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- Is Broadway Paying the price of Disneyfication?
Good Morning,
Major institutions are now partnering to buy works jointly and share them, swapping trophy acquisition for pooled expertise and a split invoice (Artnet). Pittsburgh is running the same play one level up, where the CLO and the Public Theater are merging instead of chasing the same subscribers and donors (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
The Alex Theatre in Glendale hadn’t screened a first-run movie in 35 years and is now the top-grossing venue in the country for Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey” (The Hollywood Reporter). London’s West End is out-drawing Broadway in part because mounting a show in New York costs three to five times what it does there (The Wall Street Journal) — roughly what John Caird means when he calls Broadway Disneyfied (The Stage).
The day’s oddest story: someone has been buying used books in enormous quantities from shops around the world, and the likeliest culprits are AI companies short on training data (The Atlantic).
And young Ivorians have invented biama, a competitive dance form fusing acrobatics with deliberate goofiness, built entirely out of TikTok challenges (The Guardian). No partnership agreement required.
Doug
- A Kinetic, Slightly Goofy New Form Of Competitive Dance Develops In Côte d’Ivoire
“There is some debate over exactly when biama emerged, but it exploded in popularity after the coronavirus pandemic as young people turned to TikTok to post and respond to dance challenges that fused acrobatics with goofiness that pushed bodies to their limits.” – The Guardian
- Why Are Theatres Still Ignoring (Mostly) The Deaf Audience?
Most films are distributed with caption tracks, but cinemas, on average, caption only 1% of all showings. This is despite statistics showing that in the UK, one in seven people – approximately 14% of the population – are deaf or have hearing loss. – The Conversation
- The Mystic Poet-Saints Of Kashmir, One Hindu And one Muslim
The 14th-century Hindu poetess Lal Ded and the 15th-century Sufi Muslim poet Nund Rishi wrote not in the elegant, aristocratic court language, Persian, but with simple words and phrases in Kashmiri, the everyday language of ordinary people These mystics are seen by many Kashmiris as spiritual grandmother and grandfather, even today. – The Conversation
- Rise Of The Neo-Luddites
The label of “neo-Luddism” or “digital Luddite” is also being reclaimed by people concerned about labour conditions, society and democracy in an era of AI expansion twinned with personal profit. – The Conversation
- Company Turns AI On Art Fraud
In practical terms, that means a knowledge graph representing thousands of artworks, with billions of nodes detailing the complex relationships its algorithms have identified between them. – Didginomica
- How A Grassroots Seattle Theatre Built Itself From The Ground Up
As Taproot’s current and founding artistic team members chat in the theater’s comfortable lobby, with its welcoming windows looking out onto North 85th Street in Greenwood, it’s hard to believe that the company’s permanent space was once an X-rated movie theater with a dirt floor basement. – Seattle Times
- Do The People Of This Slovakian Village Really Want To Lose UNESCO World Heritage Status?
That’s what all the headlines said, but the people of the well-preserved medieval village of Vlkolínec say it’s not that simple. They want to protect their small, still-living community from the pressures of overtourism, which could easily overwhelm it. – Deutsche Welle
- Two Pittsburgh Theatres Merge
Pittsburgh’s theater community is betting that a business deal of its own — the merger of the Pittsburgh CLO and the Pittsburgh Public Theater — will pay off. – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
- When Superfans Go Too Far
In recent years, celebrities have attempted to set boundaries for their adoring, sometimes obsessive fans. – The New York Times
- Theatre That Hadn’t Shown A Movie In 35 Years Has Highest Ticket Sales In The Country For “Odyssey”
The venue, which hadn’t shown a first-run movie for 35 years, has announced it’s the highest grossing theatre in the country for Christopher Nolan’s mythological epic on the film format. – The Hollywood Reporter
- Samantha Morton Says She’s Gotten No Acting Work Since She Finished Shooting For “The Odyssey”
A two-time Oscar nominee who’s widely expected to get another nomination for her performance as Circe, Morton said, “I’ve got really good agents and a manager, but at the end of the day, I’m 49. I do believe I’m a good actor, (but) there are other good actors out there.” – Variety
- John Caird: Broadway Has Become Disneyfied
Caird concluded that Broadway’s significant cost meant it might now “no longer necessarily be people’s choice of where to put a show, which is maybe a good thing”. He added: “Maybe some sanity will return [to Broadway].” – The Stage
- Who Is Buying Massive Quantities Of Books?
