Our music, films, books and photographs are increasingly accessed via digital platforms rather than stored on our shelves. Do these digital items really feel like “mine” in the same way that physical possessions do? And can they become as personally meaningful? - The Conversation
We’re living in what they call the “Information Age,” but life only seems to be making less sense. We’re isolated, listless, burnt out on screens, cutting loved ones out like tumors in the spirit of “boundaries,” failing to understand other people’s choices or even our own. - LitHub
Instead of standing up for the robust exchange of ideas, lawmakers in state after state are pushing bills that would criminalize librarians for putting certain books on the shelves. Nuisance lawsuits and fights over book bans are draining librarians' time, energy, and resources. - Newsweek
Video games have long bent toward realism, and in the past thirty years engines have become more sophisticated: they can now render near-photorealistic graphics and mimic real-world physics. - The New Yorker
Around 100 protestors gathered outside of the Israeli Pavilion in the Giardini and moved toward other national pavilions, like those of the U.S., France, and Germany, chanting “stop the genocide,” “shut it down,” and “viva Palestina.” - Artnet
The full multiday festival – which last year saw 175 authors appearing in more than 120 events across 10 days – will still not go ahead. However, Wee Write, a festival for children and young people, will now go ahead in autumn on a smaller scale. - The Guardian
Orlando Whitfield (as recounted in his new book): “I mean, this is great, but it’s on a fucking wall. A door was one thing, but this is different.” Philbrick: “I know. But it has to be doable, right? Has to be. Think of all those frescoes they move in Italy.” - The Guardian
Alex Burns of Philadelphia's Quintessence Theatre Group has been criticized by a number of female and trans actors for, in effect, robbing them of all-too-rare opportunities. He asks, "When does the community get to abort someone else’s creative impulse or vision or claim it’s not appropriate?" - Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)
Byung-Chul Han diagnosed what he called “the violence of positivity,” deriving from “overproduction, overachievement, and overcommunication.” We are so stimulated, chiefly by the Internet, that we paradoxically cannot feel or comprehend much of anything. - The New Yorker
FKA twigs (née Tahliah Debrett Barnett), the British singer/songwriter/actor, studied ballet and contemporary dance, including Graham technique, throughout her childhood and teen years. This week, at artistic director Janet Eilber's invitation, she'll perform "Satyric Festival Song." As she tells Gia Kourlas, it's a highlight of her entire career. - The New York Times
Although specific events are not yet planned, in his role as artistic ambassador, Kellogg will engage with opera audiences through post-show Q&As, panel discussions, podcasts and other community events. - Seattle Times
"The rules are always the same: 30 minutes before the meeting’s official start time, people can come, share what they are reading and find a place to sit. Then someone rings a bell or makes an announcement, and it’s reading time. For an hour, that’s it." - The Washington Post (MSN)
"I will truly believe you mean your support and sympathy when I stop seeing ads featuring these people as star attractions at your concerts; when you offer the same protections and sympathy to victims of your own institutions that you do to victims of others (hello, Curtis Institute of Music!)." - Anne Midgette
"After reaping the rewards of a protracted growth spurt, Italy‘s film industry is facing a forced slowdown as the country’s right-wing government dithers with modifications they plan to make to several key regulations, most significantly to the country’s now stalled tax incentives for film and TV production." - Variety
"Russian theatre director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk have been added to an official list of 'terrorists and extremists' as they await trial on charges of 'justifying terrorism' … (for) an award-winning play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters." - Reuters
