ArtsJournal Classic (Text)

Travel writer Seth Kugel visits Permangolinha, a retreat in the Brazilian state of Bahia where visitors — disciples, really — study the martial arts-based movement form with Mestre Cobra Mansa (Master Tame Snake) and work on his permaculture farm. — The New York Times

Prumsodun Ok is a Cambodian-American who studied Khmer court dance in the US and ultimately in Phnom Penh. Now he’s the founding artistic director of Natyarasa, Cambodia’s first LGBTQ dance company, which performs traditional dances in (what’s the best word?) gender-fluid form as well as newly-created works. (video) — Atlas Obscura

Author and professor Catherine Taylor offers an impressionistic longread, with plenty of video clips, about how her midlife crisis moved her to travel to southern Spain for serious study of the form — and about how its aesthetic and mindset changed her way of being. — The Believer

Running a contemporary dance institution with such a long history (read: stability) will be quite a change for Benoit Swan Pouffer: Cedar Lake collapsed in 2015 after its sole funder pulled out. — The Guardian

“Because of him, ballet could not exclude us,” said Virginia Johnson, one of Mitchell’s first dancers and the current artistic director of Dance Theatre of Harlem. “We were his army, united in the love of an art form.” Dance Theatre of Harlem’s entrepreneurship and success became “the impetus for what we know as culturally specific […]

Deep learning is good at learning using many fewer connections between neurons, when it has many episodes or examples to learn from. I think the brain isn’t concerned with squeezing a lot of knowledge into a few connections, it’s concerned with extracting knowledge quickly using lots of connections.” – Wired

“As we seek political and philosophical bearings in this time of renewed calls for a socialist alternative to capitalism, postwar efforts to bring Marxism and existentialism together have much to teach us—not only because of the continuing importance of each mode of thought to political thinking and organizing, but also because their interaction in Sartre’s […]

It finds that news consumers are more trusting of the media—and more secure about their own ability to discern the truth—when they are exposed to a combination of fact-checking articles and opinion pieces arguing for the importance of journalism. “When one side attacks over and over again, and the other doesn’t respond, at some point […]

The seemingly obvious answer is, Of course it matters! How could it not? Ivy League and equivalent institutions provide more than world-class instruction. They confer a lifetime of assistance from prodigiously connected alumni and a message to all future employers that you’re a rarified talent. College isn’t just an education; it’s a network, a signal, and […]

There is nothing wrong with making things easier, in most cases, and the history of technology is filled with examples of amazing advances brought about by reducing complexity. Not even the most hardened Luddite, I suspect, wants to go back to the days of horse-drawn carriages and hand-crank radios. But it’s worth asking: Could some […]

The proportion of income generated by the institutions themselves – through fundraising, tickets, commercial activities and other means – rose from 57% to 73%. – ArtsProfessional

The ideal upon which the University of Wisconsin was founded and expanded was not merely to train workers, but to “search for truth … [and] improv[e] the human condition,” ultimately reaching every family in the state. Reporter Adam Harris looks into the current state government’s attempts to change that idea, which is leading to budget […]

Last time, in 2012, it was the “multimillion-dollar, casino-tax funded Art Park conceived — but indifferently received and later returned to its roots as a vacant lot — by Lance Fung, a world-renowned curator. This time, an Atlantic City art scene is being birthed by less renowned people: longtime community activists, returned locals, old high […]

Pageants still tend to fascinate. The very word suggests why: The ceremony and accoutrements of beauty contests play a powerful role in the national imagination, with their sashes and their tiaras and their inevitable rows of machine-stitched sequins. The ratings for Miss America have fallen consistently since its heyday, but 4.3 million viewers still tuned […]

Longtime Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) president Karen Brooks Hopkins: “I call these tidbits ‘KBHisms,’ which I hope will guide you through the cold winter months ahead and provide some comfort.” (Note no. 6: “You Lose More Money Presenting Opera by Intermission Than You Do Presenting an Entire Season of Theater.”) — Inside Philanthropy

