From the Central Board of Film Certification’s letter denying permission to screen Lipstick Under My Burkha in India: “The story is lady oriented, their fantasy above life. There are contanious [sic] sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of society.” Naturally, director Alankrita Shrivastava had some choice words about the decision, as did the Twitterverse.
Archives for February 2017
Dance For Seniors Is Catching On All Over Britain
“Across the UK, enthusiastic, determined, focused individuals are fighting hard for a new kind of dance provision – one that doesn’t simply enable access for older dancers, but aims to challenge, reinterpret and promote the ageing body.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 02.27.17
Are Orchestras Better than Ever? Why Riccardo Muti is Wrong
Are orchestras better than ever? Riccardo Muti thinks so. Recently, … he said: “The level of the orchestras in the world – especially in the seventies and eighties — has gone up everywhere.” … read more
AJBlog: Unanswered Question Published 2017-02-26
Burying the Bad News: Sotheby’s Earnings Call Ignores 30% Drop in 2016 Adjusted Net Income
“I feel good,” Tad Smith repeatedly declared during Sotheby’s earnings call with securities analysts this morning. Buoyed by New Year’s hopes for better performance in 2017 after a lackluster 2016, Sotheby’s president and CEO enumerated … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-02-27
The Serene Eye of a Storm
Danspace Project presents Julie McMillan in Benjamin Kimitch’s KO-BU. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-02-27
DC’s Arena Stage Doubles Down On Political Plays And Lands A Major Gift
“The $2.5 million is the initial splash in what will plainly need to be a very deep bucket. The Power Plays, first announced in November, are new works focused on politics and power – one for each decade of America’s existence. The 10-year, 25-work series will be composed of five related cycles: Presidential Voices, African-American Voices, Insider Voices, Musical Theater Voices and Women’s Voices.”
You Are What You Think? The Mythologies Of Consciousness
“What if I were to say that the very idea of consciousness was invented to explain how you could experience an apple when there is no apple in your head. So we have to have this consciousness apple. However, if experience and apple are one and the same, there is no longer any need to talk of a consciousness separate from it. The apple is more than enough.”
Oscars Ratings Are In – Slight Decline From Last Year
“In the 56 overnight markets, the Oscars show averaged a 22.4 rating, just below last year’s figure of 22.5. Each rating point represents the percentage of households tuned in.”
Arts Council England Readjusts Major YouTube Strategy Off Unrealistic Expectations
“Low subscriber rates, minimal commercial opportunities and barriers to entry for arts organisations have forced Arts Council England (ACE)’s £1.8m Youtube network for the arts to readjust as it enters its final year of funding.”
Report: Defining Canadian Culture And Wondering How To Promote It
For decades Canada has promoted Canadian culture with “Canadian content rules” meant to foster creation of Canadian art working in the shadow of the great American industrial entertainment complex. But what constitutes promoting Canadian culture in the era of content everywhere? This IPSOS study went across the country to find out. The issues aren’t surprising.
Why Paste Magazine Decided To Return To Print
The magazine had abandoned print in 2010 but stayed online. But print now seems a viable strategy again. “This isn’t a return to Paste Magazine. We’re not reliant on getting 200,000 people to be part of our rate base so we can go sell ads to Ford, BMW and Jack Daniels. Though we do have some advertising in the quarterly, it’s a small portion of our model. We’re reliant on our subscribers to foot the bill for what we do.”
The Digital World Has Changed The Very Idea Of What Dictionaries Are
“The online OED now allows the reader to click on citations from Shakespeare and Milton to get the extended passage they’re drawn from, and readers can easily go online to do the same with citations from other writers. Online dictionaries like Wordnik already use algorithms to construct citation lists on the fly; at the limit, you could think of an online dictionary as simply a lexicographical web interface… The advent of online historical corpora has also altered the lexicographer’s method. Word sleuthery has become a game that anyone with access to a search engine can play.”
The Idea Of “Willpower” Is A Dangerous And Outdated Thing
“Ignoring the idea of willpower will sound absurd to most patients and therapists, but, as a practicing addiction psychiatrist and an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry, I’ve become increasingly skeptical about the very concept of willpower, and concerned by the self-help obsession that surrounds it. Countless books and blogs offer ways to “boost self-control,” or even to “meditate your way to more willpower,” but what’s not widely recognized is that new research has shown some of the ideas underlying these messages to be inaccurate.”
