ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

Today's Stories

How Culture Got Captured By Big Tech

There is an expression often used to capture the power of the press: never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Today the ink is barrelled inside algorithms we don’t own. - The Walrus

A Critic, His Experiences, His Aesthetic

The question of the relation between one’s life and one’s taste has become a fraught one, and is still more troubled when the taste in question has a kind of public authority—as Sasha Frere-Jones came to have for readers of the New Yorker, the LA Times, and the Village Voice. - BookForum

Nobel Lit Prize Winner Jon Fosse On What He Has To Say To The World

“I often say that there are two languages: The words that I wrote, the words you can understand, and behind that, there’s a silent language.” And it’s in that “silent language,” he added, that the real meaning may lie. - The New York Times

“Prestige TV” Is Booming In Asia

Streaming giants in the region are increasingly placing their series bets on creators armed with a glittering list of prizes from the international festival circuit, and independent filmmakers and producers are making high-production-value shows with small-to-midrange budgets. The result? A veritable “prestige TV” wave on streamers. - The Hollywood Reporter

Study: 17 Percent Of Entertainment Workers Lost Jobs During The Writers/Actors Strikes

According to the Otis College of Art and Design’s study, the first released under the college’s ongoing Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, following the WGA, 24,799 entertainment industry employees in Los Angeles were let go, or more than 1.5 in every 10 workers. - Variety

Nintendo Cancels Its Annual Tokyo Gaming Showcase Over Safety Threats

Nintendo canceled its upcoming video game showcase and postponed several other events because of persistent threats to the company, its workers and players. - AP

At 42, Not Only Is Alina Cojocaru Still Dancing, She’s Producing

She and husband Johan Kobborg left London's Royal Ballet a decade ago; she spent seven years at English National Ballet, then became a busy, much-feted freelance soloist. Now, after two kids and the pandemic, she's producing an adaptation of Fellini's La Strada and starring as Gelsomina. - The Guardian

Decoding Noam Chomsky

From the start of his academic career, no part of his scientific work would show up in his political activism, while no trace of his activism would be detectable in his science. Among the inevitable outcomes was a conception of language utterly divorced from what most of us mean by that term. - Aeon

Keeping Traditional Japanese Dance Alive In Mexico City

Naoko Kihara, the daughter of Japanese-Brazilian immigrants to Mexico, has been practicing hanayagi dance in the Mexican capital for nearly a quarter of a century and is passing the art along to students in the Japanese diaspora community there. - AP

How Portland Lost Its Creative Vibe

There are still plenty of creative people in Portland, of course, but many left during the pandemic, and no doubt many potential newcomers have been priced out. When money is tight, artists do not make things just to make them, things that might bring joy to those around them but will not put money in their...

“Weird And Depressing”: Watching The Maria Callas Hologram Concert

"The hologram – which uses projectors and motion capture technology to create a 3D image of Callas – interacts with the audience without speaking directly to us; she motions to conductor Daniel Schlosberg, who motions back. She pauses for applause even after any real applause has died off." - The Guardian

Seattle’s Iconic Hugo House In Danger Of Closing

What happens next with Hugo House won’t just impact Seattle’s literary ecosystem but could be a blueprint, or cautionary tale, for the scores of other organizations grappling with similar issues in today’s uncertain arts economy. - Seattle Times

Why On Earth Do So Many U.S. Prisons Ban Fantasy And Sci-Fi Lit?

"Is the banning of fantastical literature in prisons just carceral paranoia — or is it indicative of a larger cultural attitude that simultaneously denigrates and fears imagination? After all, prisons are part of U.S. culture which, despite a thriving culture industry that traffics in magic and fantasy, nonetheless degrades it." - Literary Hub

James Gaffigan On The Need For A Different Programming Philosophy For Orchestras

I think the future is versatility—a mixtape. I really believe that if a piece is put next to the right piece, even if it’s Schubert and Taylor Swift… they’ll shine light on each other. I see that working perfectly. - Van

When A Small, Underfunded Theater Company’s Show Misfires, Should A Critic Review It Honestly? Yes.

