Michael Billington: “Rufus Norris has made clear that he wants the National to more visibly represent the nation at large: if that means more work by women and greater racial diversity, I am happy to fling my hat in the air. But that need not – indeed should not – mean an almost total severance with the past.”
Archives for January 2017
Poll: 78 Percent Of UK Theatre Workers Say They Have Been Unpaid After A Job
The poll, hosted on The Stage website, asked whether readers had ever been left unpaid by an employer, after performer Jonathan Ansell stormed a stage in protest against a producer who he claims has failed to pay him money owed.
How Very Difficult Video Games Produce Feelings Of Euphoria
“People like hard games because they do not placate them with explicit rewards for trivial actions.” For the experience to be meaningful, the challenge cannot be illusory.
Is It Time To Abandon The Concept Of “Normal”?
“In any parlance, the specific meaning of ‘normal’ has important consequences, especially if it is given a privileged position in the world. Anything that veers – from having green eyes or hearing voices to living with hydrocephalus – would be abnormal in one sense or another: uncommon, rare, atypical, potentially inadequate, suboptimal or deficient in some way – and in need of being brought back to some norm. Yet, it could be controversial, or just plain odd, to pathologise such variations; especially if they are functional in some way.”
There’s A Long History Of Protest Songs. But Is Anyone Listening Any More?
Voices are being heard, of course. Songwriters would be hard-pressed to resist the actions and rhetoric of the Trump presidency. But what rabble is being roused? Are the modern protest singers preaching to choirs? A nation is divided, and many of the protest songs are not of the unifying “this land is your land” kind.
Increasingly, Creative People Are Turning To Analog Over Digital
“The virtues of digital turn out to be the vices as well. Having all the music on earth at your instant disposal turns out to be almost the same as having none; Spotify’s playlists show people picking the same tunes over and over. Digital life’s too self-absorbed—either we evolve quickly away from the social primates we have always been or else we will quietly suffer from the solipsism inherent in staring at ourselves reflected in a screen. It’s too jumpy; concentration, from which all that is worthwhile emerges, is the great loss.”
Some Lessons We Learned Bringing New Work To Small Theatres
Small venues are often encouraged to ‘buddy up’ with larger venues to develop their skills, expertise and knowledge. This can lead to an erosion of confidence, implying that small venues are somehow inferior and need help or advice. Small venues operate differently from larger ones, in that they manage their resources extremely well and develop a close understanding of and relationships with their audiences in ways that larger-scale organisations sometimes find difficult to achieve.
For First Time In A Decade, UK Museum Attendance Falls
“The 2.8% decline is almost all attributable to a fall in visitors from overseas, despite an increase in tourists visiting the UK. Overseas visitors now account for 47% of all visitors to the sponsored museums, while a like-for-like comparison shows they accounted for 49% the previous year. Visits by people from the UK continue to show marginal growth, roughly mirroring population trends.”
You’re Hearing Things: How People Perceive Voices In Random Noise
You may not know the term, but you’re familiar with “visual pareidolia” – it’s when you see an animal in a Rorschach blot or the Virgin Mary in a slice of toast. It happens with sounds, too – as when some parents heard in a Fisher-Price doll’s giggles and coos the sentence “Islam is the light.” Philip Jaekl explains how it happens.
What It’s Like To Join The Chicago Symphony
Nathan Cole: As I put in my first set of numbers, my stand partner made a sound, a kind of groan cut short. I looked over, the point of my pencil still on the page. “Did you want my markings on the bottom instead?” “We don’t mark fingerings here,” he said.” “Here, you mean at this spot?” “I mean in this orchestra.” His face softened, and he added, “Sorry, you’re probably used to seeing them, right?” I was indeed used to seeing fingerings as a matter of course. My mind was fairly blown. “How do you play all this music then?” My stand partner paused, as if he’d never considered the question before. “Practice?” he suggested. When you ask, be ready for the answer.
A 25-Year Search For The Secrets Of Gaga
“The film director Tomer Heymann entered – or barged – into the life of the Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin 25 years ago, first as his waiter at a cafe and then as the boyfriend of one of his dancers.”
