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Dance
Morphing ‘Swan Lake’ Into A Modern Irish Folk Tale
Choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan has taken the kernel of the Tchaikovsky/Petipa classic’s story and transplanted to in the milieu of contemporary Ireland to create Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, with a score of Irish and Nordic folk music accompanying a narrative of a depressed loner and a young woman molested by a priest and changed into a swan so she can’t tell anyone of his crime. – The New York Times
A Dance Critic Assesses Joaquin Phoenix’s ‘Joker’ Moves
Gia Kourlas: “You can’t completely banish your true self when you dance; Arthur Fleck is still somewhere inside of Mr. Phoenix, even after Arthur transforms himself into the Joker. What makes Mr. Phoenix’s performance so confusingly poignant — and not just a tale of good vs. evil — is the way in which he has essentially placed two characters within one dancing body.” – The New York Times
Dance Company From Barcelona Denied Entry To US For LA Dance Festival
The company, Perra da Nadie, released a statement: “Marta and 3 gentlemen who accompany her on this tour, flew from Barcelona with an overlay in Seattle where we were denied access to enter the country. Without knowing why they took us to a secluded room, they warned us from touching our phones, they took our passports.” – Broadway World
Ballet Has Transformed The Lives Of Women In This New Zealand Prison
At the Auckland Region Women’s Correction Facility, the Royal New Zealand Ballet has taken on a plan to make ballet more accessible. The teacher of the women who asked to join the class says, “Every week you can just see them become more confident. With confidence comes the drive to want to get better. They’re very engaged and very present.” – Stuff (New Zealand)
Parents, Do Not Enroll Your Preschooler In Ballet Class
Sarah Kaufman: “As a lifelong ballet lover but ambivalent dance mom, here’s my cri de coeur: Do your kids a favor and banish the thought. Yes, there are options galore for parents looking for a dance class for their toddlers — even for babies. Dance schools will be delighted to fulfill your sparkly pink dreams. But the best dance class for a very young child looks nothing like that.” – The Washington Post
Ideas
Pinterest’s Audience Algorithm Is Awesome. Now It Has To Change
The company’s leaders say they want to map a different route to success in Silicon Valley, one that’s less meteoric and more humane. But in its first year as a public company, it faces a pivotal challenge: How to grow beyond a user base that has historically skewed toward white, suburban women without alienating loyalists, stereotyping newcomers, or potentially allowing for the spread of misinformation and radicalization. – Medium
Why We Define Ourselves By What We Own
With age (and lawyers), we develop more sophisticated ways of resolving property disputes, but the emotional connection to our property as an extension of our identity remains with us. – Aeon
What The Wild Success Of Silicon Valley Says About The American Success Story
The question of fixing Silicon Valley is inseparable from the question of fixing the system of postwar American capitalism, of which it is perhaps the purest expression. Some believe that the problems we see are bugs that might be fixed with a patch. Others think the code is so bad at its core that a radical rewrite is the only answer. – The Nation
How Curators Took Over Creativity
In fits and starts, the professional curator arrogated responsibilities once held by the artist, the collector, the historian, or indeed the critic, becoming the figure who assigned meaning and importance to new art: someone the art historian Bruce Altshuler has called “the curator as creator.” Soon after, the curator stepped beyond the single museum or institution to become a roving organizer and analyst of contemporary art. – New York Review of Books
Should People Have The Legal Right to Change Their Age?
