Sallie Wilson, whose performances with American Ballet Theater during the 1960s and ’70s established her as one of America’s finest dramatic ballerinas, died on Sunday at her home in Manhattan. She was 76.The cause was cancer, said Diana Byer, artistic director of New York Theater Ballet, the company Ms. Wilson worked with most recently.
Ms. Wilson’s strong stage presence made her every role vivid, whether in classics or in modern ballets by Antony Tudor, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins or Alvin Ailey. In 1979, Jennifer Dunning, writing in The New York Times, said that Ms. Wilson had “etched herself indelibly on the consciousness of the New York balletgoing public.”
She was especially praised in the works of Antony Tudor, the great British choreographer of dramatic ballets who came to New York in 1940 and was long associated with Ballet Theater, now American Ballet Theater.
[SNIP]
Ms. Wilson always believed in total involvement in roles, even if the part was as an extra in a Wagner opera. “At the Met, I once had to stand still for 45 minutes as Tannhäuser’s page,” she once said.
“As far as I’m concerned, if you’re on stage in a ballet, you’re doing dancing,” she said on another occasion. “Any movement or non-movement on stage is dance.”
Archive for April, 2008
Sallie Wilson
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008Solar Sunday
Sunday, April 27th, 2008Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.
MIT speeds up Solar Technology
Promising to transform solar power from a “boutique” option to an affordable, dependable, mainstream energy solution, MIT and the Chesonis Family Foundation today launched a “solar revolution” with the ultimate aim of making solar energy America’s primary carbon-free fuel.The Solar Revolution Project (SRP), funded by a $10 million gift from the Foundation, will explore new materials and systems that could dramatically accelerate the availability of solar energy. The SRP will complement and interact closely with other large solar projects at MIT, creating one of the largest solar energy clusters at any research university.
The Chesonis gift will allow MIT to explore bold approaches that are essential for transforming the solar industry. Specifically, it will focus on three elements –capture, conversion and storage — that will ultimately make solar power a viable, near-term energy source.
“Solar is thought of as an ultimate energy technology off in the distant future. The goal of SRP is to move this timeframe nearer to the present. The SRP will make solar a practical alternative, by committing a 10-year timeframe for establishing the new base of scientific knowledge it will take to draw a market-competitive energy supply from the sun,” said Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry at MIT, who will direct the SRP. “With SRP, think ’solar’ and think ‘now.’ This is the revolution that is implied in the project name.”
The Queensland University of Technology recently announced that it has been working with Dyesol to develop an innovative solar cell technology that re-envisions windows as clear, clean energy providers. Professor John Bell has said that these dye-infused solar cells would significantly reduce building energy costs, and could even generate surplus energy to be stored or sold. The development has been touted as the most promising advance in solar cell technology since the invention of the silicon cell.Modern architecture has a love-hate relationship with windows: they contribute light and levity to interior spaces, yet they are the most frequently cited culprits for thermal energy loss. Traditional approaches to the problem have tended towards increasing insular ability, however this new development would imbue windows with power producing capabilities, actually providing energy instead of leaking it.
Dyesol’s solar cells use an innovative technology called “artificial photosynthesis”, wherein a dye analogous to chlorophyll absorbs light to generate electricity. The panels are composed of “an electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste), and ruthenium dye sandwiched between glass. Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current.”
With California utilities expanding rapidly into renewables, the Mojave Desert is one of the hottest spots for solar energy. Last year, plans for the world’s largest solar array got underway in this ideal energy harvesting setting and the latest news is just as groundbreaking. Pacific Gas and Electric recently signed the world’s largest solar deal to date, teaming up with BrightSource Energy to produce three new solar-thermal electric plants for a whopping 500 megawatts of clean green power. The $2 to $3 billion dollar deal provides options for additional plants (up to 900 megawatts total), which would be enough to power 375,000 Californian homes!California law currently requires PG&E to produce 20% of its power via renewable sources by 2010, which is one of the factors driving this deal. The energy giant has been hard at work signing contracts, diversifying its renewable portfolio to include solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, and hydroelectric sources. Fong Wan, vice president of energy procurement, states “Solar-thermal energy is an especially attractive renewable power source because it is available when needed most in California – during the peak mid-day summer period.”
