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- What Do You Get When You Cross Indian Classical Dance With A 1980s Video Game?
You get semi-improvised Bharatanatyam — normally a highly codified form — by three dancers basing their moves on a game of Ms. Pac-Man which they’re playing live onstage. – BBC (MSN)
- Are Classical Music And Heavy Metal Really Brothers?
Metal and classical: deeply different, or close companions? As a musician straddling both genres, I feel they have much more in common than they differ. – San Francisco Classical Voice
- Thousands Of Japanese Are Moving A Historic Castle — Hauling It By Hand
In 2015, the fortified tower of Hirosaki Castle was moved, in one piece, about 260 feet from its old site to allow repairs to the compound’s outer walls. Now a horde of volunteers, working 80 at a time pulling ropes, are pulling the tower back to its site, centimeter by centimeter. – AFP (Yahoo!)
- California Passes Bill To Employ More Local Journalists
Assembly Bill 2222, known as the Community Newsroom Employment and Workforce Sustainability Act, creates refundable tax credits for the state’s news outlets based on the number of journalists they employ. – NiemanLab
- She Who Controls The Logistics…
- The Son Of 1960s America’s Most Notorious Leftist Revolutionaries Ended Up A Playwright And Northwestern Professor
Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, leaders of the Weather Underground, raised their kids while blowing up buildings and fleeing the FBI. Their older son, Zayd Ayers Dohrn, is ambivalent about his upbringing but says there was plenty of love. So how did he become an academic and a playwright? – WBEZ (Chicago)
- Consider The Lowly Bollard
The posts come in many forms — retractable, rigid, ordinary, ornate, thick, thin. There are other objects that serve a similar purpose, including “sugar cube” barriers and hulking planters. At Lincoln Center, stylish, warped concrete blocks guard the square. – The New York Times
- Could More Movie-Theatre Versions Of Broadway Shows Fix The Bottom Line?
While filmed Broadway shows have long been the province of PBS’ Great Performances, cinematic releases of stage shows is a growing trend. – Playbill
- Why Letting AI Do Our Writing Is A Bad Idea
The act of writing is an act of thinking, and to automate our paragraphs is to populate our screens with words without filling our minds with the ideas necessary to conceive of them. – Derek Thompson
- Britain’s Working Class Is Getting Priced Out Of The Arts Entirely. Look Out For What Comes Next.
With the shrinking of arts instruction in schools and free higher education, it’s ever harder for non-rich artists to train. Then there’s the ever-rising cost of getting your work seen, even at open-access events like the Edinburgh Fringe. In response, Ivan Hewett writes, a “radical class-consciousness” is starting to appear. – The Telegraph (UK) (MSN)
- Remembering A Master Music Critic
For 12 years he delivered what seems like an almost endless chain of exemplary reviews and essays, all framed in his distinctly personal, uncluttered prose, witty, now and then biting, but most often illuminating. – The New York Times
- Philadelphia’s Academy Of Natural Sciences To Close After 200 Years
The Academy of Natural Sciences will close its Parkway museum at the end of the month, ending a nearly 200-year run as a destination for generations of visitors. The museum, founded in 1812 and opened to the public in 1828, has long been a fixture for families, students and educators. – 6 ABC
- Kennedy Center Will Remove Major Outdoor Sculpture
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts will remove a major outdoor sculpture from the center’s grounds on Wednesday. The work, installed in 2019, was targeted for elimination after President Trump’s takeover of the center, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times. – The New York Times
- Scotland To Launch A Nationally Funded Traditional Music Ensemble
The group, which has no name as yet, “will become Scotland’s sixth National Performing Company, joining the National Theatre of Scotland, Scottish Opera, Scottish Ballet, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.” – The Herald (Scotland)
- Hong Kong’s Independent Bookstores Face Severe Pressure From Chinese Authorities
“(The shops), many of them tucked away … inside buildings, have long offered a refuge and a window to a freer world for some mainland Chinese readers seeking ideas suppressed at home. But these spaces now are under threat following a wave of bookseller arrests over alleged sedition under a 2024 national security law.” – AP
- California Legislature Passes Fix To Film/TV Tax Credit Measure
“(Lawmakers) imposed a $5 million annual cap on corporate tax credits in June. (Industry representatives) argued that the cap would undercut the state’s $750 million incentive. … In response, legislative leaders and the governor’s office agreed to let studios to redeem tax credits for cash in two years instead of five.” – Variety
- Jonathan Bailey Follows Ariana Grande In Withdrawing From West End Revival Of “Sunday In The Park With George”
In January, London’s Barbican Centre and Empire Street Productions confirmed plans to stage the Sondheim musical, with Marianne Elliott directing these two stars, in summer 2027. Grande announced last month that she was pulling out; with Bailey following her lead, the future of the production is uncertain. – Deadline
- ICE Says It Has Seized Thousands Of Smuggled Ancient Artifacts In Florida
“The Homeland Security Investigations unit of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) said it seized more than 22,000 ancient artifacts in Florida as part of a smuggling inquest that counts ‘among the largest in the agency’s history,’ according to a press release.” – ARTnews
- Scotland To Try Out A Basic-Income-For-Artists Scheme Like Ireland’s
“A pilot project in Scotland” — called the Scottish Artists Minimum Income initiative — “based on the Irish model could see an initial 2,000 writers, musicians, playwrights and visual artists secure almost £15,000 ($20,000) a year to help them pursue a career.” – The Herald (Scotland)
- San Francisco Opera Postpones Its Biggest Annual Fundraiser
The Opera Ball was scheduled for Sept. 12, opening night of the season — and the date on which the company orchestra’s musicians have threatened to begin a strike if their contract negotiations haven’t been settled by then. – San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
- La Scala has made its streaming free
Good Morning,
Silicon Valley has discovered the theatre — not as a patron but as a training ground, with founders and engineers filing into improv classes to learn a skill that refuses to scale (The New York Times).
