THE MAGAZINE
From New York with Love: Notes from the Underground
The New York subway is more than transit. From ceramic mosaics and modernist maps to hidden bronze figures and fleeting poems, Olivia Merola traces the art of moving underground through the city’s shifting narratives. Read on for more.
We Still Care: A Case for Ballet and Opera
Timothée Chalamet’s offhand remark that “no one cares” about ballet and opera sparked outrage, but it also exposed a deeper anxiety about their survival. As funding cuts, rising ticket prices, and ageing repertoires reshape the landscape of live performance, this piece asks what is really at stake when we dismiss these art forms, and why they still matter today. Read on for more.
From Seattle Grunge to the Opera Stage: “Last Days”
Can opera sound like grunge? At the Royal Opera House, Last Days, inspired by Kurt Cobain, replaces hierarchy with collaboration, silence with tension, and tradition with experiment, asking what opera can become when new voices reshape the stage. Read on for more.
Wayne McGregor: “Infinite Bodies” - Dance, Technology and the Future of the Human Body
At Somerset House, Infinite Bodies reveals how Wayne McGregor choreographs the space between dancer and machine. Through motion capture, robotics, and immersive sound, the exhibition asks what happens when the human body begins to think alongside technology.
The Trouble With Looking Back: Does Cancel Culture Extend to Artists of the Past?
At a time when anything can get you cancelled, the past, too, feels uncomfortable. Artists like Paul Gauguin sit at the centre of a growing debate: how do we confront troubling biographies without reducing their life’s work to a moral verdict? As contemporary values collide with historical realities, the question then becomes not whether we judge the past—but how. Read on for more.
"Every Faculty Used in the Worship of God": Ann Lee's Triumphant Choreography
In The Testament of Ann Lee, director Mona Fastvold tells the story of the Shaker founder through movement and music. Blending biography with experimental dance film, her work explores how Shaker worship transformed choreography into a form of spiritual devotion. Read on to learn the full story.
Bluegrass-Folk and Bach?
What happens when bluegrass meets Johann Sebastian Bach? In Bach: Sonatas and Partitas Vol. 2, mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile reimagines Bach’s iconic solo violin works through the lens of folk tradition. Far from a simple crossover, his interpretations reveal the depth, polyphonic richness, and rhythmic vitality of Bach’s music on a new instrument. Read on for more.
Why Are Egon Schiele’s Women So Uncomfortable to Look At?
For centuries, women in art were idealised, romanticised, and misseen. But Egon Schiele did something far more unsettling. He painted women not as muses or fantasies, but as psychologically present beings, fractured, guarded, and more existential than erotic. Read on for more.
An Underground Network Escape: The American Journalist Who Saved Europe’s Creatives from the Nazis
In 1940, American journalist Varian Fry arrived in Marseille with little more than a list of endangered writers, artists, and intellectuals. Over the following year, he organised an underground escape network that helped more than 2,000 refugees—including Marc Chagall, André Breton, and Marcel Duchamp—flee Nazi persecution. Operating from the Villa Air-Bel safe house, Fry and his collaborators forged documents, arranged visas, and navigated the fragile geography of occupied Europe to save some of the twentieth century’s most influential creative minds. Read on for more.
From London with Love: Is Lucian Freud Overrated?
What happens when Peggy Guggenheim sells your first paintings–and Sigmund Freud is your grandfather? Visiting Lucian Freud’s latest show at London’s National Portrait Gallery, “Drawing into Painting,” I went in curious and left underwhelmed. Read on to find out why.
Interview: Chloe Helimets, 16, Student at the Paris Opera Ballet School and Prix de Lausanne 2025 Finalist
From Prix de Lausanne finalist to student at the Paris Opera Ballet School, Chloe Helimets reflects on French technique, the legendary défilé at the Palais Garnier, and what it takes to refine speed, precision, and elegance at sixteen. Check out her exclusive interview with TWoA now.
Who Do You Dance For? Looking Into Degas’s Dancers and Ballet Itself
Were Degas’ dancers monstrous, animalistic social climbers–or misunderstood performers? TWoA reframes ballet in Degas’ oeuvre as a demanding art of movement, labour, and correction. It gives both him and his dancers the credit they are due. Read on for more.
What is Music?
Is music simply organised sound—or something more elusive? From John Cage to Christopher Small’s idea of “musicking,” we explore why the boundary between music and noise is less objective than we might hope. Read on for more.
From Berlin with Love: The Miraculous Return of a Cello Legend
Rain, empty seats, and a changed programme set the scene. What followed was a fragile, powerful encounter with Mischa Maisky—part concert, part reckoning with resilience, ageing, and what it means to return to music after the body almost gives in. Read on for more.
Singing for Peace in Jerusalem?
What happens when singing meets dialogue? Inside a Jerusalem youth choir where Israeli and Palestinian teens rehearse together, share their stories, and learn to stay in the room—especially when it’s hardest. Read on for more.
The Orchestra Does A Mic Drop: Examining Classical Pop
What happens when pop opens its doors to the orchestra? From ROSALÍA’s baroque-inflected “Berghain” to the symphonic experiments of Laufey and Cody Fry, classical pop is dissolving genre boundaries—and inviting new listeners in.
Holy Cow! A Semi-Skimmed History of Milk in Visual Culture
Milk may seem ordinary, but its visual history is anything but. From sacred nourishment and Dutch domesticity to nationalist advertising under Ronald Reagan and dystopian cinema, milk has been shaped into one of culture’s most contradictory symbols. Read on for more.
From London with Love: On Lee Miller and the End of Innocence
From Vogue photoshoots to pictures taken in Hitler’s bathtub, Lee Miller’s exhibition at Tate Britain was not what I expected. Read on to discover the erotics, travels, and violence of photography–and find out how a woman’s work defined 20th-century photography.
Conflict Resolution, Greenland Style
As geopolitical tensions once again draw global attention to Greenland, its cultural history offers a revealing counterpoint. For over four millennia, Greenlandic Inuit communities have used drum song and dance not only for ritual and social life, but also as a structured, non-violent way to resolve disputes. In a drum duel, restraint—not aggression—determined the outcome, leaving judgment to the community rather than to force.
Maestro Dudamel: A Venezuelan Saga
From Venezuela’s El Sistema to the podiums of the world’s leading orchestras, Gustavo Dudamel’s career has unfolded alongside profound political change. As he prepares to take on the leadership of the New York Philharmonic, questions about art, power, and responsibility follow close behind. This article traces Dudamel’s rise while examining the uneasy space where music, state influence, and public expectation meet.