"A year and a half ago, when I wrote a critical review of a show by (a) small company, a theater colleague asked me why I’d persisted with the project. … Whom does such a review serve, especially for a show that draws such small audiences?" Lily Janiak offers an answer to that question. - MSN...

The Typewriters Of Legendary Authors, Now Up For Sale

"After 20 years of assembling what may be the greatest typewriter collection in the world," — owned by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Maya Angelou, Joe DiMaggio, John Lennon, Shirley Temple, and the Unabomber — "(Steve) Soboroff is putting all 33 of his beloved machines up for auction." - The New York Times

Finding Ways For Researchers To Combine Science And Arts

"It’s not art-at-the-service-of-science. … It’s a collaboration of the two that can generate a vision for the future, to explain complex information, both theoretical and hard big data. And all in a way that’s accessible to scientists and the wider community. … But the road to this future isn't clearly paved. Yet." - Nature

Vera Molnár, A Pioneer Of Computer Art, Is Dead At 99

"Long before many others did so, Molnár embraced computers, which she used to create spare, minimalist drawings that were made according to sets of rules that she engineered. These drawings flirt with the points where order breaks down into chaos and chaos coheres into order." - ARTnews

Yahoo Makes Major Job Cuts For The Second Time This Year

"Layoffs affected a number of verticals including the website’s 'Originals' teams, with affected staffers told of their status in a meeting with their manager on Tuesday. The company will also be shutting down its 'In The Know' vertical, which curated news for Generation Z and millennial audiences." - The Daily Beast

Artforum, Noticeably Slimmer, Tries To Regroup After The Israel-Hamas Letter And The Top Editor’s Firing

"A skeleton crew of editors needed to take a hacksaw through the December issue of Artforum magazine. There were only a few weeks between the sudden firing of its editor-in-chief and a print deadline for the glossy’s annual 'Year in Review' issue." - The New York Times

By Topic

How Culture Got Captured By Big Tech

There is an expression often used to capture the power of the press: never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Today the ink is barrelled inside algorithms we don’t own. - The Walrus

Why Community Is More Important Than Ever

Being alone is bad for you—and it’s not all about close family and friends. “Talking to strangers,” says Robert Waldinger, who leads the longest-running study on human happiness, at Harvard, “actually makes us happier. - The Walrus

Defining Modern For A Post-Modern World

“Modern” is certainly a fluid term, and to flatly state that any one era permanently defines the term is, I suppose, arrogant. But Paris in the early part of last century, and in particular the 1920s was, indeed, a remarkable era of Modernism in which literature, visual arts, music. - The Millions

In The Age Of AI, New Articles Will Disappear

The articles journalists write will become source material to be remixed and delivered in hyper-personalized presentations. (One easy example is that most people likely prefer to read the news in their native language). - NiemanLab

Feeling Persistently Meh? Turns Out It’s A Real Condition

There may not appear to be a reason behind it. “You’re just sort of ‘meh,’” Dr. Shanbhag said. “And you get used to being that way.” - The New York Times

Study: Links Between Your Music Taste And Your Moral Compass

Specifically, musical elements like pitch and timbre emerged as crucial predictors for values of Care and Fairness, while sentiments and emotions expressed in lyrics were more effective in predicting traits of Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. - Phys.org

A Critic, His Experiences, His Aesthetic

The question of the relation between one’s life and one’s taste has become a fraught one, and is still more troubled when the taste in question has a kind of public authority—as Sasha Frere-Jones came to have for readers of the New Yorker, the LA Times, and the Village Voice. - BookForum

How Portland Lost Its Creative Vibe

There are still plenty of creative people in Portland, of course, but many left during the pandemic, and no doubt many potential newcomers have been priced out. When money is tight, artists do not make things just to make them, things that might bring joy to those around them but will not put money...