If chronological age doesn’t matter, as I have argued, then people should be allowed to change this ‘age’ in their IDs to match their biological rather than their chronological age. – Aeon
Issues
Band-Aids And Sticking Plasters: UK Government Promise Of More Culture Investment In Perspective
With local authority funding for culture now more than £236m lower than in 2010, and museums alone having lost £109m in annual funding over the past decade, the Government’s promise of £250m for culture over the next five years will at best put a sticking plaster on a patient with a life-threatening injury. – Arts Professional
There’s Doublethink At The Heart Of Arts Awards, And This Year’s Double Booker Prize Brought It To The Surface
“Everyone agrees that competition is the enemy of art. And yet, on the whole, there is also an agreement to conspire in the notion that it isn’t. This paradox, this doublethink, usually works fine, since it opens up the space in which the extra-artistic functions of prizes can be fulfilled.” Charlotte Higgins analyzes how this doublethink works — and how the decision of this year’s Booker jury to flout the prize’s rules messed it up. – The Guardian
Boris Johnson’s Government Proposes £250 Million In Culture Infrastructure Support
The bulk of the new fund is being directed towards “major infrastructure and maintenance work at local and regional museums” and capital and technology upgrades at public libraries. – Arts Professional
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Between High Culture And Low Culture
There’s a difference between the two, for sure. But a Marvel movie is marvelous art, and high art helps us appreciate it. – The Hollywood Reporter
The Details Reflected In Our Eyes In Smartphone Photos Can Tell Everyone Where We Are, Where We Live, And More
Scary: “A Japanese man was arrested for reportedly stalking a pop star and attacking and groping her at her home, according to Japanese news organization NHK. Allegedly, this man found the woman’s home by studying photos she posted on social media, observing a train station reflected in her eyes, finding that train station using Google Street View, waiting for her at the train station, and following her home.” – The Verge
Media
Shape-Shifting Screens: How Filmmakers Are Playing With Aspect Ratios
The proportions of movies’ height and width have changed several times over the course of cinema history, but, for practical reasons (projectionists don’t like changing equipment all the time), at any given time the ratios have been standardized. Until the rise of digital projection, that is. Now it’s fairly easy for filmmakers to play with aspect ratios, and that’s what they’re doing. Ben Kenigsberg looks at four examples from this fall’s releases. – The New York Times
Instagram Removes “Likes” – We Need Another Way To Value Content
The removal of visible likes is by no means a threat to the influencer marketing world, but rather an opportunity to shift how we see success in the digital age. – Fast Company
How Apple Made Its Move Into TV Production
“After a few false starts and a little offscreen drama, AppleTV+ finally makes its big debut with a slate of shows, Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, and a billion potential customers ready to see what original programming looks like from the world’s largest company, led by CEO Tim Cook.” – The Hollywood Reporter
Netflix Heads To Frankfurt Book Fair On Book-Buying Spree
“It’s about finding the most specific, authentic, local stories and bringing those to a global platform in a way that hasn’t ever been done before. Those ideas can come from books, blogs, podcasts, comics, or any range of creative expression.” – Deadline
Netflix And Director Ava DuVernay Sued For Defamation By — Wait, Who?
In the 1940s, John E. Reid and Associates developed a commonly-used, and now-controversial police interrogation method called the Reid Technique. That method is mentioned once, briefly, in When They See Us, DuVernay’s recent Netflix series about the Central Park Five; based on that mention, Reid and Associates argues in its court filing that its reputation has been damaged by the script’s mischaracterization and false assertions. – Variety
Music
What English National Opera Really Needs From Its New Boss: Bankers
“Bankers” are something that ENO’s previous two artistic directors didn’t manage to provide many of, and it’s now up to Annilese Miskimmon, their new successor, to get some. Fortunately, explains David Benedict, “she’s startlingly well-equipped for the job.” – The Stage
Canadian Choir Performs On Both Sides Of US/Mexico Border
“With a barbed wire fence and border patrol dividing two groups of drop-in singers, one located on the beach at Border Field State Park in San Diego, Calif., and the other just metres away in the border town of Tijuana, Mexico, the popular choral group performed a rendition of With A Little Help From My Friends by The Beatles. About 300 people took part on the U.S. side and 500 across the divide in Tijuana.” – CBC
How To Pick The Best Seat In The House To Hear An Orchestra