All told, the five men allegedly stole more than 25,000 digital files, including feature films, trailers, TV episodes and audio tracks, which they stored on a server in France, according to U.S. officials. The crime ring also allegedly operated a website called “BollyTNT” used to distribute pirated Bollywood films. – Variety

“The vast majority of assets and growth lie with a relative few of the largest stations. Every year, the weakest go dark, or they are absorbed. … Or their licenses are spun off for cash. … If this continues, the consequences are profound. So how shall we think about this?” Spokane Public Radio general manager […]

Howard Husock, an executive at the Manhattan Institute, points out the ways that the media landscape has been transformed since the passage of the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act, not least the fact that non-public television is no longer a “vast wasteland” and public radio is no longer an afterthought to television. — Current

“In a report compiled by media research agency Shift7 in collaboration with leading agency CAA, revenue for 350 high-grossing films released between 2014 and 2017 was assessed, and the average results for female-led films did best, at every budget level.” What’s more movies that pass the Bechdel Test do better box office than those that […]

The hour-long program, being developed by NBCUniversal’s Wilshire Studios, “will stay true to the original while delivering bigger, visual and variety-themed games that can’t be captured on the radio.” — Deadline

Surprisingly, the premiere led to perplexed disappointment. Listeners agreed that the music was magnificent, but many did not hear anything “American” in it, after all. “Some of those who applauded most loudly,” wrote one Brooklyn critic, “thought the Indian and Negro themes would have been as effective if picked up in Siberia.” – The New […]

We think we’ve learned not to overlook outsiders. Yet the orchestral scene today remains in thrall to safety. It favours those who’ve studied with the right people, at the right schools and universities and have the right profile and publishers. Composing in the approved idioms is always preferred over something more raw, exploratory, problematic or […]

Alex Ross goes home to Washington, D.C. to watch Ma’s “day of action,” the meetings with students and community members in poor neighborhoods (in this case, Anacostia) that he combines with each concert appearance in his 36-city Bach Project. — The New Yorker

On the consumer side, streaming and social-media platforms have transformed the nature of music discovery, which was previously more proactive by necessity—requiring manual effort to open up a newspaper, dig through crates at a record store, or attend a live show. Nowadays, “discovery” can be as easy and passive as scrolling mindlessly through a personalized […]

Continuing its recovery from the crises of a few years ago, the DSO announced its sixth balanced budget in a row. Box office revenue rose by 1%, the popular neighborhood concerts were renewed for five more years, and the “Live from Orchestra Hall” webcasts were seen by 400,000 people. — Detroit News

Ailey O’Toole’s bizarrely brazen act of plagiarism — stealing lines, phrases, and structural elements from the work of at least three other writers — was uncovered last Friday, unraveling her career at the speed of Twitter, the medium by which her fledgling reputation lived and died. Within 24 hours, the literary press Rhythm & Bones […]

“Ms. Wilson resisted the label of ‘jazz singer’ for much of her career, although jazz was the form to which she returned time and again and in which she had her greatest critical and popular success. She considered herself above all ‘a song stylist,’ she once told The Washington Post. ‘That’s my essence,’ she said, […]

In a Dec. 5 email to board members, musicians, staff and donors, the DSO announced that Parsons is being treated at Henry Ford Health System with a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. The email described Parsons as a “lifelong non-smoker.” – The Detroit News

“Once a week, Max Harris is allowed to leave his 6-by-12-foot cell to go outside. The first thing he does, before the other inmates arrive in the small cement yard in Santa Rita Jail, is run around and pick up all the bugs … He wants to move them out of harm’s way before other […]

He was Marcel Marceau’s assistant in his U.S. debut tour, played the Fool to Orson Welles’s Lear, was a founding member of both Yale Rep and American Rep Theatre, and acted in everything from the Greeks to Shakespeare to Brecht and Weill. But he made his biggest mark in the plays of Samuel Beckett. — […]

