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DANCE
Computers Have Analyzed The ‘Most Danceable’ Number One Singles, But Not To Tell Us The Answer
Ah HAH: "It was to identify song features that could be predictive of mega-hits. Researchers found that top-ranked songs tended to have more difference from past hits than lower-ranked songs, defying the trope that popular songs are just copies of other popular songs." … [Read More...]
When Mr. Balanchine Taught His Dancers The Proper Way To Drink Tea
Jacques d'Amboise told the story - with mime - at an opening gala for this summer's Dance on Camera festival at Lincoln Center, and filmmaker Maia Wechsler recorded it for the rest of us. (video) … [Read More...]
At A Workshop Where The Choreographers Don’t Have To Finish Their Work
"The National Choreographers Initiative in Irvine seek[s] to emphasize the creative process and take the pressure off producing a finished, polished product. The three-week summertime workshop — now celebrating its 15th year — will culminate with a public performance July 28 ... Unlike formal, completed dance productions, the show will start with four choreographers introducing their pieces, 16 dancers presenting what they've learned, and a question and answer session with the audience concluding the program." … [Read More...]
What Dance Workers (Including Dancers) Earn
Here is some real-world data for dancers, choreographers, costumers, stage managers, costumers, etc. It's not scientific. Dance Magazine asked readers to share what they earned (anonymously, of course) and more than 200 readers responded. … [Read More...]
Paris Opera Ballet Sues One Of Its Own Dancers Over Leaked Survey Revealing Unhappy Company
"You'd think the Paris Opéra Ballet would be in damage-control mode after a leaked dancers' survey, in April, brought up worrying reports of harassment and mismanagement. But instead of addressing these issues internally, the French company is suing one of its own dancers in order to strip him of his union representative status and subsequently be free to fire him." … [Read More...]
IDEAS
The Myths Of Meritocracy
“The whole process of constructing life narratives is biased in ways that almost guarantee that people won’t recognize the role of chance events adequately. We remember the moments or months of perseverance that contributed to our triumphs, but forget, or even fail to notice, when Lady Fortune smiles on us: a great teacher, a chance encounter, or—in Breaking Bad actor Bryan Cranston’s case—having other A-list actors not take up the role of Walter White. … [Read More...]
How Blockchain Is Subverting Censorship In China
The anonymous activists sent themselves zero Ether on the platform and embedded the text of Yue’s open letter in the transaction’s metadata. Transactions on blockchain are irreversible, so the information cannot be altered. Furthermore, transactions generate distributed copies of themselves within the network, which ensured that Yue’s letter would be permanently documented in the public domain and accessible to any user who looked the transaction up. … [Read More...]
Study: Employees Are Happier, More Productive After Switching To Four-day Work Week
Jarrod Haar, a human resources professor at Auckland University of Technology, said employees reported a 24 percent improvement in work-life balance, and came back to work energized after their days off. “Supervisors said staff were more creative, their attendance was better, they were on time, and they didn’t leave early or take long breaks,” Mr. Haar said. “Their actual job performance didn’t change when doing it over four days instead of five.” … [Read More...]
What The Success Of Netflix Tells Us About Competition, Ideas, And Data
Here are three lessons from the rise of Netflix that apply to every company: Big data is powerful, but big data plus big ideas is transformational. Netflix is a technology juggernaut whose analytics, algorithms, and digital-streaming innovations have changed how customers watch movies and TV shows. But this technology has always been in service of a unique point of view — building a platform that shapes what customers watch, not just how they watch. … [Read More...]
Why It’s Difficult To Tell Whether Things Are Getting Better Or Worse
Was the past good or bad? Are we on the right track or the wrong one? Is life getting better or worse? These questions are easy to ask—pollsters and politicians love asking them—but surprisingly hard to answer. … [Read More...]
ISSUES
One-Third Of UK Performing Arts Students Have Been Sexually Harassed: Survey
"The poll of 600 drama, music and dance students found that more than half (51%) had experienced inappropriate behaviour, sexual harassment or bullying. Nearly two thirds (73%) of those who experienced some sort of incident identified as female. ... When asked if they had reported their concerns, 57% who had experienced inappropriate behaviour did not report it. Just 13% did." … [Read More...]
What’s The Problem With Americans’ Love Of Happy Endings? When It Collides With Real Life
Using as examples the recent reunion - enthusiastically captured and craftily edited by CNN - of a Salvadoran refugee woman with the six-year-old daughter ICE separated from her as well as the cute-turned-creepy-turned-cruel viral tale known as #PlaneBae, Megan Garber considers "how easily the desire for a happy ending can insinuate itself on the facts of the matter. The possibility at play ... is that the full story, and its attendant horrors, will get washed away in the easy rituals of false closure. It is that people will forget, because the logic of the happy ending has given them permission to be preoccupied." … [Read More...]
US House Rejects Cutting NEA Budget After Last-Minute Attempt To Do So
The vote on Wednesday was 297-114. It was a boost to arts advocates, who argued that such funding was just a tiny fraction of the federal budget yet offered any array of benefits to local communities. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) proposed the funding cut via an amendment to a larger government funding bill, arguing that the purpose was to make a “small dent” in federal spending … [Read More...]
