In the early years of the 18th century a select group of philosophers began to conceive of laughter as something that might police the boundaries of sociable conduct. - History Today
We are at a critical juncture: a relatively long period of stability in mainstream thinking about economic globalisation has given way to a situation of dramatic flux. - Aeon
The escalation of events — from a contract with about a dozen employees to an ugly public battle between two of Maryland’s flagship arts institutions — has alarmed civic, arts and union leaders. - Washington Post
"'A frictionless world' in which evidence of the imagination floats around in the empyrean 'without cost, without registration, and without restrictive conditions on their use, … a Borgesian Library of Babel, the Review is a labyrinth to get lost in." - The Times Literary Supplement (UK)
I review the new musical version of The Visitor in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt.
* * *
Turning a perfect movie into a stage musical...
Thomas Beecham and the Chicago Symphony perform Delius’ “On the River” (from the Florida Suite) on TV in 1960:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Kzo5Tebu9f8
(This is the latest in a series of...
In the early years of the 18th century a select group of philosophers began to conceive of laughter as something that might police the boundaries of sociable conduct. - History Today
We are at a critical juncture: a relatively long period of stability in mainstream thinking about economic globalisation has given way to a situation of dramatic flux. - Aeon
Creating hypotheses has long been a purely human domain. Now, though, scientists are beginning to ask machine learning to produce original insights. They are designing neural networks that suggest new hypotheses based on patterns the networks find in data. - Scientific American
All together, about a dozen AI datasets vanished—hastily scrubbed by their creators after researchers, activists, and journalists exposed an array of problems with the data and the ways it was used, from privacy, to race and gender bias, to issues with human rights. - Slate
Though the term “metaverse” suggests a fully articulated sci-fi realm, Zuckerberg is using it to glamorize a network of virtual and augmented reality apps and gear, like headsets. - The New York Times
To earn the title of Grand Master of Memory, one must be able to memorize a 1000-digit number in one hour. The next hour you are faced with memorizing the order of ten packs of cards. And finally you get two minutes to memorize a single pack. - LitHub
A recent study found that a person living in the South received only $4.21 in arts and culture funding from philanthropy, compared to the national average of $8.60 per person. If you’re reading this in New York or Boston, know that Northeasterners receive about $16. - Artnet
"This (finding) contrasted (with) surveys in prior years, which indicated strong visitation growth for history museums — especially small, local ones." - Hyperallergic
Once streaming services like Netflix tore down geographical barriers, the creators say, the country transformed from a consumer of Western culture into an entertainment juggernaut and major cultural exporter in its own right. - The New York Times
The controversy comes as the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities has dramatically reshaped its policies to focus on diversity and equity and to broaden its reach to serve the entire city. Its $38.4 million budget is one of the nation’s largest. - Washington Post
"The 13-building complex opened this weekend (in Mexico City) with around 64,600 square feet of gardens, workshops, and performance and exhibition spaces." Amazingly, the six-year project was completed for less than $1 million. - ARTnews
Taylor Lorenz: "Why aren't internet culture writers, who are primarily women and people of color, seen simply as technology or culture reporters? And do we really need the word 'internet' or 'digital' in front of things in the year 2021?" - Mirror
The escalation of events — from a contract with about a dozen employees to an ugly public battle between two of Maryland’s flagship arts institutions — has alarmed civic, arts and union leaders. - Washington Post
His international career was hobbled over and over again by a breathtaking series of mishaps, comebacks, and more mishaps that ultimately left him unable to play at all. Then an industrial designer saw Martins on TV and had an idea … - GQ
Mayfield, who became a symbol of the survival of New Orleans, and his business partner, pianist Ronald Markham, were given 18-month sentences for diverting $1.3 million to themselves from the New Orleans Public Library Foundation. - NPR
"(The orchestra) turned a $4.4 million operating deficit into a $1.6 million surplus by cutting expenses deeper than revenue fell during the pandemic-struck fiscal year ended June 30. The black ink was the first in five years, a stretch that included a musicians' strike." - Crain's Chicago Business