Ralph Ellison. Charles Laughton (as filmmaker). Willis Alan Ramsey, the granddaddy of alt-country. Miguel Adrover, a former fashion designer who made a coat from Quentin Crisp's old mattress. And, of course, Harper Lee. - T — The New York Times Style Magazine
As one cast member puts it, "After a couple of months … the fairy dust fades away, and you see your friends and people you really care about hurting and burnt out and not able to pay their rent." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
The city has 360,000 residents, only 40,000 of whom live in the historic center, but receives 11 million tourists each year. Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Galleria dell' Accademia (where Michelangelo's David is located), suggests the city try a larger version of the crowd-control measures she's introduced at the museum. - The Guardian
Due to funding cuts and an existing deficit, the main gallery in Cardiff could eliminate up to 90 staff positions, and it may have to start charging for admission for the first time. Water leaks and deteriorating wiring will require closing the building if funding for repairs isn't approved. - Time Out UK
Our music, films, books and photographs are increasingly accessed via digital platforms rather than stored on our shelves. Do these digital items really feel like “mine” in the same way that physical possessions do? And can they become as personally meaningful? - The Conversation
We’re living in what they call the “Information Age,” but life only seems to be making less sense. We’re isolated, listless, burnt out on screens, cutting loved ones out like tumors in the spirit of “boundaries,” failing to understand other people’s choices or even our own. - LitHub
Video games have long bent toward realism, and in the past thirty years engines have become more sophisticated: they can now render near-photorealistic graphics and mimic real-world physics. - The New Yorker
Byung-Chul Han diagnosed what he called “the violence of positivity,” deriving from “overproduction, overachievement, and overcommunication.” We are so stimulated, chiefly by the Internet, that we paradoxically cannot feel or comprehend much of anything. - The New Yorker
The philosopher Gregory Currie has examined the implications of how fiction encourages us to imagine a character’s experience. If a character in a film or novel is grieving, for instance, you might find yourself taking on what you imagine to be their thoughts, desires and emotional pain, as if they were your own. - Psyche
We also find that countries with similar per-capita GDP levels have held similar values over the last 40 years. Over time, however, geographic proximity has emerged as an increasingly strong correlate of value similarity, indicating that values have diverged globally but converged regionally. - Nature
As one cast member puts it, "After a couple of months … the fairy dust fades away, and you see your friends and people you really care about hurting and burnt out and not able to pay their rent." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
The city has 360,000 residents, only 40,000 of whom live in the historic center, but receives 11 million tourists each year. Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Galleria dell' Accademia (where Michelangelo's David is located), suggests the city try a larger version of the crowd-control measures she's introduced at the museum. - The Guardian
Even a hard-nosed economic perspective suggests that arts provision warrants support, rather than a freeze. By the government’s own estimates, the creative industries contribute around £126 billion to the UK economy. That’s more than the car industry, for instance, or aerospace, oil and gas. - The Conversation
The plan wouldn’t expand Disney’s footprint in tourism-dependent Anaheim but would help it add rides and entertainment by letting the company relocate parking to a new multi-story structure and redevelop the massive lot, as well as make other changes to how it uses its properties. - AP
To regular people, raising the price of something precisely when we need it the most is the definition of predatory behavior. To an economist, it is the height of rationality: a signal to the market to produce more of the good or service, and a way to ensure that whoever needs it the most...