The idea of a “best seat” is subjective and depends on how important a good sightline is to you and what sort of instrumental blend you enjoy. While describing sound in terms of “warmth” and “clarity” and “resonance” may seem subjective, these are in fact quantifiable acoustic terms. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The Opera That Reimagined The Last Habsburg Emperor And Empress For The Shattered Europe Of 1919
“The year 1919 was pivotal in European culture, with bold portents for the postwar future — it was the year that Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus and Marcel Duchamp painted a mustache on the Mona Lisa. [Richard Strauss’s] Die Frau ohne Schatten, in contrast, was almost reassuringly conservative in its late Romantic musical language, in its fairy tale libretto about a fundamentally good-hearted emperor and empress, and in its celebration of fertility and childbirth as the foundation of marriage and society.” – The New York Times
Hong Kong Has A New Protest Song Anthem
The orchestra wear hard hats and gas masks, the choir emerges from a swirl of tear gas-like smoke, and as the music swells, cutaway shots show crowds thousands-strong marching through the streets of Hong Kong. – The Guardian
People
The Rehabilitation Of Marie Antoinette
“This week, 226 years since her execution on Oct. 16, 1793, a new exhibition in Paris aims to show how the queen’s image has been transformed in recent years. From reviled royal to pop icon, her face now appears on gift shop souvenirs at her former home at Versailles, on bars of chocolate, hairbrushes, mugs, shopping bags, fridge magnets and snow globes.” – Los Angeles Times
The Complicated, Contradictory Genius Of Thomas Edison
“He built the world’s first film studio, yet had little interest in movies as entertainment. He was a showboating maestro of public relations, but he often turned down invitations and celebrations that would force him to leave his laboratory. He was a workaholic whose final résumé boasted 1,093 patents and countless inventions—including the incandescent light bulb, the phonograph, the alkaline battery, the X-ray fluoroscope, and the carbon-button microphone. Yet his most important idea wasn’t something anybody could patent or touch.” – The Atlantic
Longtime San Francisco Chronicle Music And Dance Critic Marilyn Tucker Dead At 89
“Tucker’s primary love was music, a devotion that she first cultivated in the Lutheran church of her childhood. But over the course of her [three decades] at The Chronicle, which began in 1964, she developed a wide-ranging versatility that allowed her to write about theater, literature and especially dance.” – San Francisco Chronicle
If At First You Don’t Succeed… Nobel Winners Who Faced Early Rejection
In literature, some of the most celebrated writers were once considered too strange, too limited or just too boring. Several publishers turned down Toni Morrison’s first novel, “The Bluest Eye,” and she was chastised for years by white critics for focusing too much on black characters. – Washington Post (AP)
Placido Domingo’s Career Continues Apace In Europe
In contrast to the United States, so far no theater in Europe, where the #MeToo movement has had little impact, has canceled any of the singer’s planned performances on calendars running through the fall of 2020. In continuing the performances, European venues have cited an absence of allegations in their venues, the lack of a judicial case against him and the singer’s well-known affability and undeniable popularity. – Yahoo! (AP)
Theatre
A Prison Production Of ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ Goes On Tour
“The cast was strip-searched before boarding the bus to their show. The leading man was shackled so tightly that he performed with abrasions on his wrists. And the moment the men finished their bows and the house lights came up, they had to slip out of costume and back into green prison uniforms.” – The New York Times
‘My Actual Goal Is To Be The Anthony Bourdain Of Theatre’: Helen Shaw, New York Magazine’s New Critic
“I want to say to readers: You have no idea that you want to go to this weird corner and eat these spicy noodles, but trust me, you’ll love it. If I could do one millionth of that for theatre, I’d be happy.” (On the other hand: “I love theatre, but I am not a fan. I don’t feel like a fan. And I do get very, very angry at things.”) – American Theatre
Why Theatre In Los Angeles Is Missing Its Potential
Charles McNulty: “What is the distinctive stamp of L.A. theater? In posing this question to myself, I find my answer to be dismayingly similar to what I would have said when I moved to Los Angeles from New York 14 years ago to be The Times’ theater critic. The theater has remained decentralized, widely variable in quality and ambition, and sorely in need of institutional leadership able to meet the self-regard of a city that, long out of New York’s shadow, has come to recognize itself as a global metropolis.” – Los Angeles Times
What Does It Mean To Be An Audience, And How Does An Arts Institution ‘Develop’ It?