Finding Ways For Researchers To Combine Science And Arts

"It’s not art-at-the-service-of-science. … It’s a collaboration of the two that can generate a vision for the future, to explain complex information, both theoretical and hard big data. And all in a way that’s accessible to scientists and the wider community. … But the road to this future isn't clearly paved. Yet." - Nature

What Shall We Call The Age In Which We’re Living?

During the past weeks, I’ve been casting about to see what ideas are already out there. Suggestions I’ve found include the Terrible Twenties, the Long 2016, the Age of Emergency, Cold War II, the Omnishambles, the Great Burning, and the Assholocene. - The New Yorker

DeSantis’s Handpicked Board To Govern Disney World Accuses Its (Disney-Approved) Predecessors Of “Corporate Cronyism”

The current board — installed following Disney's public criticism of DeSantis's "don't say gay" law — described the previous one as "the most egregious exhibition of corporate cronyism in modern American history." Disney responded that the new board's report is "neither objective nor credible." - AP

San Diego City Council Votes To Double Arts Funding

"(Members) unanimously voted to recommend the city use nearly 10% of its annual Transient Occupancy Tax revenue to fund arts and culture, nearly double the current amount. Tuesday's action doesn't immediately allocate the funds, but does send a message to Mayor Todd Gloria for next year's budget process." - KPBS (San Diego)

“Weird And Depressing”: Watching The Maria Callas Hologram Concert

"The hologram – which uses projectors and motion capture technology to create a 3D image of Callas – interacts with the audience without speaking directly to us; she motions to conductor Daniel Schlosberg, who motions back. She pauses for applause even after any real applause has died off." - The Guardian

James Gaffigan On The Need For A Different Programming Philosophy For Orchestras

I think the future is versatility—a mixtape. I really believe that if a piece is put next to the right piece, even if it’s Schubert and Taylor Swift… they’ll shine light on each other. I see that working perfectly. - Van

The Movie Biz Seems Surprisingly Interested In Classical Music Lately

In roughly two years, there've been Tár, Maestro, Chevalier (a biopic of Black composer Joseph Bologne), the documentary American Symphony, and upcoming Callas biopic Maria. "Hollywood doesn’t usually give this much attention to the world of classical music. … The sudden profusion is striking, and not easily explained." - MSN (San Francisco Chronicle)

UNESCO Gives Italian Opera Singing “Intangible Cultural Heritage” Status

In its citation, the United Nations cultural agency defined the practice as "a physiologically controlled way of singing that enhances the carrying power of the voice in acoustic spaces such as amphitheatres and churches." - BBC

BIS Recordings Is 50 Years Old. Here’s the Key To Its Success

'There have been times when we have stopped a recording if an artist isn’t prepared' von Bahr's exacting standards have built a 2,750-strong catalogue at the BIS Warehouse - Classical Music UK

Philly Pops Agrees To Finally Give Musicians The Pay It Owes Them. But Will It Ever Perform Again?

A judge approved a stipulation that the organization pay $300,000 it owes musicians for 2022's Christmas show. But this year's holiday program is performed by the No Name Pops, the group formed by the stiffed players, and the Philly Pops still owes the Kimmel Center back rent. - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

Artforum, Noticeably Slimmer, Tries To Regroup After The Israel-Hamas Letter And The Top Editor’s Firing

"A skeleton crew of editors needed to take a hacksaw through the December issue of Artforum magazine. There were only a few weeks between the sudden firing of its editor-in-chief and a print deadline for the glossy’s annual 'Year in Review' issue." - The New York Times

Monet, Art Brands And Money

 The art market is international and barely regulated; its products are easily transportable, squirrelled away in freeports or swiftly turned into cash. Grifters, fakers and thieves naturally abound. - London Review of Books

A Greatly Diminished ArtForum Magazine Hits Newsstands After Boycott

At least six members of the editorial team resigned and nearly 600 writers signed letters boycotting the magazine and its sister publications like ARTnews and Art in America. - The New York Times

