“Touring plays, musicals, operas, ballets and dance productions will receive a tax credit, in the form of cash back, worth 25% of their costs, while all new non-touring shows will be entitled to a 20% credit.”
Archives for March 19, 2014
Why the Unplugging Movement Doesn’t Really Make Sense
“But how quickly the digital age turned into the age of technological anxiety, with our beloved devices becoming something to fear, not enjoy. What sex was for the Puritans, technology has become for us. We’ve focussed our collective anxiety on digital excess, and reconnecting with the ‘real’ world around us represents one effort to control it. … [Yet] is it any less real when we fall in love and break up over Gchat than when we get fired over e-mail and then find a new job on LinkedIn?”
Cinema Needs Short Films – And We Need More Places to See Them
Richard Brody: “The classic device for releasing short films – the compilation film, for which filmmakers are brought together to make new work on a unifying theme – is, despite its noble pedigree, almost dead. … Good short films don’t get the attention that they deserve, which is all the more grievous as there are some terrific short films being made.”
Sundance Institute Branches Into TV
“The nonprofit Sundance Institute on Wednesday said it would begin an episodic storytelling workshop (or ‘lab’ in Sundance parlance) for writers and creators of programs for television and online platforms.”
New L.A. MoCA Director’s Plan: Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There
“Philippe Vergne says his first task as the new director of L.A.’s Museum of Contemporary Art is not to act quickly but to think and plan deeply.”
J.R.R. Tolkien’s ‘Beowulf’ Translation Will Finally See Print
“Although the author completed his own translation in 1926, he ‘seems never to have considered its publication’, said Christopher Tolkien … The book, edited by Christopher Tolkien, will also include the series of lectures Tolkien gave at Oxford about the poem in the 1930s, as well as the author’s ‘marvellous tale’, Sellic Spell.”
What’s Behind the Italian Freak-Out Over the David-With-a-Gun Ad?
Some of it is the particular way Italian law looks at culture and heritage – and some of it, of course, is about cash.
How Theatre Can Help Science (And Vice Versa)
“With this requirement [for scientists] to perform (student assessment of lecturers’ abilities is now standard), comes an increasing readiness to engage with audiences who might have little understanding of the process of science, but a lot of interest in the message of science. But theatre can engage with science in more ways than simply the technical. The key thing here is that they share a common term and a common tool – that of ‘interpretation’.”
Joseph Kerman, Musicologist and Critic, Dead at 89
Best known for his dismissal of Tosca as a “shabby little shocker” in his 1956 book Opera as Drama, Kerman “was a man of many parts: a scholar whose work on such topics as Beethoven and the Renaissance madrigal reflected deep research and study; a disciplinary gadfly who almost single-handedly changed the direction of academic musicology; a powerful and influential teacher; and a prolific public intellectual.”
The Next Big Thing in Crime Fiction? Poland
“And in a field that has been dominated by British, American and, most recently, Scandinavian writers, [Poland] seems poised to grab the attention of crime fiction fans around the world.” The secret ingredient? Poland’s tangled 20th-century history.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.19.14
Deconstructing a Revelation
AJBlog: Engaging Matters | Published 2014-03-19
The Irreverent Genius of Jeremy Denk
AJBlog: CultureCrash | Published 2014-03-19
Concert star describes 7-hour ‘Orwellian’ ordeal in UK Immigration
AJBlog: Slipped Disc | Published 2014-03-19
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Need Orchestral Backup? There’s An App For That!
“A number of apps provide musical backup, but Cadenza out of Harvard goes a step further, automatically synching a recording of a full live orchestra to your style and tempo in real time. As you begin playing your instrument, the app listens to each note you play and the rhythm and speed in which you play them, calculating and recalibrating a prediction model for when you will play the next note.”
Report On Global Art Sales Shows Winners, Losers
“The market is not one homogenous entity; some sectors are booming while others are lagging behind”.
Music Industry Now Earns More From YouTube Fan Videos Than From “Official” Videos
“User-generated content, which includes mashups and fan-made music videos, are actually generating more money for record labels than the official music videos posted by record labels.”
How Did The Language Police Take Over?
“We grammarians who study the English language are not all bow-tie-wearing martinets, but we’re also not flaming liberals who think everything should be allowed. There’s a sensible middle ground where you decide what the rules of Standard English are, on the basis of close study of the way that native speakers use the language.”
That Downturn In Global Music Sales? Turns Out Japan Was Reason For The Big Drop
“The 16.7% slump in Japanese sales caused world figures to slide by 3.9%. But European music consumers had a buoyant year, registering their first growth for 13 years, while digital sales in the US rose by 3.4%.”
The Rise Of Walter Benjamin
“Following his suicide in 1940 at age 48, in Portbou, Spain, his name had been kept alive by a small number of friends and colleagues, the kind of trickle of a readership that hardly suggested he would one day be counted among the most significant and far-ranging critics, essayists, and thinkers of the past 100 years—and one whose reach may still not be completely fathomed.”
How Science Fills Its Gaps With Old Stories
“Before science had the means to explore that realm, we had to make do with stories that became enshrined in myth and folklore. Those stories aren’t banished as science advances; they are simply reinvented.”
Maybe The Problem With Arts Advocacy Is The People Who Are Advocating…
“While the arts sector continues to believe that it is best placed to advocate on its own behalf, and whilst those charged with leading the debate remain wholly unrepresentative of the public, I fear I will always remain slightly at odds with the sector, out of time and out of place. Rather like a Turner in the Louvre.”
How Much Are We Willing To Pay For Music? (Here Are The Data)
“So, the data tells us that consumers are willing to spend somewhere around $45–$65 per year on music, and that the larger a service gets, the lower in that range the number becomes. And these numbers have remained consistent regardless of music format, from CD to download.”
Are We Hiding Behind “Innovation”? (What’s The Policy?)
“Innovation” is no substitute for a robust technology policy. It must frame its arguments around big themes of equality and justice. Of course, those goals are buried somewhere in its information agenda.
The Story Of The Greatest Juggler Of All Time (And Why He’s Now Working In Concrete)
“Jugglers have always taken advantage of audiences’ ignorance. Instead of performing hard tricks, they perform easy tricks that look hard. They lie to delight. But then came a guy who wasn’t interested in lying, who wanted to do stuff that was hard because he could.”
How Much Difference Does a Play’s Title Make?
Jon Robin Baitz’s first title for Other Desert Cities was Love and Mercy. Tennessee Williams initially gave Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the title A Place of Stone. And then there’s Urinetown – did that one hurt, help, or both?
Syria Accuses Turkey of Letting Looters Get Away With Loot
The Assad government’s culture ministry says that its neighbor is “turning a blind eye to the systematic looting of the country’s cultural heritage. Illicit digging at archaeological sites is ‘fierce’, antiquities stores have been raided by armed gangs, and foreigners, from Turkey in particular, are smuggling hundreds of objects across its borders, Syria claims.”
Your Self Is Located in Your Chest, Says New Study
“It’s hard to get empirical data on a concept as subjective as the location of the self – if the self can be pinpointed at all – but one new study … suggests we conceive of the self as located in the upper chest.”