Kill The National Endowment For The Arts? Here’s What That Would Mean
“What would the elimination of the NEA mean for the arts in the US? In terms of actual direct support, very little. Many foundations, other funding bodies, and individuals dole out more for the arts each year than the arts endowment: for example, New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs 2016 budget was $165 million, with additional funds dedicated for capital projects; philanthropist David Geffen’s $100 million gift to New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2016 outstripped the NEA’s direct granting budget that year. But the NEA has impact far exceeding its direct grants.”
How To Act Drunk: A Tutorial (From An Actor Who Knows)
Richard Roxburgh, currently starring on Broadway with Cate Blanchett in The Present: “In terms of the study of alcohol and its effects, I probably have an unfair advantage in that I am, A, Australian, and, B, an actor. I’ve had probably an unhealthy overexposure to the shenanigans of booze over time.”
The Pompidou At 40: Here’s The Impact It’s Had
Rem Koolhaus: “The Centre Pompidou was maybe the last moment that a museum competition won with that degree of abstraction, radicality and that degree of newness. It was more a hypothesis than a project and I think museum competitions since then have moved as far as possible away from that. The very model of a museum that the Pompidou offered has been avoided as much as possible by subsequent museum competitions, juries, clients and realisations.”
I Was An Extra In A North Korean Propaganda Film
“In 2013, Australian documentarian Anna Broinowski was granted a rare chance to research North Korea’s cloaked and powerful propaganda film industry. … [This excerpt] from her book Aim High in Creation! chronicles the bizarre final days of Broinowski’s North Korean film production boot camp, when she was unexpectedly cast as an ‘evil American wife’ in a film about the 1968 capture of the U.S. spy ship, the Pueblo.”
Behold The Awesome Power Of The People’s Liberation Army’s Rooster Dance
A little gift for the Year of the Rooster. (video)
Brad Troemel, ‘The Troll Of Internet Art’
“[His] view of art could not be less romantic. He once described to me the ‘formula’ for a gallery show: ‘You have a series of wall works that are meant to sell, and the stuff on the floor that’s meant to make things look difficult.'”
As Top-Selling Living Artists Age, Galleries And Auction Houses Are Scrapping Over Them
“Chuck Close and other artists used to sit around bars like the Cedar Tavern and Max’s Kansas City and talk about art. ‘I have more conversations today over what we’re going to do to protect our spouses, our children, our work,’ Mr. Close said.”
The Arts-Are-Good-For-The-Economy Arguments Have Failed – They’ve Even Helped Kill The NEA, Argues Arts Exec
Matt Burriesci, executive director of the Providence Athenaeum: “If we’d like to discuss metrics, deliverables and results, then we must ask how our interests have fared by employing this economic strategy. … Where, exactly, are the results? They are not to be found in the opinions of our policymakers”
Before Spending All That Time And Money On A New London Concert Hall, Let’s Think It Through Properly
Jodi Myers considers some potential unintended consequences of going through with Sir Simon’s enormous pet project.
Canada’s Last Record Store Chain Goes Bust
“The move comes after HMV could no longer make payments on its crippling debt to the tune of $39 million. The chain was profitable up until 2013, but after a significant decline in sales it has not made a single payment on the debt since November 2014.”
Worried That We Could ‘Normalize’ Unacceptable Situations? You’re Not Wrong
Two cognitive researchers explain how people’s conceptions of what’s average or typical and what’s ideal bleed into each other and change what gets considered “normal.”
India’s Biggest Book Festival Warily Makes Room For The Hindu Radicals It Used To Conider Pariahs
The RSS (for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) is a Hindu nationalist group compared by some to the Tea Party and by others to the Ku Klux Klan. The Jaipur Literature Festival is a swanky, high-minded gathering that would consider the RSS both morally repugnant and vulgar. Until this year, that is.
Jaipur Literature Festival’s Normalizing Of Hindu Radicals Just Shows That The Mask Is Off
Novelist Siddhartha Deb calls out the event and (especially) its sponsors: “One of India’s largest entertainment companies, Zee is best known for a news channel that serves as the media bludgeon of the Hindu right, its favorite term of abuse, usually flashing in extremely large font, being ‘Deshdrohi,’ or ‘Nation-hater.'”
UK Bank Backs Down On Closing Russia Today Network’s Accounts
Back in October, NatWest announced that it would no longer provide services to RT, the Russian-government-sponsored news channel. Russian officials promptly cried “Censorship!” and threatened to retaliate against the BBC’s operations in Russia. Now NatWest (which is owned largely by the British government) has announced a settlement.