Granted, this isn't just any match: it's the still-legendary 1989 English Premier League championship in which the London team Arsenal pulled off a dramatic last-minute win against Liverpool. Here the composer writes about how the unusual project came about. - The Guardian
It may be counterintuitive, but the consensus view is the best way to produce the emotional intensity of a live performance is to create programming distinctly different from the work being done onstage. - San Francisco Classical Voice
"Local divers exploring Indonesia's Musi River (on the island of Sumatra) have found gold rings, beads and other artifacts that may be linked to the Srivijaya Empire, which controlled sea trade across large swaths of Asia between the 7th and 11th centuries C.E." - Smithsonian Magazine
Using equipment designed for geophysics, researchers scanned the site of Karakorum, chosen by Genghis and built by his two successors, and found that the city was larger than previously thought, extending well beyond the walls, 40% of it was empty, and Mongols didn't live there. - Haaretz (Israel)
The Becoming B.C. gallery, which focuses on the story of European settlement in B.C. and has been widely criticized for pushing a colonial narrative, will be the first to close. - CBC
Museums should downsize storage for commercial, environmental, social and ethical reasons. Post-pandemic with their revenues ravaged, they need to take a hard look at the fixed and hidden costs of storage and weigh it against its academic objectives. - Hyperallergic
Normally, only some six to ten percent of collections at major museums around the world, the rest kept in closed storage depots. That will now change for the Rotterdam institution -- and visitors will even able to watch works being restored. - NDTV
“(The movement is) confront(ing) conditions that workers — from archivists and curators to those selling T-shirts — say are untenable: minimal wage increases, draining resources, lack of transparency from top administrators, and mass layoffs and furloughs resulting from the coronavirus pandemic." - The Washington Post
Northwestern University’s MS in Leadership for Creative Enterprises program develops leaders in business, innovation, and entrepreneurship across Entertainment, Media and the Arts.
VILLAGE THEATRE seeks its next Artistic Director (AD) to lead the organization’s overall artistic operations. The Artistic Director will serve in a co-equal partnership with a Managing Director to be named after the AD is selected. Each will report to the Board through its President.
The successful candidate will become a community leader representing the Symphony and establishing relationships that support and foster its growth and success.
Working closely with Board and the Artistic Directors, the ED will provide the day-to-day leadership and overall management that will enable iSing to realize its vision, fulfill its mission, and achieve its goals for artistic and organizational success.
Reporting to the Executive Director and serving as an integral member of the senior management team, the General Manager will have overall strategic and operational responsibility for production, education, and community engagement functions.
The next Artistic Director will possess a deep understanding of and commitment to dance, anchored in classical ballet, while having the ability to evolve, move, and mold the art form into the future.
Focused on advancing its mission, vision, and values, this individual will oversee all of the company’s business functions, guiding the organization into its next phase of growth.
The Vice President & General Manager (GM) is a member of the senior leadership team and has overall responsibility for the management of orchestra operati
Theatre Bay Area, one of the largest regional performing arts service organizations in the nation,
seeks an enthusiastic applicant to join its management team on an interim basis for nine months
The Executive Director will be a transformational, inclusive, transparent and innovative leader, responsible for managing the human and financial resources of the MSO
Reporting to the Executive Director, the Director of Development will serve as a thought partner as Spruce Peak Arts enters its 12th year of operation.
The Director & CEO will provide visionary leadership for the Textile Museum and develop and execute a new strategic plan that advances the Textile Museum’s mission, vision, values, and goals.
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION (the Institution) seeks a broad thinker who possesses an inquisitive spirit and a demonstrated talent as a superb cultural manager to serve as its next Vice President for Performing and Visual Arts.
The Director of Patron Services and Rentals is a crucial contributing member of a creative performing arts venue staff which has managed to expand and diversify its programming and audiences during COVID restrictions.