Listeners can’t reliably tell AI-made music from the human kind, and largely don’t care once they’re told (Washington Post).
Edinburgh’s Fringe sold 2.8 million tickets, back within sight of pre-pandemic numbers (Yahoo) — finally. AMC — an exhibitor, not a studio — is launching its own distribution company to get small films into theaters, having concluded it can’t wait for someone else to rebuild the middle (The Hollywood Reporter). And La Scala dropped the paywall on its streaming service entirely (Gramilano) — less generosity than a realization about where the value now sits.
Underneath it all, an essay on how gamification ate play (Aeon). Wendell Berry, who spent sixty years insisting some things shouldn’t be measured at all, died at 92 (AP).
And a writer on what tearing tickets taught her about beauty and changed her life (The Guardian).
All of our stories below.
- Today in Great Jobs: Casting Director Who Chooses The Series Of Actors Starring In “Oh, Mary!”
Henry Russell Bergstein: “I think all these performers that we’ve had play the role are very different. But at heart, they have a sort of … I don’t know if the word wacky and access to wackiness is the right thing, but they also all have incredible acting chops.” – NPR
- How Our Gamification Culture Kills The Spirit Of Play
The entire architecture of digital life – with its algorithmic feeds, frictionless production and the ambient expectation that we should be consuming or optimising at all times – nudges us towards chasing outputs rather than generating meaning. – Aeon
- The Star Who Injected Feminism Into Indian Classical Dance
“By the 1950s, Chandralekha was a legendary figure in (Bharatanatyam). However, she walked away from fame, rejecting the Brahminical and nationalist values that had come to shape it. … When she returned to the stage in 1984, she brought with her a radically reimagined practice — sensual, iconoclastic and uncompromisingly feminist.” – Elle India
- Putin’s Crackdown On Literature
After Mr. Putin declared all-out war on Ukraine in 2022, he unleashed a devastating crackdown on free speech. That was initially confined to criticism of the war. Over time it spread, attacking a range of cultural expression. Now, the Kremlin is placing literature squarely in its cross hairs. – The New York Times
- Publisher Announces AI Bot Assistant For Health Care Books
Elsevier announced the launch of Nora AI, an AI-powered assistant available within Elsevier e-books through VitalSource’s Bookshelf platform. Nora AI enables users to ask questions and receive personalized, evidence-based answers drawn directly from Elsevier content. – Publishers Weekly
- Is Regional Theatre Really In Trouble?
The idea has taken root that venues outside of London are in perpetual crisis. Standstill funding has affected all theatres but the retreat by local authorities from funding the arts has had a significant impact on theatres outside the capital. – The Stage
- Theft Of Renaissance Altarpiece In Sicily Confounds Investigators
“Investigative authorities have said very little on the record, but sources speaking anonymously to The Guardian and local media, as well as art historians who know the (museum in Messina) intimately, say lots of elements don’t add up, except one: the date chosen by the thieves.” – The Guardian
- Hmnnn. Evidence Listeners Don’t Seem To Care Whether Music Was Made By AI
A producer created a cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” using AI-generated vocals and drums. The remix became the most played song on Australian radio, spent 16 weeks on the charts and hit No. 1 for Australian dance singles. Traditionalists called it AI slop, but the reboot been streamed more than 48 million times. – Washington Post
- How Being A Theatre Usher Changed Me
Looking back, having lived and experienced life and now nearing 40, that place felt like a cradle. Being an usher cracked open my heart to the beauty of humans experiencing art and I had the privilege of watching along with them. – The Guardian
- Smithsonian Decides Where American Latino Museum Will Be
The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents voted Monday to house the American Latino museum, which Congress created in 2020 but which has lacked a permanent home, in the Arts and Industries Building, a 258,000-square-foot redbrick Victorian structure next to the institution’s headquarters. – Washington Post
- Could Yiddish Be Headed For A New Revival?
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of students enrolled in Yiddish-language online courses exploded – not only in the United States but also in Canada, Mexico and Latin America, Europe and elsewhere. … At the same time, organizations like the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Yiddish Book Center have pushed for a new perception of Yiddish.” – The Conversation
- Sony, Music Publishers, Sue Anthropic Over Copyright
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell, and numerous other music publishers have sued Anthropic and co-founders Dario Amodei and Benjamin Mann, alleging the AI lab conducted a “brazen campaign of illegally torrenting, scraping, and downloading copyrighted works.” – TechCrunch
- Why Silicon Valley Has Embraced Theatre
Silicon Valley’s embrace of improvisation and theater is also part of its much bigger and more longstanding philosophical tendency to treat reality, play, perception and performance as essentially interchangeable. – The New York Times
- How Did Brooklyn’s Skyline Go So Wrong?
Two decades ago, Downtown Brooklyn was well connected but underpopulated, a combination that drew armies of fresh college graduates, quintupling the population. It’s hard to believe how thoroughly and quickly the skyline has been remade in that time—and how shoddily. – Curbed