What could be more refreshing than casting off your carbon shackles with a bunch of solar balloons? Our favorite environmental architect visionary, Joseph Cory, of Geotectura has seized this dream with an award winning way to take solar energy to the skies. He’s teamed up with Technion aerospace engineer Dr. Pini Gurfil to develop an an array of helium filled platforms constructed from a new fabric coated with photovoltaic solar cells. Dubbed Sunhope, the project is showing great promise as a low-cost deployable system that would harness solar energy while maintaining a minuscule environmental footprint.
I keep forgetting to announce show openings here
Friday, April 18th, 2008
Camino Real plays up at Columbia through this weekend.
Lighting the Times
Friday, April 18th, 2008
No time like the last minute
Monday, April 14th, 2008I just got offered a really interesting gig in New Jersey for a show that opens next week. Dovetailing perfectly with my schedule for Camino Real that I am lighting up at Columbia(opens Wednesday).
Oh yeah, and I have several lightplots due for upcoming shows.
So much for today being a “day off.”
Those shows just magically sort of happen don't they?
Sunday, April 13th, 2008This is too awesome to wait until Sunday
Monday, April 7th, 2008Luxim labs recently unveiled an incredibly energy efficient light bulb that packs more luminosity than a street lamp into a pill-sized form factor. Each bulb is filled with argon gas, which turns to plasma when electricity is focused through it. The energy is driven to the bulb without electrodes. The resulting light is intensely bright and mirrors the quality of light radiated by the sun, yet is produced by one of the smallest, most energy efficient light sources we’ve seen.Luxim, Pill bulb, tiny pill light bulb plasma bulb, halodes, super bright light bulb, eco lighting, green lighting, sustainable lighting, energy efficient lighting, lumen, pill-sized plasma bulb, argon gas, super-bulb, LED, light bulb
A substantial portion of energy is converted into light instead of heat, which makes the bulbs highly efficient. Each super-bulb produces a stunning 140 lumens per watt, doubling the output of high-end LEDs (70 lumens per watt) and leaving standard light bulbs in the dust (15 lumens per watt). While cost and longevity have yet to be released, these brilliant bulbs represent a bright future for energy efficient lighting.
The Economics of Freedom
Monday, April 7th, 2008The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.Our digital communication network has been engineered so that copies flow with as little friction as possible. Indeed, copies flow so freely we could think of the internet as a super-distribution system, where once a copy is introduced it will continue to flow through the network forever, much like electricity in a superconductive wire. We see evidence of this in real life. Once anything that can be copied is brought into contact with internet, it will be copied, and those copies never leave. Even a dog knows you can’t erase something once it’s flowed on the internet.
[SNIP]
From my study of the network economy I see roughly eight categories of intangible value that we buy when we pay for something that could be free.
In a real sense, these are eight things that are better than free. Eight uncopyable values. I call them “generatives.” A generative value is a quality or attribute that must be generated, grown, cultivated, nurtured. A generative thing can not be copied, cloned, faked, replicated, counterfeited, or reproduced. It is generated uniquely, in place, over time. In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.
Solar Sunday
Sunday, April 6th, 2008Solar Sunday is my weekly roundup of renewable energy and energy efficiency news from around the web.
Food, the original solar powered fuel
With the UK’s chief scientist warming of a looming food crisis, and with consumers around the world changing their eating habits in the face of increasing prices, the need to find alternatives to our current food system becomes ever more pressing. TreeHugger is a big fan of urban food production and community gardening, so it’s unsurprising that we were excited to read about ambitious efforts in the UK town of Middlesborough to turn public space into productive land:Middlesbrough borough council turned over parkland, town-centre planters and other landholdings for fruit and vegetable growing. The eight-month project culminated in a town meal outside the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, where up to 8,000 people shared meals from the food that had been grown.
