Five Stories/Trends From This Week’s ArtsJournal: How The Arts Speak To Real Life
This Week: Why is it so hard to tell if American theatre is thriving or not?… Have art and technology had a falling out?… Perhaps TV is the solution to our political polarization… The music industry seems to be finally getting it together… A cautionary tale about getting swallowed up by the online world.
Should The Minnesota Orchestra Start Looking For A Successor To Osmo Vanska?
“Much remains uncertain about the future, with orchestras everywhere battling to stop declining attendance figures. In these rapidly evolving circumstances, the relatively short three-year extension to music director Osmo Vänskä’s contract, announced in May 2015, was probably the sensible option for management and conductor. It does, though, snap sharply into focus the real possibility that Vänskä could be gone by August 2019.”
Images Of Los Angeles That Go Far Beyond The Postcards
“In the photographs of Anthony Hernandez, there are no swaying palm trees or cinematic sunsets. Instead, for half a century, this born-and-bred Angeleno has trained his unblinking lens on another L.A. — a city of the aged, of the working class, of the destitute.”
Jordanian Writer About To Stand Trial For A Cartoon Is Shot Dead Outside Of Court
“Hattar, a Christian, was arrested on August 13 after posting a caricature on his Facebook account that depicted a bearded man in heaven smoking in bed with women, asking God to bring him wine and cashews.”
Baby Boomers Are Returning To The Movies, Reshaping Cinema Again
“More than the actual films though, it is the surrounding experience at the cinema that is pulling this generation through the doors. ‘Event cinema’, such as live-streamed ballet and opera, ‘is particularly valued’ by older people.”
San Francisco Might Want To Push This Woman Out Of Museum Management – But She’s Not Ready To Go
“Her coal eyes flashed when she was asked to identify the anonymous wag who had told a reporter her run had come to an end. ‘I have no idea, and I’d like to kill them,’ Ms. Wilsey said. No one was going to run her out, she added. She would remain, overseeing politics and fund-raising. And to her detractors she would like to say: ‘You will look like a bunch of idiots. And I am going to laugh myself silly.'”
Is The Era Of The Nightclub Over?
“Even though an estimated half of venues have closed within the past decade, dance music industry figures insisted the scene is in rude health, with people instead choosing all-day events in parks, raves in pop-up spaces and festivals for their weekly freakout.”
Fort Worth Symphony Cancels All Concerts Through Early November
“The musicians, who are represented by the American Federation of Musicians Local 72-147, lambasted management’s decision to cancel concerts scheduled for more than a month away.”
Can An Old Dance Theatre Do New Tricks?
“The theater looks a certain way, the curtain goes up on a company, and whatever happens on a stage can be vastly different from week to week. However, the experience itself of attending the Joyce has grown to be somewhat regular, and this is a way to challenge that.”
What Happens When A Novel You’ve Been Working On For Seven Years Finally Gets Published?
Yaa Gyasi: “This novel was an attempt for me to say: We cannot look away when something like this is happening. We can’t look away. We don’t get to.”
An Explainer: Why Your Social Media Feeds Exploded With Grief Over The Great British Bake Off
“Contestants never say things like ‘I didn’t come here to make friends.’ There are no irritating product placements and — perhaps most incomprehensibly to American audiences — no material riches to be won. That’s right: The winner of ‘The Great British Baking Show’ wins a title and an engraved cake stand, and that’s it.”
Is This Quiet Rule Change A Death Knell For Canadian TV And Movies – And Actors?
“I began thinking about the ship of Theseus. The vessel in question was an ancient Greek ship kept afloat for generations by the replacement of any rotting plank and it is famous as a philosophical paradox: If every plank has been replaced, is it still the same ship?”
The International Ambassador For Louisiana Roots Music
“Dural took up the accordion in 1978 and founded Buckwheat Zydeco a year later. In 30 years of touring and recording he took zydeco to unexpected physical and musical places. From his take on Bob Dylan’s ‘A Night Like This’ for Australian TV in the ’80s, to ‘Hey Joe’ on David Letterman’s Late Show in the ’90s, to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in May, Dural was a welcoming presence who made his audiences happy.”
An Actor Who Had To Hide Her Pregnancy Is Now A Break-Out Star In ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’
“I’m sick to death of being asked to go on panels about why there aren’t more women in the industry. We all know there aren’t enough. It’s time we stopped saying, ‘Isn’t it a shame?’ I want to see actual physical change.”
The First U.S. Dancer To Train In Cuba This Millennium
“I love the culture here. … The kids here enter into the school to become ballet dancers. They’re not doing it for a hobby so therefore the training is really, really intense.”
Bug-Infested Zombie Partisans, Or, What T.V. Tells Us About Our Politics
“When you talk about the Democrats and the Republicans and Trump and Clinton and Bernie Sanders, inevitably, conversations blow up, and people become enraged. If you’re talking about Game of Thrones, you can use it essentially as a language that everybody speaks, that you discuss those same things, and not end all your friendships.”
Award-Winning Inuit Artist Found Dead At 46
“Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna offered his condolences to Pootoogook’s family Friday afternoon on Twitter. And Nunavut MP Hunter Tootoo tweeted that Canada has ‘lost great artist & great woman.'”