The anecdotal evidence, gleaned from social media and private conversations with industry leaders, suggests a variety of challenges — lingering fears of the coronavirus, the disinclination by some patrons to wear masks and resistance to high ticket prices. - Washington Post
Big picture: the 27 shows currently running grossed $19.66 million together last week, with 168,169 butts in seats. That’s a 11% box office drop from the week before, and a 5% drop in overall attendance. - Forbes
Her Trouble in Mind treats a touchy subject, even now: it's about an interracial cast rehearsing an anti-lynching play written and directed by whites. In 1955, the Off-Broadway producers made her tack on a happy ending; in 2021, it's playing as she intended. - The New York Times
There remained no shortage of quality work presented at the fringe, but its own aesthetic had changed over this time, contributing to making it feel less conducive for West End and commercial productions. - The Stage
Less than a week after news broke of Mandy Greenfield's departure from the Williamstown Theater Festival following reports of poor working conditions, co-founder Julianne Boyd has announced her retirement (on good terms) from Barrington Stage Company. - The New York Times
Chris Jones: "Contrary to the way it has sometimes been reported, Steppenwolf has not added a theater to its portfolio so much as replaced an inadequate one with a superior facility in a different configuration." - MSN (Chicago Tribune)
Says one choreographer, "It's not the first fight I would pick about the homogeneity of bodies on stage. But there's something archaic in dance – where your body is policed in certain ways. You're taught not to have agency over your body." - The Guardian
Makhloot had an entire crew of professional hip-hop dancers in Kabul (including one woman) and hoped to compete in breaking at the 2024 Olympics. Fahima performed and taught sema, the meditative whirling dance of the Sufis. Both had to flee quickly when the Taliban took over. - Dance Teacher
"Choreographer Amy Gardner used to consistently run into the same problem: When jobs popped up in different cities, whether for Nick Jonas or Neiman Marcus, finding dancers wasn't easy, and casting was slowing down her momentum." So she started Dance Hypha. - Dance Magazine
"When Indigenous Enterprise appeared on World of Dance, Kenneth Shirley described the group's style as 'Native American with a little bit of hip-hop.' And the influence of hip-hop is discernible in footwork and bounce, but most of all in attitude." - The New York Times
The truth is that culture writing that doesn't involve celebrities or popular culture or scandal fills an increasingly small niche in the mainstream press. - Dance Magazine
Jennifer Homans: "Balanchine, it seems, has become orthodox: classical, beautiful, the radical edges zipped up and smoothed. This is not the dancers' fault, nor is it something anyone can undo." - The New Yorker
"'A frictionless world' in which evidence of the imagination floats around in the empyrean 'without cost, without registration, and without restrictive conditions on their use, … a Borgesian Library of Babel, the Review is a labyrinth to get lost in." - The Times Literary Supplement (UK)
Kim Sherwood has struck a deal with HarperCollins to write three contemporary thrillers set in the world of James Bond but where the original 007 is missing, presumed captured or even killed. - The Guardian
"Poems meet the raw needs of our most vulnerable inner selves in a disarmingly primal way, using a simple tool no other sort of language mobilises in quite the same manner: predictable, physical, rhythmical repetition. Poetry chants and incants; it excites and lulls." - Psyche
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr of Senegal has won the Prix Goncourt for La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (The Most Secret Memory of Men), which the magazine L'Express called "the revelation of the literary year … shining proof of the vitality and universality of the French language." - The Guardian
Yes, of course, it's ultimately to make more money, but here's a glimpse of just how different the content is and a look at the structural reason for that difference. - Columbia Journalism Review
Sources report that the decision is because Disney's Marvel Studios refused the request to cut a male-male kiss. Eternals is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature an LGBTQ+ superhero. - Variety
In Shonda Rhimes’ renewed pact, the bullet points specify that Shondaland will now be, as Rhimes puts it, a “one-stop shopping” source for Netflix for movies as well as a wide variety of other types of content. - Variety
"BoJack Horseman, Fleabag, Veep, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are among the comedies that have left the traditional sitcom form in the dust. … The laughs come with much higher emotional stakes, often juxtaposed with grief, shame, addiction, … and questions about the very meaning of life." - BBC
Over the past few years, a certain genre of media has found opportunity in debunking false conceptions of the semi-recent past and meditating on the cultural factors which contributed to their initial spread. - Gawker
Okay, it's not really a surprise, but we finally get confirmation from the guy who made the decision, along with his feelings about the brouhaha around the show's finale, what led him to make the prequel, and how he feels about film versus TV. - The Hollywood Reporter
"Not so long ago, Christian Rosa was a buzzy young artist on the rise. Now he's facing a series of charges related to alleged forgeries and on the run from the FBI. How did it come to this?" - Vanity Fair
In 1980, brain surgery left him with no memory, but he painstakingly relearned the instrument, and his own past, and went on to three more decades of innovative musicianship. - The New York Times
Where Close’s work ultimately lands in the canon of American art will serve as the art world’s first test case for how an artist who faced sexual harassment allegations in life will be remembered in death. - Artnet
In 2020 he was indicted on multiple charges of wire fraud and identity theft and fled to Vanuatu in the South Pacific, where he was ultimately arrested; deemed a flight risk, he's been in custody in New York ever since. - Artnet
"One of the most celebrated pianists of the second half of the 20th century, … The Guardian once wrote of him, 'few pianists alive convey the sheer joy and exhilaration of being masters of their craft more vividly and uncomplicatedly than Nelson Freire.'" - Limelight