here and so is Mercury retrograde. The planet of communication has been travelling backward through Aquarius from January 13th to February 3rd, ensuring chaos and disruption for all. Go give birth to dancing stars! Remember to always read for your rising sign, which you can find by putting your birth place, date, and time into a birth chart calculator like Cafe Astrology.

As Mercury goes retrograde in your 11th house of technology and friends, you might be revi

ALONG THE STORIED HALLS of Russian literature, the call of the name Gaito Gazdanov had, for many decades, elicited little more than a faintly alliterated echo. With the publication of Gazdanov’s 1930 debut novel, An Evening with Claire, Pushkin Press and translator Bryan Karetnyk beckon us closer to that resonant echo, the voice of a haunting and haunted author often compared to Nabokov and Proust but really dwelling in a room entirely his own. Who is this Gazdanov?He answers in spades: bargeman

Boo! It’s Scorpio season. The biggest bits of astrology happening over the next few weeks are the new moon in Scorpio on November fourth, and Venus entering Capricorn on the fifth. Remember to always read for your rising sign, which you can find by putting your birth date, time, and place into any online birth chart generator.

Aries (21 March–20 April) With the new moon entering your eighth house of sex, death, and transformation, expect to feel emotional as fuck. As Venus enters your tenth hou