Thirty Years After He Died, Andy Warhol Still Has The Measure Of American Culture
“How much responsibility does Warhol bear for our culture’s shift from substance to flash, human interest to spectacle? How much responsibility does a mirror bear for whatever beauty or ugliness it beholds? Warhol loved both the heights and depths of American culture, and reflected it back at us through his work, which remains resonant to this day.”
That Whole Bringing Tourists Into The Oscars Telecast Thing? Here’s What Went Wrong…
“Our relationship with the icons of culture has changed, refracted through our politics. At the Oscars, the people who made those movies look out of touch in their Harry Winston jewelry and blue velvet dinner jackets. When they declaim a wall on the Mexican border, or quote the Koran, it sounds naïve, even insulting, to a good-sized number of people. Somehow not even movies about the emotional pain of working class Massachusetts townies or tough modern Texan cowboys shooting it out against the backdrop of economic disaster could get over that hump.”
Small Record Store Chain Steps Up To Buy 70 HMV Canada Music Stores
HMV said it was closing the stores across Canada because it was losing tons of money. But upstart music retailer Sunrise Records is making a major bet it can expand quickly to make the stores profitable. “A lot of the younger consumers still love having something tangible,” argues the company’s enterprising young CEO
Why Technology Is Making Us Feel Less Secure
“The more technology multiplies, the more it amplifies instability. Things already don’t quite do what they claim. The fixes just make things worse. And so, ordinary devices aren’t likely to feel more workable and functional as technology marches forward. If anything, they are likely to become even less so. Technology is becoming a force that surrounds humans—but not necessarily in the service of human ends. Technology’s role has begun to shift, from serving human users to pushing them out of the way so that the technologized world can service its own ends.”
In Defense Of Cultural Criticism Even During The Trump Presidency
“It’s hard to defend doing anything except being in the streets” right now, but the space where the arts lie “is not an apolitical place, it is just not owned by government. In this aesthetic space, the arts explore a less confined politics than the one that controls the state. The state is not the beginning, end, or the reason for this space.”
Inspiration For A Young Violinist
Francesca Dego, in a Q&A, asked about her musical guilty pleasures: “My guilty pleasures are usually not musical! Does not practising count? I’ve gone on holiday a couple of times without my violin and although I try to convince myself that bringing it would have been useless, because sunbathing and practising don’t coexist well, guilt usually strikes after a couple of days.”
Moonlight Writer/Director Barry Jenkins And Original Playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney Accepted The Best Adapted Screenplay Award Together
“‘I told my students, ‘Be in love with the process, not the result,’ ‘ Jenkins said — but admitted he did like the result.”
In The UK, Waterstones Opens ‘Unbranded’ Small Bookstores To Some Backlash
Did the large chain do it to avoid the backlash against national chains on high streets? Of course not, says the managing director. It’s because the small shops are independent. (Except for being owned by Waterstones.)
A Shoving Match, Possibly Involving A Neo-Nazi, Broke Out At The Minneapolis Institute Of Art This Weekend
Three people, at least one of whom who appeared to have a white nationalist symbol on his jacket, argued with a group that had been protesting the president’s executive orders on immigrants – and the fight went all the way to the third floor of the museum, where, amid the 18th century European art, guards had to subdue the fighters.
Just In Case You Missed A Few Of The Award Winners In The Theatre, Here’s Your Catch-Up List
The New York Times debuts a new movie recommendation service (will this be an app someday soon?) with legal, aboveboard ways to catch up on the Oscar winners from the comfort of the couch.
The Sculptor Camille Claudel May Finally Be Getting The Recognition She Longed For
After an apprenticeship, and a relationship, with Rodin, Claudel’s art was overshadowed by his. She was committed to a mental institution by her family – but film lovers know this from not one but two films about her. Now, she’s getting her own museum, and the work speaks for itself.
There Was A Time When ‘Casablanca’ Was An Object Of Art-House Worship, But That Time Is (Finally?) Ending
The movie, which used to be a cultural touchstone so potent that it made audiences understand that characters like Harry and Sally were perfect for each other, has fallen off in recent years. Is it because Americans don’t feel the shadow of WWII anymore?
As William Hogarth Fans Know, A Gin Craze Nearly Destroyed 18th Century London
And it’s all because Britain was at war with France – which made French brandy hard to come by.
Sergei Polunin Says He Was Tricked, And That Ballet Dancers Need Agents
The take of the ‘bad boy of ballet,’ who left the Royal Ballet in a surprise move in 2012: “The company sort of owns you. I thought about my future. In 10 years’ time, I would be in the same position as when I started – the best dancer in the world, but still sharing a flat. You’re an adult, but you live like a kid.”