The idea of audience development as a solution has taken over everything in arts organizations, but there’s more to it, at least from the audience side. “Being an audience member means being a citizen, customer, community member, and worker. It is a sort of control interface for ruling.” – HowlRound
Your Living Room Is The Stage
Well, what the heck: “Agreeing to host an immersive show when not connected to the company is a daring step. The spaces are not – for obvious reasons – designed for it. The host is not a professional. The address may be anywhere and so guarantees of ticket sales for any given postcode may be complicated. But people came. Strangers came into my home.” – The Stage (UK)
Visual
Trying To Cope With Crowds, Louvre Creates The VR Mona Lisa Experience
The virtual reality tour will be a more intimate encounter. The VR tour, designed to remedy the problem of crowds and distance, will be housed in a small gallery room near the main Leonardo exhibition and apart from the “Mona Lisa.” – The New York Times
The LA Architects Taking The Cultural Buildings World By Storm
“Previous generations had a signature style, and it’s easier to label,” says Mark Lee, seated before a wall of printed renderings in his firm’s cluttered West L.A. studio. “Our generation wants to escape that.” – Los Angeles Times
In ‘Snatch-And-Run’, Salvador Dalí Etching Stolen From San Francisco Gallery
On Sunday afternoon, a man walked into the Dennis Rae Fine Art Gallery, walked up to Dalí’s 1966 hand-colored etching Burning Giraffe, picked it right off the easel, and walked out the open door while the staffer on duty had his back turned. – NPR
Five Women Sentenced For Plot To Blow Up Notre-Dame De Paris
“A French court on Monday sentenced five members of an all-female jihadist cell to between five and 30 years in prison over a failed bid to detonate a car bomb outside Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris. … The five women, aged between 22 and 42, were arrested after a car packed with gas cylinders was found parked near the bustling esplanade in front of the cathedral … on November 4th, 2016.” – The Local (France)
What The Collapse Of A Plan For A Contemporary Art Museum Says About Art In Hawaii
Challenging, international contemporary art has always struggled to capture the attention of any but a very small share of the local population in Hawaii. (There are no galleries specializing in anything but decorative, genre, or antique paintings.) – Hyperallergic
Words
Number Of Self-Published Books In U.S. Up By At Least 40% In One Year (And Probably Much More)
“According to Bowker’s annual survey of the self-publishing market … the total number of print and e-books that were self-published in 2018 was 1.68 million, up from 1.19 million in 2017. [This figure] does not include self-published e-books by Amazon’s Kindle division, … [which is the] largest publisher of self-published e-books.” – Publishers Weekly
Australian Booksellers Take Ronan Farrow Book Off Shelves After Pressure From National Enquirer Parent Company
Dylan Howard, who remains a top executive at the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., has hired several high-powered law firms on three continents, including the Sydney-based McLachlan Thorpe Partners, to suppress Farrow’s book, which chronicles the extraordinary lengths the Australian tabloid muckraker had gone to help his friend, criminally charged alleged serial rapist Harvey Weinstein. – The Daily Beast
Jane Austen Lovers Are Furious At The New Ending To Her Unfinished Novel
“Andrew Davies’ TV adaptation of Sanditon, which aired on Sunday, ended with Charlotte and Sidney bidding each other a tearful farewell – in love, but not together. … The ending has enraged and upset viewers, but most of all, I think, surprised them. This is Austen, and we know what we’re entitled to: there’s even a book about it, for goodness’ sake – The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After.” – The Guardian
Why Two Booker Prize Winners This Year? Perhaps Some Lessons
The danger is that the Booker effect that propelled last year’s “difficult” winner, the brilliant Milkman, to a wider readership will be dissipated. Perhaps it’s best understood as a reminder of how impossible it is, in the end, for the subjective process of weighing one novel against another to come to an objective conclusion. – The Guardian
Who Stole Ancient Bible Fragments And Sold Them To Hobby Lobby?
This week investigators accused professor Dirk Obbink, one of the most celebrated classics professors in the world, a Nebraska native and MacArthur “genius grant” recipient who had long directed — and allegedly looted — Oxford’s Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project, a collection of centuries-old literature recovered from an ancient Egyptian garbage dump in 1896. – Washington Post