The $15,000 Rembrandt That Just Sold For $14 Million

When Christie's auctioned off Adoration of the Kings (1628) in Amsterdam two years ago, the house attributed it to "the circle of Rembrandt" and valued it at between €10,000 and €15,000; an anonymous buyer purchased it for €860,000 and subsequently consigned it to Sotheby's, which authenticated the painting as Rembrandt. - CNN

Virginia Museum Of Fine Arts Is Repatriating 44 Ancient Artifacts Confirmed As Looted

"New York authorities will facilitate the return of the objects to officials of their origin countries" — Italy, Egypt, and Turkey. "The works include a bronze statue of an Etruscan warrior dated from the 5th Century B.C.E., a terracotta Italian wine flask from 330 B.C.E. and an ancient Egyptian cosmetics vessel." - ARTnews

Art Basel — Where The Super-Rich Buy Art

I’d understood that rich people could buy lots of art, but I hadn’t realized until this moment that my definitions of rich and lots were off by many orders of magnitude. “Clients ask me, ‘Are we collectors?’ And I say, ‘Has the word warehouse entered your vocabulary?’” - The Atlantic

Nobel Lit Prize Winner Jon Fosse On What He Has To Say To The World

“I often say that there are two languages: The words that I wrote, the words you can understand, and behind that, there’s a silent language.” And it’s in that “silent language,” he added, that the real meaning may lie. - The New York Times

Seattle’s Iconic Hugo House In Danger Of Closing

What happens next with Hugo House won’t just impact Seattle’s literary ecosystem but could be a blueprint, or cautionary tale, for the scores of other organizations grappling with similar issues in today’s uncertain arts economy. - Seattle Times

Why On Earth Do So Many U.S. Prisons Ban Fantasy And Sci-Fi Lit?

"Is the banning of fantastical literature in prisons just carceral paranoia — or is it indicative of a larger cultural attitude that simultaneously denigrates and fears imagination? After all, prisons are part of U.S. culture which, despite a thriving culture industry that traffics in magic and fantasy, nonetheless degrades it." - Literary Hub

The Typewriters Of Legendary Authors, Now Up For Sale

"After 20 years of assembling what may be the greatest typewriter collection in the world," — owned by the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Maya Angelou, Joe DiMaggio, John Lennon, Shirley Temple, and the Unabomber — "(Steve) Soboroff is putting all 33 of his beloved machines up for auction." - The New York Times

The Top 25 Most-Viewed Wikipedia Articles of 2023

Celebrity deaths were top of mind, as they are most years on Wikipedia. The list of notable deaths was the second most viewed page. - NPR

Three Congressmembers Introduce Bill To Combat Book Bans In Schools

"Introduced by Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-FL), Frederica Wilson (D-FL), and Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Fight Book Bans Act would offer school districts funding to defend against the ongoing surge in challenges to books and educational materials that has led to thousands of titles being pulled from school library bookshelves." - Publishers Weekly

“Prestige TV” Is Booming In Asia

Streaming giants in the region are increasingly placing their series bets on creators armed with a glittering list of prizes from the international festival circuit, and independent filmmakers and producers are making high-production-value shows with small-to-midrange budgets. The result? A veritable “prestige TV” wave on streamers. - The Hollywood Reporter

Study: 17 Percent Of Entertainment Workers Lost Jobs During The Writers/Actors Strikes

According to the Otis College of Art and Design’s study, the first released under the college’s ongoing Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, following the WGA, 24,799 entertainment industry employees in Los Angeles were let go, or more than 1.5 in every 10 workers. - Variety

Nintendo Cancels Its Annual Tokyo Gaming Showcase Over Safety Threats

Nintendo canceled its upcoming video game showcase and postponed several other events because of persistent threats to the company, its workers and players. - AP

Yahoo Makes Major Job Cuts For The Second Time This Year

"Layoffs affected a number of verticals including the website’s 'Originals' teams, with affected staffers told of their status in a meeting with their manager on Tuesday. The company will also be shutting down its 'In The Know' vertical, which curated news for Generation Z and millennial audiences." - The Daily Beast

