Question and answer interviews

The unexpurgated Clement Crisp - in memoriam

THE UNEXPURGATED CLEMENT CRISP The titan of ballet critics remembered in a scorching interview

The titan of ballet critics, who has died at 95, once agreed to be grilled - with scorching results

To the international world of ballet, Clement Crisp was the British critic to fear for half a century. Crisp's dance reviews for the Financial Times – "the pink 'un" – from 1970 until 2020 were legendary for their passionate fastidiousness about ballerinas and high style, their acuity about rising talents and the difficulties of creativity, and – often – their ferocity, when he saw something he thought a blight.

10 Questions for musician and DJ Pete Tong

10 QUESTIONS FOR PETE TONG Musician and DJ on his latest EP and his musical life thus far

On his latest EP and his musical life thus far

Perhaps appropriately, when I called Pete Tong for his 10 questions I was hungover, on the phone in a park after a night at a very good party. It’s a sign of the times that things are appearing to return to a relative normal, despite the threat of Omnicron and a precipitant winter lockdown.

theartsdesk Q&A: Low, the band - 'Structure is key in minimalism. Especially in pop minimalism'

LOW, THE BAND Q&A 'Structure is key in minimalism. Especially in pop minimalism'

Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk reveal their thoughts about recent album ‘Hey What’ and offer a gardening tip

After its mid-September release Low’s 13th studio album Hey What hit 23 on the UK’s Official Charts, their highest ranking to date. Back in early 2001, Things We Lost in the Fire topped out at number 81. Despite the increasing profile, Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk remain largely autonomous. There’s the odd change of bass player, label or producer, but their work together as Low is self-determined. They do what they want, and they define Low.

'A nun destroyed my tent': artist Kate Daudy talks about NFTs, refugees, and having her work thrown out with the trash

'A NUN DESTROYED MY TENT' Artist Kate Daudy on her work with refugees, and her first NFT

The artist's first 'Non-Fungible Token' goes live as part of a new online exhibition

It’s been a turbulent week for British artist Kate Daudy. Am I My Brother’s Keeper, her refugee tent (main picture), the art installation and seminal work that propelled her to international fame is gone, thrown out with the trash.

"A nun destroyed the tent," Daudy explains. The work, a UNHCR tent embroidered with words and pictures, was being stored at a convent in Spain where it was unintentionally thrown into a skip. It’s a big loss.

Documenting the unimaginable: photographer Sebastião Salgado talks about climate change, dodging caimans and changing perspectives

How does Western behaviour risk turning the Amazonian paradise into a hell?

Sebastião Salgado has carved out his career by documenting the unimaginable. He takes areas of life all too often ignored by wealthy westerners and reveals them in mesmerising, teeming detail.

RIP dancer and photographer Colin Jones - obituary

RIP COLIN JONES The George Orwell of photojournalism who married ballerina Lynn Seymour

Dubbed the George Orwell of photojournalism, Jones married Lynn Seymour

In the ballet world, Colin Jones, who died on 22 September aged 85, was famous for being married, for a while, to the great Royal Ballet ballerina Lynn Seymour, during his brief career as a dancer with the company. In the wider world, however, Jones was renowned as a photographer of unusual empathy and social conscience, as well as a striking eye. A Sunday Times critic once described him as "the George Orwell of photojournalism".

10 Questions for writer Lucia Osborne-Crowley

LUCIA OSBORNE-CROWLEY The author of 'My Body Keeps Your Secrets' on trauma and community 

The author of 'My Body Keeps Your Secrets' on trauma, shame and community

Anyone familiar with psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s bestseller The Body Keeps the Score (2014) will recognise the ghost of his title in Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s My Body Keeps Your Secrets. His book is an essential text for understanding the physiological changes wrought by trauma and the techniques that work to recalibrate body, mind and brain in its aftermath. Through a blend of memoir and reportage, Osborne-Crowley explores the same subject while indicating her own emphasis: the experience, and grammar, of shame.

theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Marco Kreuzpaintner

FILMMAKER MARCO KREUZPAINTNER On Germany, the Nazis, justice and the law

What his new film 'The Collini Case' says about Germany, the Nazis, justice and the law

In 2011, Ferdinand von Schirach’s novel Der Fall Collini (The Collini Case) was published, its narrative of crime and punishment inspired by a law passed in Germany in 1968. Promoted by Dr Eduard Dreher, a former Nazi-era prosecutor who served in the post-1945 West German justice ministry along with many fellow ex-Nazis, this law was in effect an amnesty for murders committed during the Third Reich era.

theartsdesk Q&A: writer and comedian Tom Davis

THE ARTSDESK Q&A: WRITER AND COMEDIAN TOM DAVIS From singing Disney songs in drag to 'Murder in Successville' and BBC One's 'King Gary'

From singing Disney songs in drag to 'Murder in Successville' and BBC One's 'King Gary'

After leaving school at 14, Tom Davis spent 10 years working as a scaffolder on building sites, while always harbouring what he thought was the impossible dream of getting into comedy. Hailing from Sutton in south London, he had a go at standup and for a time found himself in drag, singing Disney songs. His luck changed when his childhood friend James De Frond got a job on Leigh Francis’s sketch show Bo’ Selecta.