ArtsJournal (text by date)

MOST RECENT

• Disney’s ‘Moana’ Is Giving A Lift To New Zealand’s Indigenous Language September 20, 2017
  “About 125,000 of New Zealand’s 4.7 million people speak the Maori language … There are concerns that numbers are declining, putting it at risk of dying out. But with one in three Maori people in New Zealand younger than 15, experts said the chance for youth to see a wildly popular movie in their own […]
  New York Times
• V&A And Royal Opera House Team Up For Exhibition Tracing Intersections Of Cities And Opera September 20, 2017
  “What we were looking for were moments when you could see the intersection between the opera and the city, and a thread that went right around Europe. We weren’t looking at the whole history of opera. We started from the time it became a public entertainment.”
  The Stage
• There Are Thousands Of Different Colors – Why Do Most Of Us Have So Few Words For Them (And Some Languages Fewer Than Others)? September 20, 2017
  “In an industrialized culture, most people get by with 11 color words: black, white, red, green, yellow, blue, brown, orange, pink, purple and gray. That’s what we have in American English. Maybe if you’re an artist or an interior designer, you know specific meanings for as many as 50 or 100 different words for colors […]
  The Conversation
• Canada’s Copyright Crisis September 20, 2017
  “In quite a short time, copyright has come to be seen by many outside our industry as an inhibitor to creativity and innovation instead of the enabler and protector it once was. It’s true to say that the consequent disruption to our industry has been felt more intensely in some countries than others.  Canada stands […]
  Publishing Perspectives
• How ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Became The Term For So Many Of France’s Bêtes Noires September 20, 2017
  Le monde anglo-saxon. Le modèle anglo-saxon. Le capitalisme anglo-saxon. L’hégémonie anglo-saxonne. You hear and read the term more and more in France these days, almost always for something opposed to the way the French do things and usually for something undesirable or worse. Yet before the mid-19th century, “anglo-saxon” was used in France only to […]
  Aeon
• Leonard Slatkin: Minnesota Orchestra’s Strike Was “Ugliest” In Orchestra History September 20, 2017
  “Slatkin criticizes management and musicians about equally in his overview. The former remained quiet for too long about its mounting financial troubles, and the latter failed to pose early questions about funding when times were flush. The musicians’ side issued misleading statements, Slatkin charges. Management should have granted the demand for an independent audit of […]
  The Star-Tribune (Mpls)
• MoviePass Is Putting Butts In Seats – So Why Is AMC Furious About It And Hollywood Blasé? September 20, 2017
  “At stake is no less than the future of the movie-exhibition business, an industry that has seen ticket prices rise almost 100 percent over the last 20 years while offering scanty new innovation over that time – e-ticketing and, to a lesser extent, reclining seats comprising its premium product.” So why is there not more […]
  Vulture
• What Artists’ Last Works Say About Their Bigger Place In Our Lives September 20, 2017
  “When an artist knows he or she is dying, the last work that they put into the world comes to be something that is at once a bequest, a memorial and a breakup letter. It has a charge that surpasses reality.”
  The New York Times
• Music Derived From Heartbeats Could Help Diagnose Arrhythmia September 20, 2017
  “The driving, spikey rhythm of Mars from Gustav Holst’s The Planets is probably not the most comforting sound to hear through a stethoscope. A UK scientist, Elaine Chew is analysing the heartbeat patterns of people with arrhythmia – an irregular heartbeat – and turning them into classical music, in what she hopes may become an […]
  Limelight (Australia)
• New Generation Computer Design Is Taking Clues From The Human Brain September 20, 2017
  After years of stagnation, the computer is evolving again, and this behind-the-scenes migration to a new kind of machine will have broad and lasting implications. It will allow work on artificially intelligent systems to accelerate, so the dream of machines that can navigate the physical world by themselves can one day come true.
  The New York Times
• Didgeridoo Medicine And Feline Physics: The 2017 Ig Nobel Prizes September 20, 2017
  The prize for medicine went to neuroscientists who explored the reasons some people are disgusted by cheese, while medical researchers who found that learning to play the didgeridoo strengthens the muscles that control breathing and can reduce snoring received the peace prize. And since one definition of a liquid is matter that takes the shape […]
  Smithsonian Magazine
• Now That He’s In A Big Movie, Is Sergei Polunin Going To Give Up Ballet For Acting? Naah September 20, 2017
  “A few months ago, I was sure that I was going to stop dancing to become a good actor. But then when I was by myself for a week, I asked myself, What are you doing? You have that talent. Use it to the fullest. And if I can use that talent as well as […]
  W Magazine
• Half A Dozen Black Women Who Paved The Way For Postmodern Dance Today September 20, 2017
  “We’re highlighting some of the influential black women who came before, and have been changing the game in the downtown dance scene for almost four decades. They continue to thrive and survive, although in [one case], posthumously. As young dancemakers, we have to know the shoulders on which we stand.”
  Dance Magazine
• How We Can Get The Arts To Connect With Conservative Audiences September 20, 2017
  “The first challenge is to convince prospective audiences that there should be no fear of embarrassment associated with coming to a performance. Decades of research have shown that the best demographic predictor of attendance to all performing arts disciplines is level of educational attainment. … For many people, attending a performance is equated with shelling […]
  Clyde Fitch Report
• U.S. Holocaust Museum Finds Itself Caught In Argument Over Syrian Civil War September 20, 2017
  The museum commissioned and published a study on whether any alternative approaches might have prevented more bloodshed than the one taken by the Obama administration. (The answer: probably not.) Then the museum withdrew the study after accusations that it was nothing but a whitewash of what critics called Obama’s inaction in Syria.
  New York Times
• We Need Real Gender Quotas At Major Theatres (Yeah, She Said It) September 20, 2017
  Lyn Gardner: “Too often, an artist – if they are a woman or are from diverse backgrounds – gets only one shot in a high-profile situation and if they don’t triumph, they are out. But it’s only when the opportunities are sustained, and not just one-off tokenism, that a significant and genuine advancement occurs in […]
  The Stage
• Thanks, Harvey: Home Base Of Houston Ballet And Grand Opera Will Be Closed Until At Least Next May September 20, 2017
  “The Wortham [Theater Center’s] two theaters, which sit near the banks of Buffalo Bayou, took on up to 12 feet of water during the storm, which flooded its basement and required the removal of the stage floor of the Alice and George Brown Theater.”
  Houston Chronicle
• Foundation Launches New Cash Awards To Support Nonprofit Magazines September 20, 2017
  “The Whiting Foundation, which annually provides 10 emerging writers with prizes of $50,000 each, has announced a new series of grants designed to ‘acknowledge, reward and encourage’ nonprofit American magazines. The grants for print and digital publications will total up to $120,000.”
  New York Times
• Vienna State Opera’s Seat-Back Subtitles Offer Six Languages – And Snacks September 20, 2017
  Take that, Met! “Since the opening of the company’s 2017/2018 earlier this month, subtitles are offered from suitably dimmed screens, in English, German, Italian, French, Russian and Japanese. A pre-performance information system provides such useful things to know as plot synopses, cast lists, and any general current news to do with the activities of the […]
  Limelight (Australia)
• Theaster Gates Wins $100K Nasher Prize For Sculpture September 20, 2017
  “Gates is a fitting choice at a time when the United States has immersed itself in a re-examination of race and the divisions it spawns in American society. He doesn’t shy from taking on civil rights as an issue in his expansive portfolio, which [Nasher Sculpture Center director Jeremy] Strick said is tied ‘to the […]
  Dallas Morning News