Although specific events are not yet planned, in his role as artistic ambassador, Kellogg will engage with opera audiences through post-show Q&As, panel discussions, podcasts and other community events. - Seattle Times
"I will truly believe you mean your support and sympathy when I stop seeing ads featuring these people as star attractions at your concerts; when you offer the same protections and sympathy to victims of your own institutions that you do to victims of others (hello, Curtis Institute of Music!)." - Anne Midgette
Cellist and composer Niles Luther, 27, "is kicking off his residency by composing three musical arrangements to accompany the exhibition 'Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo' (feat. Takashi Murakami), which opened today." - Forbes
The funding received from Arts Council England (ACE) was cut by 35%, which led to WNO performances in Liverpool being cancelled in 2022, while operas in other English cities went ahead as planned. - BBC
The bank said more than 600 of its customers had come forward to report being scammed, losing an average of £332 each - with some losing £1,000. It added that 90% of the reported ticket scams started on Facebook. - BBC
Although streaming remains the dominant music format, physical media has been a growing niche where the industry can cater to so-called superfans, who express their dedication to artists by shelling out big bucks for collectible versions of new releases, sometimes in multiple quantities. - The New York Times
Around 100 protestors gathered outside of the Israeli Pavilion in the Giardini and moved toward other national pavilions, like those of the U.S., France, and Germany, chanting “stop the genocide,” “shut it down,” and “viva Palestina.” - Artnet
Orlando Whitfield (as recounted in his new book): “I mean, this is great, but it’s on a fucking wall. A door was one thing, but this is different.” Philbrick: “I know. But it has to be doable, right? Has to be. Think of all those frescoes they move in Italy.” - The Guardian
Due to funding cuts and an existing deficit, the main gallery in Cardiff could eliminate up to 90 staff positions, and it may have to start charging for admission for the first time. Water leaks and deteriorating wiring will require closing the building if funding for repairs isn't approved. - Time Out UK
Cellist and composer Niles Luther, 27, "is kicking off his residency by composing three musical arrangements to accompany the exhibition 'Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo' (feat. Takashi Murakami), which opened today." - Forbes
Said church is the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, where a year-long (and rather delicate) project to place 438 panels on the roof was just completed. A desecration of historic architecture? Says the college's provost, "People don’t come to King’s College Chapel to see the roof." - Smithsonian Magazine
"Armed with snobbish hipster fury and signage that read 'God Hates Renoir,' 'ReNOir,' and 'We’re Not Iconoclasts, Renoir Just Sucks At Painting,' the group briefly received considerable media attention — though none from the institutions it was heckling." - Artnet
Instead of standing up for the robust exchange of ideas, lawmakers in state after state are pushing bills that would criminalize librarians for putting certain books on the shelves. Nuisance lawsuits and fights over book bans are draining librarians' time, energy, and resources. - Newsweek
The full multiday festival – which last year saw 175 authors appearing in more than 120 events across 10 days – will still not go ahead. However, Wee Write, a festival for children and young people, will now go ahead in autumn on a smaller scale. - The Guardian
"The rules are always the same: 30 minutes before the meeting’s official start time, people can come, share what they are reading and find a place to sit. Then someone rings a bell or makes an announcement, and it’s reading time. For an hour, that’s it." - The Washington Post (MSN)
Small presses play a crucial role in the American literary landscape, publishing books that have artistic merit but little commercial potential. Without S.P.D., it could be far more difficult for small presses to get their books to readers, or for those books to exist at all. - The New York Times
"Several authors have turned down awards and awards nominations from PEN America, citing unhappiness with the literary and free expression organization’s stance on the war in Gaza." - AP
"The new report, Banned in the USA: Narrating the Crisis, reports 4,349 book bans recorded across 23 states and 52 public school districts from July to December 2023. ... More book bans were recorded during the first half of the current school year than in the entire 2022-2023 year." - Publishers Weekly
"After reaping the rewards of a protracted growth spurt, Italy‘s film industry is facing a forced slowdown as the country’s right-wing government dithers with modifications they plan to make to several key regulations, most significantly to the country’s now stalled tax incentives for film and TV production." - Variety
Before he resigned from NPR, Mr. Berliner was on a five-day suspension from the network for violating company policy against working for outside organizations without securing permission. - The New York Times
It can be hard to pinpoint what is changed. But there does seem to be a difference, and depending on the viewer, it can feel slightly uncanny. - The New York Times
"Profit will of course find a way; there will always be shit to watch. But without radical intervention, whether by the government or the workers, the industry will become unrecognizable. And the writing trade — the kind where one actually earns a living — will be obliterated." - Harper's
Bekah Brunstetter's The Game "is about a fictionalized version of Fortnite Battle Royale, ... where each round ends with only one survivor. It comes seven years after The Oregon Trail, inspired by the game that condemned countless 1990s middle-schoolers to awful deaths (on) the grueling 19th-century passage west." - The New York Times
That’s what the core editorial problem at NPR is and, frankly, has long been: an abundance of caution that often crossed the border to cowardice. NPR culture encouraged an editorial fixation on finding the exact middle point of the elite political and social thought, planting a flag there, and calling it objectivity. - Slate
FKA twigs (née Tahliah Debrett Barnett), the British singer/songwriter/actor, studied ballet and contemporary dance, including Graham technique, throughout her childhood and teen years. This week, at artistic director Janet Eilber's invitation, she'll perform "Satyric Festival Song." As she tells Gia Kourlas, it's a highlight of her entire career. - The New York Times
Last month a production in Seoul starring Bolshoi prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova was called off following protests. This week, another show featuring 12 Bolshoi principals was cancelled a day before opening. One banner held by protesters read "Purchasing tickets for Russian performances = Purchasing missiles that will kill civilians." - AFP (Yahoo!)
