David Hare: Directors Now Have Too Much Power Over Playwrights
“When I entered the industry the playwright was regarded as the most important person in the process and slowly in the new century things have moved over to director’s theatre, and the directors not only run the theatres, choose the plays, but they also want to be auteurs in the rehearsal room, and that is a new development." Hare said playwrights are being forced to write like film writers, which he believes is unhealthy for theatre. … [Read More]
Why Common Sense Isn’t Always A Reliable Moral Guide
Why bother with moral philosophy when common sense serves most of us perfectly well? The simple answer is that, as history shows, commonsensical beliefs are very often wrong. Slavery, marital rape, and bans on interracial marriage were all widely accepted in the relatively recent past. Much like fish who, as the proverb goes, are the last to discover water, humans are so immersed in immorality that we can be entirely unaware of it. … [Read More]
Will We Ever Get To The Point Where We Interact With Machines As We Do With Humans?
"Today, the technical ability to produce a robot that truly looks and moves and speaks like a human remains well beyond our reach. Even further beyond our grasp is the capacity to imbue such a machine with humanness—that ineffable presence the Japanese call sonzai-kan. Because to re-create human presence we need to know more about ourselves than we do—about the accumulation of cues and micromovements that trigger our empathy, put us at ease, and earn our trust. Someday we may crack the problem of creating artificial general intelligence—a machine brain that can intuitively perform any human intellectual task—but why would we choose to interact with it?" … [Read More]
Creativity Versus The Arts
I think these creative endeavors resonate with people because they are grounded in each participant’s lived experience (rather than universal plots or a reflection of someone else’s perspective) and, as such, they cannot help but be authentic. Perhaps what we call “bad” or “amateur” art isn’t because of “aesthetics,” but because it feels derivative of some form that already exists rather than growing from this place of fearless, individual experience. But how then do we nurture this creative authenticity? … [Read More]
Modern Movie Cowboys Are Redefining Mythology Of The Old West
"A last gasp of the old west duly became the first movie western. But from there, the task quickly became mythmaking. The western turned inexorably towards the past – or a version of it. Soon came the movies that defined the genre, tales of heroes in stetsons and dastardly “injuns” somewhere between propaganda and mass hypnosis. The west had to be won, most westerns said, to save innocence from savagery. There were exceptions, and some of those were fantastic films – but the racism stuck. Eventually, there was a reckoning – an apology even." … [Read More]
Charge: Sexual Abuse Of Bolshoi Dancers Is Rampant
"For as long as anyone can remember, theater and movie directors, rich sponsors of art, dancing masters and acting coaches here in Russia have demanded sex from young actresses, ballerinas, and students in exchange for a part in a movie, a role in a play, or promotion in the ballet." … [Read More]
The Filmmaker Who Put Korean Cinema On The World’s Screens
"Park Chan-wook ... combines dark humor, a painterly sense of composition and lots of gore. But beneath the violence lies a deep humanity - and a love of the absurd." … [Read More]
Netflix Won’t Say How Many People Watch Its Shows. So Nielsen Figured Out How To Count Them
"Nielsen announced the initiative on Wednesday morning, but it has been collecting Netflix viewership data over the last two months in a kind of test run. The company said it was able to determine how many viewers were streaming Netflix content through audio recognition software in the 44,000 Nielsen-rated homes across the United States." … [Read More]
What Is The Science Behind How We Experience Architecture?
Paul Goldberger: "If, until now, we - architects, critics, building dwellers - have had to guess what makes certain places attractive or comfortable or exciting or awe-inspiring, we now have some scientific basis for our reactions: what [Sarah Williams] Goldhagen calls a new paradigm, which 'holds that much of what and how people think is a function of our living in the kinds of bodies we do.'" … [Read More]
Google Says Its AI Machines Are Now Better At Design Than Its Human Engineers
Google has announced that AutoML has beaten the human AI engineers at their own game by building machine-learning software that's more efficient and powerful than the best human-designed systems. … [Read More]
Vann Molyvann, Cambodia’s Great Modern Architect, Dead At 90
"In the 1960s he transformed Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, from a colonial backwater into one of the most beautiful and innovative of south-east Asian cities. Drawing inspiration from the ancient bas-reliefs and designs of the Angkor Wat temple complex, Vann's style, which came to be known as New Khmer architecture, blended Khmer tradition with the modernist principles he had mastered during studies in Paris." … [Read More]
Why Novels Matter Now More Than Ever
"The novel matters because and so on. By which I mean that I’ve come to believe that all the arts are about time, but that the novel in particular is about the and-so-on of things, continuance and continuity, the continuum. It’s a form, too, very interested in the workings of society, so it tells us about how we’re living, who we’re living with, and where we are in the endless social structural cycle that eventually gets called history." … [Read More]
Ancient Papyrus Reveals How Egyptians Built Great Pyramid Of Giza
"Historians have long been stumped at how people with relatively primitive tools managed to transport the estimated 800 tonnes of material every day from Aswan, 500 miles to the south. Now ancient papyrus, a ceremonial boat and a system of waterworks have revealed the complex infrastructure created by builders to complete the structure." … [Read More]
Public Art In Hollywood Removed After Harvey Weinstein Scandal
The piece is a fiberglass sculpture of a daybed, the pinnacle of “The Road to Hollywood,” a large and complex installation by artist Erika Rothenberg. It was removed Thursday from its perch at Hollywood & Highland, the shopping mall adjacent to the theater where the Academy Awards are handed out. In the eyes of some, an innocuous daybed became a casting couch. … [Read More]