How ‘Thelma And Louise’ Changed Geena Davis’ Life
“I go to meetings at the guilds and networks and studios and production companies and present the research in a private and collegial way. And the reaction is fantastic, because they’re shocked and horrified, and they want to make change.”
When Margaret Atwood Rewrites Shakespeare
“Shakespeare refuses to be boxed in. Not only do we know very little about what he really thought, felt and believed, but the plays themselves are elusive. Just when you think you’ve got a meaning nailed down, your interpretation melts like jelly and you’re left scratching your head. Maybe he’s deep, very deep. Or maybe he didn’t have a continuity editor. And Shakespeare will never turn up on a talkshow and be asked to explain himself, the lucky devil.”
Is This The Golden Age Of Playwriting?
“Or … is something else true? Is it actually a bear market? Is our theatre in a moment of peril?”
Trending On AJ
Premium AJ Classifieds
Director of Development – Eugene O’Neill Theater Center
Connecticut's award-winning Eugene O'Neill Theater Center -- a launchpad for the next generation of American theater since 1964 -- seeks a passionate, experience development professional for its next … [Read More...]
Managing Director – Druid Theatre Company
Druid Theatre Company wishes to fill the position of Managing Director and seeks applications from suitably qualified individuals. The person appointed will be an exceptional leader with key … [Read More...]
Earn your master’s degree in Arts and Culture – online or evenings at DU
Ready to advance your career in arts management? Consider deepening your knowledge through the Arts Development and Program Management at the University of Denver’s University College. Consider … [Read More...]
Managing Director, Vineyard Theatre (New York, NY)
New York’s award winning Vineyard Theatre seeks a strategic, charismatic Managing Director to advance The Vineyard as an essential home for artists to produce bold, thought-provoking theatre for a … [Read More...]
Great Opportunity: Dean of The School of Jazz at The New School
The iconic New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is looking for a gifted academic leader and outstanding administrator who is devoted to ensuring that our artist-graduates are prepared for the … [Read More...]
Director, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH seeks an experienced cultural leader to be the next Howard L. Gilman ’44 Director of the Hopkins Center for the Arts. This is an exciting opportunity to guide a … [Read More...]
Tristan Und Isolde Is The Ultimate Opera
“As well as enlarging – or perhaps subverting – the subject matter of opera, Tristan und Isolde also marked a turning point in the history of music. The opening chord in the prelude, the so-called Tristan chord, is seen by some as the beginning of modern music, introducing chromaticism, dissonance and, according to the composer Arnold Schoenberg, even atonality.”
A Century After It Was Proposed, The National Museum Of African American History And Culture Opens
”There were some who said it couldn’t happen, who said ‘you can’t do it,’ but we did it,’ said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who led the charge to make the museum a reality. ‘This place is more than a building. It is a dream come true.'”
France Announces $100 Million Fund For Middle East Cultural Preservation
“Besides appealing for sites to be protected, Francois Hollande also called for a strengthened commitment to cultural preservation that might include “intervention”, for which he gave no details. Restoration of damaged sites would also be part of his new mission, he said. So would “asylum” for some endangered works of art, a curious term, given the resistance towards accepting Syrian refugees in Europe and the Gulf States.”
Does Free Admission To Museum Change Who Comes (Or What They Do?)
“Many of those museums that have altered their admissions models have noticed a shift in visitor patterns. Attendance doubled after fees were waived to England’s national collections in 2001, said the director of London’s Natural History Museum to The Guardian. When the Dallas Museum of Art nixed its $10 admission fee, its annual attendance swelled from 498,000 to 668,000, and the institution saw a 29 percent increase in minority visitors, Fortune reported.”
Why Did Brexit Succeed? A Failure Of Philosophy
“For this continental European, it seems as if the famed British practicality didn’t quite work out this time, and the challenge came precisely from thinking that issues are always practical, forgetting that what truly matters are the foundation, the philosophy. Well-worn stereotypes say that the Germans resort to Kant and the French to Voltaire, while the Brits weigh the pros and cons (and Italians, like myself, just sing a song). But beyond the pros and cons, there are motivations, impulses, values and ideals, and ultimately that is what drives history.”
Seriously? Did China Just Pave Over The Great Wall?
“Chinese preservationists, internet users and media commentators have been incensed this week after pictures showed that officials repaired part of the Great Wall in northeast China by slapping a white substance on top of the crumbling, weathered stones.”
Are These The World’s Best New Highrises?
To qualify for “the world’s most important prize for high-rises,” buildings have to present at least 100 m (328 ft) in height and must have been completed in the previous two years.
Art Critic John Bentley Mays, 75
“His life’s work was as a critic and he was for four decades one of Canada’s great observers, interpreters and explainers of art and architecture.”
Feel Lonely A Lot? It May Be Genetic
“A large new study published online last week in the Nature journal Neuropsychopharmacology …finds that loneliness appears to be a ‘modestly heritable’ trait. A predisposition to feeling lonely may run in the family, in other words. But there’s a caveat here.”
The Trial Of George W. Bush And An Audience’s Verdict
“Don’t worry if you didn’t know the 43rd president was on trial. This was an off-Broadway verdict, the conclusion to a new play called The Trial of an American President. The trial was fiction, but the vote, from nine members of the audience chosen to be the jury, was very real.”