Forward.com

Bodies in Motion, Separate SolitudesHow does dance begin? “You are who you are. Your spirit received a certain body because you were chosen to,” said choreographer Noa Sagie, 24. “Just accept it. Take what you have and do what you can with it. The magic is discovering you can do anything you want with it. But if you don’t have anything to say, don’t go onstage.”…Read more

Book Challenges Old Myths and Uncovers New Surprises About Famed QuartetOlivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time,” which premiered in Stalag VIIIA on the Polish-German border in sub-zero weather in January 1940, has become one of the most acclaimed and performed works of the 20th century. In May alone, there are two major performances scheduled in New York: one by Mitsuko Uchida & Friends at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall on May 17, and another at Town Hall on May 5 by Peter Serkin, who for this concert has reconstituted the quartet he founded nearly 40 years ago specifically to play this music.…Read more

Much to Atone For, Munich Makes AmendsCharlotte Knobloch, president of Germany’s Jewish community and one of only about 100 surviving Munich residents who returned after World War II, used to keep a suitcase packed at all times — ready to escape should antisemitism force her out again. Of course this city, the capital of prosperous Bavaria, is both enormously wealthy and one of Germany’s most distinguished cultural centers. For Jews, however, it will always be impossible to forget that this was the nursery of Nazism.…Read more

The OutsidersFew great writers have been as lionized and as vilified as Oscar Wilde. An Irishman who sought to be embraced by English society, he quickly became one of England’s most in-demand celebrities and one of the world’s most-produced and most-translated writers, only to be sentenced to prison for homosexuality — or, more correctly, bisexuality — and shunned by that society whose favor he had so fervently courted.…Read more

A Distant Sound Now NearerOf the “degenerate Jews” whose work and lives were erased in the Nazi deluge, one of the most remarkable is Franz Schreker. He is also among the least known.…Read more