THE MAGAZINE
Étoile: What Does it Mean to Put Dance on Screen?
Television keeps trying to bottle the world of ballet, and most attempts slip through the frame. In this article, TWoA looks at Étoile and why a series filled with extraordinary dancers still couldn’t capture movement, risk, or the pulse that keeps artists glued to old rehearsal clips. Read on for a clear look at what televised dance needs—and why so few shows manage it.
From Berlin with Love: Gods and Dogs
Berlin’s Festival of Lights floods the city with colour, but inside the Staatsoper the evening turns darker, sharper, and more human. In this article, TWoA follows a night with Staatsballett Berlin as Kylián’s Gods and Dogs and Crystal Pite’s Angels’ Atlas trace loneliness, community, and the uneasy politics humming beneath the surface. Read on for more.
Anastasia Cheplyansky, Dutch National Ballet: “Studying While Dancing Brought a Lot of Balance Into My Life.”
Balancing a dance career with an academic degree sounds impossible until you hear Anastasia Cheplyansky explain how she did both. In this article, TWoA looks at her path from Atlanta Ballet to Dutch National Ballet, and how studying psychology reshaped her approach to training, pressure, and performance.
A Murderous Artist Pardoned by the Pope: Benvenuto Cellini and the Art of Punishment
Renaissance artist Benvenuto Cellini was an award-winning goldsmith and sculptor lauded by Pope Clement VII—and also a man who killed more than once. He supposedly decapitated his brother’s murderer and stabbed his rival Pompeo de Capitaneis to death. Did he receive the punishment he deserved? No. Read on to find out why.
Minimalist Music: The Joy of Repetition
Minimalist music sounds simple until you learn how to listen to it. In this article, TWoA looks at why composers like Steve Reich turned repetition into motion, texture, and quiet transformation—and how one piece, Music for 18 Musicians, can change the way you hear your own everyday routines.
Of Fields and Feelings: A Brief History of Landscape Art
For centuries, landscapes were mere backdrops—symbolic, sublime, or decorative. But in the nineteenth century, a revolution took place. Through the Barbizon School and the Impressionists, landscapes captured internal and external reality, sealing transitory beams of light, atmosphere, and sensation into eternity. Read the article to find out more.
A Life in Dance: Back to School Book Recommendations
As the school year begins, reading lists shift from summer novels to the books that shape a creative life. In this article, TWoA highlights three essential titles—Allegra Kent’s memoir, Twyla Tharp’s creative guide, and The Swans of Harlem—each revealing what it really takes to build a career in dance and the arts.
What is the Music of the Spheres?
The idea that the universe is built on harmony isn’t just poetic—it’s ancient philosophy, from Boethius to Kepler. In this article, TWoA traces how “the music of the spheres” shaped astronomy, theology, and the way we still imagine order in the cosmos. Read on to discover why the universe, in theory, has always been singing.
From London with Love: The Art of the Market
Auctions, galleries, dealers—the art world’s holy trinity. But behind Bond Street’s polished façades lies a performance of sleight, spectacle, and subtle inflation. Read our newest Letter from London to discover what truly happens when masterpieces change hands.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Just Went Live: TwoSet Violin and the Magic of Livestreamed Classical Performances
TwoSet Violin’s livestreamed Tchaikovsky and Sibelius concertos look nothing like a traditional recital—but their chaotic, global, hyper-interactive audience comes surprisingly close to how people once listened to classical music. Discover how YouTube, live chat, and 50,000 viewers revive a forgotten history of noisy, communal, joy-driven performance.
Guest Artist: Danya Adriana, 17, Malaysia
Seventeen-year-old Malaysian painter Danya Adriana turns heritage, architecture, and city life into bold abstract worlds. Read on to see Malaysia through her eyes.
Ballet Across the Globe: Rudolf Nureyev and the Paris Opera Ballet
Rudolf Nureyev’s tenure at the Paris Opera Ballet didn’t just add new ballets to the repertoire—it transformed the company’s technique, taste, and identity. Read more to see how his directorship reshaped French classicism, expanded the repertory, and forged a generation of dancers who still define the company today.
A Brief Introduction to the Wonderful World of Classical Saxophone
The saxophone isn’t just jazz and pop culture. In this guide, TWoA traces the instrument’s overlooked classical history—from concerti and quartets to the pioneering players shaping the repertoire today.
The Art of Conversation: From the Private Salon to the Public Art Cafe
What began as aristocratic salons now lives on in bookstores, cafés, and pop-up lectures. TWoA charts the art café’s transformation—and why we still crave spaces built on talk and ideas.
From Istanbul with Love: Where Are You Understood?
From Beyoğlu’s streets to Anna Laudel’s galleries, Melis traces her shift from student to curator in this TWoA City Letter—and explores what it means to create, belong, and be understood.
Guest Artist: Long YuJun, Tokyo University of the Arts
Guest artist Long YuJun explores gender and sexual diversity through a deeply personal, emotional lens, using texture, fragment, and colour to question fixed identity. Read on.
Gilles Rico, Stage Director: “I Consider Myself First and Foremost a Storyteller.”
What really shapes an opera—is it simply the music, or also the eye that decides how a performance should be seen? Stage director Gilles Rico sits down with TWoA to explain how ideas, images, and instincts give a production its spine. Read on.
The Secret World of Musical Spies
What kind of person makes a good spy? Four hundred and fifty years ago, Europe’s spymasters had an unexpected answer: musicians. In this TWoA feature, uncover how composers and court performers slipped across borders, carried coded messages, and became unlikely agents in a world of secrecy.
From London with Love: The Power of Abstraction
Why does abstraction make us pause, tilt our heads, and fall silent? In this TWoA letter from London, Louisa traces a journey through Tate Modern—Mondrian, Malevich, Choucair, Pollock, Rothko—to ask how abstraction helps us see a changing world differently. Read on.
Interview: Zenaida Yanowsky, Coach and Former Principal Dancer, The Royal Ballet
For many years, Zenaida Yanowsky was one of The Royal Ballet’s most singular principals—rigorous, magnetic, impossible to forget. Now a coach shaping dancers across major companies, she speaks with TWoA about precision, presence, and the quiet authority behind great performance. Read on.