After six years dancing with the Philadelphia Ballet, Emily Davis moved to Glasgow in 2021 to do a PhD degree in dance health. Her focus is how dance classes can help patients with multiple sclerosis — of which Scotland has one of the world's highest incidence rates. - BBC
The series E-Moves is 25 years old now, and one of its "intended effects has been to take choreographers who work mainly ‘downtown,’ in white-dominated dance institutions, and bring them ‘uptown’ to Harlem." - The New York Times
"Emily told us to 'start walking' — all of us, in any direction, or all directions, as she and Matt called out instructions. … With everyone gradually picking up on the same gesture and then letting it transform, by the end of this ever-morphing exercise we were dancing en masse, already unified." - Literary...
"Miami City Ballet management has begun an aggressive, coordinated union-busting campaign against their dancers, the majority of whom are fighting to unionize. … Furthermore, MCB management is trying to circumvent the legal process by denying their dancers the right to a union election." - American Guild of Musical Artists
Alex Burns of Philadelphia's Quintessence Theatre Group has been criticized by a number of female and trans actors for, in effect, robbing them of all-too-rare opportunities. He asks, "When does the community get to abort someone else’s creative impulse or vision or claim it’s not appropriate?" - Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)
"Russian theatre director Zhenya Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk have been added to an official list of 'terrorists and extremists' as they await trial on charges of 'justifying terrorism' … (for) an award-winning play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters." - Reuters
"Women dressed as priestesses are at the heart of the ceremony, first held for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Leading the group is an actress who performs the role of high priestess and makes a dramatic appeal to Apollo ... for assistance moments before the torch is lit." - AP
If Broadway feels more expensive than ever before, that’s because it is. Despite crowds that haven’t rebounded to pre-COVID levels, the average ticket price for a Broadway show reached an all time high: $128 in the most recent full season. - Gothamist
“Her plays, inventive provocations whose sometimes scathing visions of race and gender can unsettle audiences, have something to tell us about the troublesome relationship between individual identity and national community” - and they’re having a bit of a renaissance. - The New York Times
Ralph Ellison. Charles Laughton (as filmmaker). Willis Alan Ramsey, the granddaddy of alt-country. Miguel Adrover, a former fashion designer who made a coat from Quentin Crisp's old mattress. And, of course, Harper Lee. - T — The New York Times Style Magazine
"The actor had accused the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun of phone hacking, unlawful information-gathering, landline tapping, bugging his phone and burgling his flat and office. His case was due to go to trial at London’s high court in January 2025." - The Guardian
With her platinum hair, raspy voice and glamorous ’50s-style dresses, Ms. Astor was a formidable presence among the music, film and art makers who gathered at the Mudd Club in TriBeCa. - The New York Times
"'It was kind of hanging out of my face, sitting on my cheek, I've said like a soft-boiled egg. And blind.' Sir Salman said losing one eye 'upsets me every day'. ... But he considers himself lucky to have avoided brain damage." - BBC
Ozawa refused to live in Boston, raising his family in Tokyo and commuting when required. His English was never more than functional. Most musicians grasped what he wanted; any who protested did not last long. - The Critic
“For more than a half-century, Ms. Ringgold explored themes of race, gender, class, family and community through a vast array of media, among them painting, sculpture, mask- and doll-making, textiles and performance art.” - The New York Times
The Executive Director will work in a shared leadership relationship with the Artistic Director with both positions reporting to and working collaboratively with the Board of Directors.