Despite The Backlash, “Oppenheimer” Will Be Released In Japan

"The choice to have the film address, but not explicitly depict, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. — which killed tens of thousands of people and left many with lifelong injuries — (had been) hotly debated in the (Japanese) media. - AP

Worry That Funding For The BBC Threatens Political Independence

There is concern that the settlement announced by culture secretary Frazer kicks the door open to annual funding deals, potentially leaving the BBC more vulnerable to political agendas. - Deadline

At 42, Not Only Is Alina Cojocaru Still Dancing, She’s Producing

She and husband Johan Kobborg left London's Royal Ballet a decade ago; she spent seven years at English National Ballet, then became a busy, much-feted freelance soloist. Now, after two kids and the pandemic, she's producing an adaptation of Fellini's La Strada and starring as Gelsomina. - The Guardian

Keeping Traditional Japanese Dance Alive In Mexico City

Naoko Kihara, the daughter of Japanese-Brazilian immigrants to Mexico, has been practicing hanayagi dance in the Mexican capital for nearly a quarter of a century and is passing the art along to students in the Japanese diaspora community there. - AP

What U.S. Ballet Companies Go Through To Get And Maintain Visas For Foreign Dancers

There are two main types of visas for this purpose, but obtaining either is a complicated, time-consuming, expensive process. Here's a look at how two troupes in San Diego handle it with company members from Brazil, Japan, and Mexico. - MSN (The San Diego Union-Tribune)

How Martha Graham Redefined Dance

Martha understood that movement was melody. Her insistence that she was creating art rather than a diversion often bewildered audiences, who wanted to be entertained and couldn’t make the imaginative leap into her landscapes. - The American Scholar

The Big, Crazy Dream Of Rudolf Laban, The Pioneer Of Dance Notation

"In an essay that has been unearthed some 65 years after his death, Laban wrote of his 'dream' to stage dance in a 'kilometre house' – a gigantic dome in the middle of the countryside, 'a sort of oasis of movement for spectators and cast members alike' because existing theatres did not do justice...

She’s Just Choreographed For Six Of America’s Greatest Companies, But She’s Never Danced In A Company Herself

The half-dozen troupes for whom Amy Hall Garner has been making dances in the past year or so include Alvin Ailey, Paul Taylor, and New York and Miami City Ballets. Yet she herself went from Juilliard straight to Broadway and even performed for a time as a Rockette. - The New York Times

When A Small, Underfunded Theater Company’s Show Misfires, Should A Critic Review It Honestly? Yes.

"A year and a half ago, when I wrote a critical review of a show by (a) small company, a theater colleague asked me why I’d persisted with the project. … Whom does such a review serve, especially for a show that draws such small audiences?" Lily Janiak offers an answer to that question....

How Drag Queens Are Fighting Performance Bans In Texas

Earlier this year, Brigitte Bandit became one of five plaintiffs in a lawsuit that challenged Texas Senate Bill 12, which criminalized some drag performances if they occurred in the presence of minors. - The New Yorker

Cleveland Play House Hires A New Artistic Director

"Michael Barakiva … is an Armenian-Israeli American director and writer whose work has been seen at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Syracuse Stage and the Hangar Theatre, where he served as artistic director. … The moves come after more than a year of change at the 108-year-old company." - Ideastream (Cleveland)

A New Harlem Renaissance

Even with a general climate of crisis in the theatre industry at large, Harlem organizations are expanding in both literal and metaphorical ways: embarking on ambitious renovations, celebrating landmark seasons, and uprooting traditional modes of storytelling. - American Theatre

How A Brussels Theatre Remains Relevant To Its City

“We represent the city – we are a city theatre. We want to be a crossroads where people can meet and share emotions and talk and be free.” - The Guardian

Chinese Standups Overseas Have Developed An Entire Comedy Circuit In The Diaspora. Even There, They Watch What They Say.