With Kentucky’s Actors Theatre of Louisville ending its short-play contests and festivals in 2017, City Theatre has emerged as the professional company most committed to championing an art form as formidable as any other. After all, short stories are recognized as a literary form of comparable value to novels; why not short plays? – American Theatre

Maddie Gaw, who was part of the selection panel for the first-ever Problematic Play Festival this past fall, writes about what makes plays “problematic” (i.e., subject matter violent or controversial enough to make most theatres and funders flee) and about how the festival altered the standard post-play talkback to make it safe for audience members […]

The Good Chance Theatre was founded in the Calais refugee settlement known as “The Jungle,” where the touring piece by that title was created. Now that the Calais camp is gone, Good Chance has moved on to Paris, where, each week, migrants attend a workshop and create a theatre piece which they perform for visiting […]

Being a mentally ill theatremaker comes with its own specific challenges. Different mental illnesses require different care, but the majority are exacerbated by lack of routine, insufficient sleep, alcohol use, lack of access to health care, and undue stress—all elements of most theatre careers. Mental illnesses are chronic, requiring a redefinition of self after diagnosis, […]

Back in 1973, the Times described the then-popular phenomenon as “restaurants that feature live theater.” Now it’s the other way around, writes Elisabeth Vincentelli: “The productions I caught this fall at least tried to make food an integral part of a show’s aesthetic and thematic universe. In turning New York venues into giant food courts, […]

While society is constantly redefining what constitutes as fine art, Killer Mike has a plethora of ideas to broaden the High’s scope, including more involvement by members of Atlanta’s infamous hip-hop and R&B community to deeper reflect the city’s culture. – ArtsATL

“The artists, from Europe, Australia and the United States, were not given an official reason why their works were rejected for the show … The works, which raise questions about the social and ethical implications of artificial intelligence and biotechnology,” did not touch on any subjects known to be sensitive in China. — The New […]

In 1939-40, Dutch dealers Nathan and Benjamin Katz sold almost their entire inventory, at steeply discounted prices, to the Nazis (among them Hermann Goering himself) in exchange for the ability to get their family members safely abroad. Now Benjamin’s grandson is suing the Dutch government, which recovered the works after the war and placed them […]

The institution, called Ocean Space and housed in a newly-restored historic church, will host workshops and lectures and “will also showcase the digital archive of oceanic projects organized in the last seven years by TBA21-Academy, a department of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary (TBA21).” — The New York Times

To the women themselves, gender is almost a non-issue. The Art Newspaper spoke to three female directors who are shaping the future of museums in the Gulf about their efforts to build creative communities, embrace inclusivity in the workplace and reveal the relevance—beyond the beauty—of Islamic art. – The Art Newspaper

Publisher and editor-in-chief Win McCormack: “Given the current costs of producing a print literary magazine, I have decided to shift resources to Tin House’s other two divisions: Tin House Books and the Tin House Workshop. … We will continue to publish original fiction, nonfiction, and poetry online at tinhouse.com.” — Literary Hub

Jim Copp, an erstwhile jazz performer and L.A. Times society columnist, wrote and narrated the stories, sang the songs, played the instruments, created the sound effects, and layered the tracks (dozens of them) on nine different records between 1958 and 1971. And they still hold up today, even for grown-ups. — The New Yorker

Starting Jan.1, Denver Public Library will be eliminating fees for overdue materials to help reduce barriers for low-income patrons. Library administrators are even letting most customers’ existing overdue fines slide to get them back in the door, according to a Wednesday news release from the library. That’s $474,000 owed right now by 85,000 people. – Denver […]

The Nobel laureate had evidently intended to publish them sometime in 1994. Then he lost track of them after a very, very bad day. Two decades on, a critic in Cairo came upon them while searching for something else entirely. — Literary Hub

“The style guides say: keep your sentences short. … But sometimes a sentence just needs to be long. The world resists our efforts to enclose it between a capital and a full stop. The sentence has to withhold its end because life is like that, refusing to fold itself neatly into subject, verb and object.” […]