This year, Middlesbrough plans to supply seeds and containers to anyone interested, and already has 2,000 individuals and groups lined up, including 31 out of 51 schools, with 280 growing sites. “This has caught people’s imagination. But we’ve gone beyond novelty now and people want to make it a mainstream activity,” says Ian Collingwood, a regeneration consultant at the council.
While high-tech food growing solutions like vertical farming, underground agriculture, and aquaponics may have great potential in meeting the challenge of feeding the world, we suspect that projects like this one that simply reconnect people with the skills to feed themselves will be at least as important as we navigate our way out of the era of cheap food.
A new definition of Eco-Tourism
Environmentally conscious visitors to Shanghai who are looking for the luxury experience can stay carbon-free and enjoy green living on the go at URBN Hotels. Designed to attract ‘urban world travelers’, the 28-room full-service hotel fuses Western and Chinese influences and a host of green-minded practices to create an urban eco-oasis for tourist and business travelers. From the building’s design and materials to cleaning products to energy-efficiency, URBN Hotels is an eco-friendly refuge amid the bustle of Shanghai.The building design used an existing structure and locally sourced materials such as reclaimed hardwoods and old Shanghai bricks. Passive solar shades, rain water retention basins and water-based air conditioning have been used to decrease the hotel’s environmental impact. For the health and wellbeing of each guest, 6 square meters of green is space allocated per person, low-VOC paints used and interiors are cleaned with environmentally sensitive products.
What carbon emissions the hotel does produce – such as staff travel, stock deliveries and the energy consumed by each guest – will be tracked and offset by investing in clean energy development and energy efficiency projects elsewhere in China. Guests can also buy international standard carbon credits from the hotel to offset their flights.
Economic factors influenced the decision to introduce green measures, as the hotel will be cheaper to run in the long term. Over the next three years, 20 URBN hotels and resorts are set to open in Beijing, Hangzhou, Dalian, and Suzhou, containing up to 70 rooms each.
Officials of 18 states are taking the EPA back to court to try to force it to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that rebuked the Bush administration for inaction on global warming.In a petition prepared for filing Wednesday, the plaintiffs said last April’s 5-4 ruling required the Environmental Protection Agency to decide whether to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide, from motor vehicles.
The EPA has instead done nothing, they said.
“The EPA’s failure to act in the face of these incontestable dangers is a shameful dereliction of duty,” Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley said.
The petition asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to require the EPA to act within 60 days.
In last year’s decision, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA has the authority to regulate emissions from new cars and trucks under the Clean Air Act, and said the reasons the EPA gave for declining to do so were insufficient.
As gas prices continue to soar to record highs, motorists are crying out for an alternative that won’t cramp their pocketbooks.Scientists at U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are answering that call by working to chemically manipulate algae for production of the next generation of renewable fuels – hydrogen gas.
“We believe there is a fundamental advantage in looking at the production of hydrogen by photosynthesis as a renewable fuel,” senior chemist David Tiede said. “Right now, ethanol is being produced from corn, but generating ethanol from corn is a thermodynamically much more inefficient process.”
Some varieties of algae, a kind of unicellular plant, contain an enzyme called hydrogenase that can create small amounts of hydrogen gas. Tiede said many believe this is used by Nature as a way to get rid of excess reducing equivalents that are produced under high light conditions, but there is little benefit to the plant.
Tiede and his group are trying to find a way to take the part of the enzyme that creates the gas and introduce it into the photosynthesis process.
The result would be a large amount of hydrogen gas, possibly on par with the amount of oxygen created.
Portable green power sources are steadily gaining momentum as alternative energy tech gears up to help shoulder the strain of our overloaded energy grids. This recently released generator, dubbed the PowerCube 6000, is showing plenty of potential as an all-inclusive clean energy system. Whether you’re greening your home’s energy sources, preparing for an emergency, or opening up a Black Rock smoothie stand, the PowerCube offers an enticing (if expensive) way to break free from the grid.