It's not just that they fear that authorities back home are keeping eyes and ears on them. Among most of the comedians themselves, there are topics that are considered inappropriate to broach: politics, censorship, Xi Jinping, and anything that might make China look bad. - AP

Decoding Noam Chomsky

From the start of his academic career, no part of his scientific work would show up in his political activism, while no trace of his activism would be detectable in his science. Among the inevitable outcomes was a conception of language utterly divorced from what most of us mean by that term. - Aeon

Vera Molnár, A Pioneer Of Computer Art, Is Dead At 99

"Long before many others did so, Molnár embraced computers, which she used to create spare, minimalist drawings that were made according to sets of rules that she engineered. These drawings flirt with the points where order breaks down into chaos and chaos coheres into order." - ARTnews

Another Actress Accuses Gérard Depardieu Of Sexual Assault

Hélène Darras filed a complaint with law enforcement in Paris alleging that the veteran actor repeatedly groped her when she was an extra on the set of the 2007 film Disco. Depardieu is already under indictment for the alleged rape of actress Charlotte Arnould, a charge filed in 2018. - Variety

How Norman Lear Changed TV

If anyone knew how to watch, it was Lear. His great appreciation for the work of making television reflected his commitment to the less glamorous task of observing and attempting to understand other people. - The Atlantic

Norman Lear, Whose Sitcoms Revolutionized American Television, Is Dead At 101

"In an astonishingly prolific career that spanned more than six decades, Lear created or developed some of the most seminal comedies in television history, including All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, (and) One Day at a Time, ... tackling hot-button issues long considered taboo." - NBC News

Remembering John Byrne, Scottish Polymath And Creative Force

His desire to create extraordinary pieces of work burned fiercely to the end. A cultural polymath, Byrne traversed a number of genres throughout his illustrious career, with successes as a playwright, painter, screenwriter, set designer, costume designer, illustrator, muralist and printmaker. - The Conversation

AJ Premium Classifieds

Executive Director Opportunity – Seraphic Fire

Seraphic Fire invites inquiries from entrepreneurial arts leaders interested in serving as its next Executive Director.

President – International Storytelling Center

The right leader for ISC will come to this opportunity with a love and appreciation for the art of storytelling synchronized with the ability to move the organization to the next level operationally, with greater alignment of strategy and execution.

Presidio Theatre (San Francisco) seeks Executive Director

The successful candidate will be a strong leader who combines a broad knowledge of the performing arts, film arts, and speaker series, with a strong record of success in operating a theatre as a community resource.

AJClassifieds

Assistant Professor, Conductor & Orchestral Ensemble Coordinator

The School of Music at the University of South Florida is searching for an innovative, creative and collaborative orchestra conductor and coordinator of Orchestral Ensembles.

Phoenix Boys Choir seeks Managing Director

The ideal candidate will be an entrepreneur and ambassador for the organization, building the brand and strengthening the organization’s reach and impact.

Kansas City Ballet – School Director

The School Director in conjunction with the Artistic Director determines, communicates, and enforces curriculum requirements, supervising teachers and evaluating students.

SEEKING EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE DALLAS WINDS

The Board of Trustees is seeking to hire a full-time Executive Director for the organization following the retirement of Kim Campbell, in the Spring of 2024, after almost 40 years of service

Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Theatre

The Theatre Program of Columbia University School of the Arts seeks to fill a position at the rank of Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in Theatre (Acting/Directing/Producing), to begin July 1, 2024

Teaching Faculty I, 9 Month Salaried – Arts Administration (College of...

One of the nation's elite research universities, Florida State University preserves, expands, and disseminates knowledge in the sciences, technology, arts, humanities, and professions.

Hiring for Producing Director, Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences

The position leads all aspects of commissioning, development, and overall producing of the TYA season of in-house and touring productions.

Associate Director of Individual & Planned Giving

This is a new position that will support individual philanthropy as we embark upon an exciting growth initiative and a drive to elevate our individual giving programs.

Assistant/Associate/Full Professor – Director of Opera

The UCLA Music Department in the Herb Alpert School of Music invites applications for a tenured or tenure-track professorial position as Director of Opera.