The Executive Director will collaborate with the Artistic Director and program chairs to ensure successful program delivery and with the Board of Directors
The CFO is a critical member of the Senior Management Team and important ally to Arena’s co-leaders providing operational leadership and oversight in all matters of ongoing financial management, accounting and strategic business development.
The Artistic Director will design and implement Signature’s artistic vision, curating an exciting and diverse season of productions that is in alignment with its organizational mission.
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust (PCT or the Trust), one of the nation’s premier arts presenters and a major catalytic influence in the city of Pittsburgh, seeks a chief programming and engagement officer (CPEO).
The ICA has become a focal point of Richmond’s energetic arts district, serving as a nexus for creativity and inclusion, where innovative thinking and transformational ideas are drawn from a spectrum of disciplines.
The Chief Executive Officer and Producing Director (CEO & PD) will drive the organization’s next level of growth through a strategic evolution that enhances FringeArts’ impact and reach.
The Department of Theatre & Dance at UC San Diego invites exceptional dance educators and dance makers who emphasize interdisciplinary methodologies and whose research is rooted in African and Afro-Diasporic experiences and practices that are varyingly multiracial, trans-geographic and intersectional.
Orlando Whitfield (as recounted in his new book): “I mean, this is great, but it’s on a fucking wall. A door was one thing, but this is different.” Philbrick: “I know. But it has to be doable, right? Has to be. Think of all those frescoes they move in Italy.” - The Guardian
The series E-Moves is 25 years old now, and one of its "intended effects has been to take choreographers who work mainly ‘downtown,’ in white-dominated dance institutions, and bring them ‘uptown’ to Harlem." - The New York Times
Birmingham is a bellwether for the UK. Nothing “could be more emblematic of the way that Britain currently devalues life: when we only focus on our most basic needs, dismissing leisure, art, literature and culture as something decadent and middle-class, we do ourselves an injustice.” - The Observer (UK)
“For more than a half-century, Ms. Ringgold explored themes of race, gender, class, family and community through a vast array of media, among them painting, sculpture, mask- and doll-making, textiles and performance art.” - The New York Times
Even now, "some employees, particularly female employees, continue to feel unsafe. A current member of the orchestra told me about an incident this past February in which her male colleagues spoke negatively about Asian women performing with the orchestra." - Vulture (MSN)
"Critics need to be more flexible than artists. You have to be open to being changed and pushed into new directions. ... My main goal has always been to point out art that people would enjoy seeing, and to show them how I saw it and enjoyed it." - The New York Times
Although distributors and streaming services frequently use language that places the blame on the artist for fraudulent activity detected on their accounts, it has become clear that artists are often caught in the middle of a crossfire between streaming services, distributors and fraudsters attempting to game the system for their own financial gain. - Variety
In the foreword to Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a possible second Donald Trump administration, it says “people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.” - AP
Said the 82-year-old this morning, "I woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning to get ready for rehearsal and I thought, what am I even doing? I was wobbly on my feet, and then I thought, I just shouldn't do it anymore." - NPO Radio 4 (Netherlands) (via Google Translate)
One musician says, "Every time I go over there, I'm losing money. … We’re never making money, it's not a possibility. I'm lucky enough that I'm signed now and I've made two albums so I have the money to lose in America.” - BBC
Lea Salonga, on the song “The Worst Pies in London": "There are a whole lot of built-in reversals and crazy shifts. And I don’t mean vocal, but rather where she goes emotionally. It’s like this woman is the multitasking queen.” - Washington Post
The city was a beacon of artistic freedom. Then came October 7. Now, "a climate of fear and recrimination has put Berlin’s status as an international cultural capital in greater hazard than at any time since 1989." - The New York Times
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