‘He Mistrusted The Cosy, The Mimsy In Ballet’ – Clement Crisp Salutes Kenneth Macmillan
25 years ago this month, the choreographer suffered a fatal heart attack backstage at the Royal Opera House during a performance of his ballet Mayerling. Crisp, who was there, remembers the fateful evening and pays tribute to MacMillan's "fascination with the psyche rather than the fouetté ... [his] interest in movement's capacity to convey psychological complexity." … [Read More]
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The Getty Leadership Institute – Apply Now for 2018 Programs
Executive Education for Museum Leaders: The Getty Leadership Institute at Claremont Graduate University is now accepting applications for GLI 2018 and NextGen 2018 programs. Join a dynamic and diverse … [Read More]
Director, Presenting – Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity. Banff, AB Canada
Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity is seeking a dynamic and collaborative Director of Presenting who will be responsible for building and developing a presenting calendar which delivers on … [Read More]
New Internationally-Focused MFA Program in Dance
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS | SCHOOL OF DANCE PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA USA www.uarts.edu/mfadance new internationally-focused mfa program including both year and low residency cohorts summer 2018 :: … [Read More]
Visual Arts Management Fellowship in NYC
The Catherine Hannah Behrend Fellowship provides mentorship and support for emerging female leaders working in visual arts management in NYC. Applications for 2018 are due Friday, October 20. It's … [Read More]
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Hone your creative leadership approach and make your unique contribution to society. Banff Centre is a champion of arts and creativity, and Banff Centre Leadership programs prepare and empower … [Read More]
The Strange Capital That Starchitects Built For A Dictator…
As part of "Secret Stans", a series about the cities of the little-known former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Oliver Wainwright visits Astana, Kazakhstan, where president-for-life Nursultan Nazarbayev brought in the likes of Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava to create a futuristic capital city from scratch. … [Read More]
The Falcon, The Iron, The Jug, The Disco Balls: The Wildest, Weirdest New Architecture In Central Asia…
A photo tour of the strange and fabulous (in more than one sense) buildings that have gone up in the cities of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan, where the dictators were not going to let themselves be outdone. … [Read More]
Alexei Ratmansky And His Favorite Composer…
Marina Harss talks with the choreographer and Leonid Desyatnikov, the only composer from whom Ratmansky has ever commissioned a score. Their sixth collaboration is about to open at American Ballet Theater. … [Read More]
More Than A Third Of Museum Visitors Don’t Consider Museums ‘Culture’ – And Other Takeaways From The 2017 Culture Track Report…
"For many respondents, going to the park or eating at a food truck counts as a cultural experience, while attending a museum does not. ... Below, we spotlight seven findings from the study could have major consequences for how traditional cultural hubs like museums think about audience outreach, development strategies, and cultural participation in the 21st century." … [Read More]
St. Louis Symphony Posts First Surplus In 17 Years…
Other good news from last season includes new contracts with the musicians and stagehands, the engagement of Stéphane Denève to succeed David Robertson as music director, and an uptick in box office revenue, with a third of attendees at core classical concerts being new to the orchestra's home concert hall. … [Read More]
How Three Decades Have Changed ‘M. Butterfly’ (And Vice Versa)…
"[The character Song Liling's] true gender was the meant-to-shock big reveal of the original Broadway production ... [But] by now, the play has been in the repertory for nearly 30 years. As [actor B.D.] Wong said by phone recently, 'The cat is out of the bag.' Yet here's the thing, as I saw when I bought a ticket and went to an early preview: [David Henry] Hwang has made a new cat, and [Julie] Taymor has put it in a very different bag." The playwright talks with Laura Collins-Hughes about that brand new bag. … [Read More]
How ‘M. Butterfly’ Changed My Life: Five Asian-American Theater Artists Speak…
Laura Collins-Hughes talks with actors B.D. Wong and George Takei, playwrights Julia Cho (Office Hour) and Jason Kim (KPOP), and National Asian American Theater Company co-founder Mia Katigbak. … [Read More]
Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra Loses 20% Of Subscribers As It Moves To Temporary Venue…
While the Tonhalle itself undergoes a major renovation, "the exiled orchestra can be seen in action for the next three years at the Maag Hall, part of an industrial complex in Zurich West ... CHF10 million has been invested in the acoustics, but there are 300 fewer seats than in the Tonhalle, and one in five orchestra subscriptions has been cancelled." … [Read More]
George Saunders’s ‘Lincoln In The Bardo’ Wins Man Booker Prize…
"Saunders is the second American in a row to win the Booker prize, after last year's winner Paul Beatty. Saunders' win falls four years after eligibility rules were changed to allow writers of any nationality writing in the English language and published in the UK. There has been fierce criticism of the rule change." … [Read More]
Russia Extends House Arrest For Leading Theater/Film Director…
Kirill Serebrennikov, chief of Moscow's Gogol Center and best-known in the West as director of the Bolshoi's off-again/on-again ballet Nureyev, "was placed under house arrest in August on charges of embezzling 68 million rubles ($1.1 million) in government funds in a case widely seen as political. ... The judge denied Serebrennikov's request to be released for five days to complete the filming of a movie about rock legend Viktor Tsoi and to visit the Bolshoi Theater Dec. 9-10. The director will remain under house arrest until Jan. 19 next year." … [Read More]