Chamber Music Pittsburgh seeks Executive Director

The Executive Director is a strategic, entrepreneurial leader who works with the Board of Directors to provide leadership, drive revenue growth, and manage artistic, human, and financial resources.

Architect Yasmeen Lari Found The Ideal Material For Building Flood-Resistant Homes For Dirt-Poor Pakistani Villagers

That would be bamboo. It grows quickly in the hot climate; it sequesters plenty of carbon; it's inexpensive; it withstands floodwaters well. And Lari's innovative-yet-simple design for small houses made of traditional mud and limestone on bamboo frames can be built and repaired quickly by villagers themselves. - MSN (The Washington Post)

Norman Lear, Whose Sitcoms Revolutionized American Television, Is Dead At 101

"In an astonishingly prolific career that spanned more than six decades, Lear created or developed some of the most seminal comedies in television history, including All in the Family, Sanford and Son, Maude, Good Times, The Jeffersons, (and) One Day at a Time, ... tackling hot-button issues long considered taboo." - NBC News

Turner Prize 2023 Goes To Jesse Darling

"Darling is a 41-year-old Oxford-born, Berlin-based multidisciplinary artist working across sculpture, video, drawing and performance; he also released a collection of poetry, Virgins, last year. His Turner Prize-winning exhibition is an installation that places viewers in a custom-built environment evoking chaotic city streets and industrial barriers." - CNN

English National Opera Confirms That It’s Moving To Manchester

"The company had a shortlist of five places where it was considering setting up a new headquarters, with Manchester, the biggest city in Europe without a resident opera company, always the favourite. … (The announcement comes) a year after funders said it must move its base out of London." - The Guardian

A Play In France Reflects Life, Which Then Intrudes On The Play

After a play about Black Frenchwomen's experiences premiered in the summer in southern France, a series of racist attacks followed - and one actress dropped out before the play transferred to Paris. - The New York Times

How A Pulitzer Prize-Winning Playwright Teaches Theatre To Her Students

Lynn Nottage: "American Spectacle has always begun with a field trip to the Coney Island Circus Sideshow. ... We also go to vogue balls, courtroom trials, and megachurches. The event that the students especially love, which I never would have anticipated, is wrestling." - Paris Review

Do Poor And Lower-Middle Class Kids Deserve Access To The Humanities?

West Virginia says no. "For most students, their state’s main public university remains their best hope of breaching the walls of class difference. As the ax falls, that idealistic mission fades, and inequalities widen." - The Atlantic

Who Says We Can’t Write New Music In A Thoroughly Baroque Style?

"Nuova Pratica, a group of up-and-coming performer-composers who aim to re-open the book on Baroque composition, … reject the idea that what they do is mere pastiche. …(Their) music issues an unspoken challenge to the idea that everything in the musical language of the Baroque has already been said." - Early Music America

Chicago’s Arts Institutions Are Still Struggling Post-COVID

"A decline in subscription rates, shockingly higher costs, and donations that haven't kept pace with inflation have thrown some arts organizations off-balance and spiraled others into crisis. Museums, music and dance venues have bounced back faster. Theaters struggled, perhaps due to the expense and complexity of staging." - Crain's Chicago Business

A Man Who Investigated The Crimes Of Ferdinand And Imelda Marcos Goes To The Broadway Musical About Them

"Having seen and enjoyed the show in New York, I now realize that I missed the obvious during my years in Manila. The Marcoses, the now-94-year-old Imelda in particular, had for years captured the affection and votes of ordinary Filipinos by entertaining them." - NPR

Why Is This Artist Teaching A Robot Dog How To Paint?

Artist Agnieska Pilat isn't worried that Basia the robot dog might take her job. She "is a self-described techno-optimist who loves the robots: she even lives with Basia, and takes her for walks around her neighbourhood in New York City." - The Guardian (UK)

Irish Author Paul Lynch Wins The Booker For A ‘Soul-Shattering’ Novel

The book, Prophet Song, pictures a Dublin descended into fascist tyranny. - The Guardian (UK)
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