#MeToo Charges Are Roiling Baltimore’s Performing Arts
“Organizations of all sizes have been caught off guard by the #MeToo movement. But small organizations can be at an extra disadvantage because they often lack the resources of larger groups. When a sexual harassment accusation gets made at a smaller company, it can become a community-wide problem. When something happens in your neighborhood, it feels different than it does when it happens in New York City.” … [Read More...]
After All The Digital Theory, A Return To Making Real, Physical Art
Many of them, after having been exposed to the high-tech side of what a well-equipped institution has to offer, change direction to embrace a more hands-on, traditional way of making and ultimately learning. These students, after graduating, end up being builders of things — and not very interested in creating objects without having some physical input into its creation. After all the design philosophy and all the classes that teach design theories, this group ends up doing what attracted them in the first place to an art and design university — the making of things. … [Read More...]
MEDIA
What Does The Almost Rapturous Critical Embrace Of Mamma Mia 2 Say About How We’ve All Changed Since The First, Deeply Vilified, Movie In 2008?…
Things have really, deeply changed: "Warming towards Abba reflects a critical embrace of pop culture over the last decade. 'Poptimism' has meant that art that was once dismissed for being lightweight, feminine and glittery is now subject to critical close-readings that combine academia with fannish enthusiasm." … [Read More...]
The Daughter Of Indicted Republican Political Operative Paul Manafort Releases A Film, But Not Under Her Own Name…
It's her mother's maiden name, you guys, it doesn't mean anything: "Manafort, the movie’s writer and director, used a pseudonym in connection with the project: Jess Bond." … [Read More...]
We’re In Another Stephen King Media Renaissance, This One From The Generation Who Grew Up On Him…
"King's enjoyed numerous renaissances since Carrie put him on the map in 1973 — the era following Brian De Palma's 1976 film adaptation; the early '90s one-two punch of Misery's Oscar win and Tommy Lee Wallace's It miniseries; the two-year spell at the turn of the millennium when he dropped the final three Dark Tower books. This one, however, is markedly different than those that came before, due not only to its scale and scope, but also because it's unfolding in a generation that's succeeded at both commodifying and intellectualizing nostalgia." … [Read More...]
Paramount Fires Head Of Its TV Division After Racially ‘Insensitive Comments’…
"Five years after being tapped to lead the newly relaunched Paramount Television banner, Amy Powell is out." Multiple individuals had complained about things Powell reportedly said about black women on a conference call about the company's TV adaptation of The First Wives' Club, which features a largely African-American cast. … [Read More...]
Netflix Is Expanding Into Radio With Comedy Channel On SiriusXM…
"The streaming giant has announced a partnership with SiriusXM that will see it create and launch a comedy-focused satellite radio channel, a move that signals the company's interest in extending its programming foothold beyond its online video roots." The channel's name: Netflix Is a Joke. … [Read More...]
MUSIC
Six Years After A Strike, The Spokane Symphony Musicians And Management Sign A Three-Year Contract
Impressive change from 2012: "The contract includes a cost of living increase, Family Medical Leave Act language, processes that address air quality at outdoor concerts and scheduling language that will 'help our musicians balance their multiple jobs so that it is more possible for them to be able to make a decent, living income.'" … [Read More...]
Remembering The Now-Gone Music Stores On NYC’s 48th Street
Forty-eighth Street was once famous for stores that sold musical instruments. Those stores catered to musicians of every stripe, but the vibe was very rock and roll. The names that stand out for me are Manny’s and Sam Ash, but there were several others, packed together, one next to the other, each a world unto itself. In my own private atlas of the city, that street was also notable for the degree its character changed in the course of one block, from Seventh Avenue to Sixth Avenue. The music stores, like the support of a seesaw, were the point at which that character made its pivot. … [Read More...]
Opera Australia Bets The Future On A (TK) Digital Revolution
Lyndon Terracini is staking much of the future and reputation of the national opera company on a digital revolution designed to immerse audiences and create an experience more akin to watching a movie than traditional opera. The glittering reptiles on the Joan Sutherland Theatre stage are part of the wholly digital production design for OA's upcoming Aida. It's the first step along a road Terracini says will revolutionise the way opera is staged and experienced. … [Read More...]
A Composer With Migraines Sees St. Hildegard Of Bingen As A Model
Jenny Giering: "In a theological work, Scivias, she described an experience strikingly similar to my own: 'When I was 42 years and 7 months old, Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast.' Hildegard is best known, though, for her music — a powerful body of mystical religious chants that are listened to more widely today than the music of any other single composer of her time. I want to talk to her." … [Read More...]
Scientific Study: Beetles REALLY Don’t Like Rock Music
The researchers report beetles who were serenaded by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings ate just as many aphids as those who dined in silence. But exposure to the rock music greatly depressed their appetites. Listening to AC/DC reduced by nearly half the number of aphids they consumed over a 16- to 18-hour period. … [Read More...]