We know that something mysterious is afoot. Someone—if not more than one group or company—has been snapping up massive volumes of books from shops around the world. – The Atlantic
- The Big Estate Sales That Are Reshaping The Art Market
The list of collectors whose art has arrived at auction over the past two years reads like the society pages of decades past. Some died; others have merely reached an age when keeping several hundred million dollars’ worth of paintings around no longer seems quite as important as it once did. – ARTnews
- Bruno Campanella, Opera Conductor Known For Bel Canto, Is Dead At 83
After emerging internationally in the late 1970s, he established himself as one of the leading specialists in the operas of Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini. He guest-conducted at most of the world’s major opera houses and served as music director of the Teatro Regio in Turin for three years in the 1990s. – Moto Perpetuo
- As Broadway Struggles, London’s West End Thrives — With Less Expensive Tickets
“The West End is capitalizing on lower production costs, cheaper ticket prices and government tax relief to drive attendances to new heights. … Staging a show in New York now costs three to five times what it does in London, producers say.” – The Wall Street Journal (MSN)
- Major Museums Are Forming Partnerships To Buy And Share Artworks
“Pooling resources now reflects a broader shift away from the competitive collection building of the 19th and 20th centuries. Increasing financial pressure plays an undeniable role, but so does a growing appetite for deeper institutional ties and shared expertise.” – Artnet
- Dallas’s Perot Museum Of Nature And Science Seems To Be Planning A Big Expansion It Hasn’t Announced
The news comes from a filing the museum made last week with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation; management has also filed with the city of Dallas for a construction permit. Work is expected to start early next year. – The Dallas Morning News (MSN)
- Disney To Allow TikTok Creators To Use Clips From Its Films And TV Shows
“Neither company shared financial details of the agreement, although it follows the collapse of a $1 billion (£745 million) deal between Disney and OpenAI which would have let people use its characters in AI-generated videos.” – BBC
- Contemporary Art Museum Of Raleigh Is Selling Its Building
The museum paused its exhibitions and other activities last year due to financial troubles. The board and management have not announced any permanent closure; their statements indicate that they hope to keep operating without a permanent home. – The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
- What Wagner Lovers Put Up With To Be At Bayreuth
Hard, uncomfortable seats built for 19th-century-sized bodies. No air conditioning and poor ventilation in high summer. The preferences, not to say whims, of the composer’s great-granddaughter because she’s the boss. Years-long waits for expensive tickets. Pricey drinks at intermission. The Wagnerites say it’s all worth it. – The New York Times
- Taking John Cage’s “As SLow aS Possible” Into A Whole Other Dimension
“A rare chord change on Wednesday — from seven notes to eight once an A4 pipe was added — represented the completion of about 4% of the 639-year endeavor of the John Cage Organ Project Halberstadt. … The’“ORGAN²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible)’ composition is scheduled to finish on Sept. 4, 2640.” – AP
- What We Lost When Video Rental Stores Went Away
The early video store was often a place to talk as well as to shop, and the persona and expertise of retailers and clerks structured the consumer experience of home video as much as the shelves on the wall. – MIT Press
- The Problem With Super-Flexible High-Tech Performance Venues
Justin Davidson on New York’s Perelman Arts Center and The Shed: “Now the boldest experimenters can take advantage of walls that move at the touch of a button, precision lifts, rooms that shrink and expand, projected images (on) moving surfaces. … Yet the revolution, now that it’s here, feels anticlimactic and overpriced.” – Curbed (MSN)
- The Edinburgh Fringe Is Huge. But Is Success Just Getting Bigger?
Edinburgh has wrestled with for years: what is tourism actually for? If the answer is simply “more visitors, more spending”, the city will keep winning by numbers while residents feel they are losing by experience. – The Conversation
- David Ellison Makes His Case For The Paramount/Warner Merger
I want to build a company with the strength and resources to deliver for those audiences who turn to us, for the storytellers who rely on us and for the country that dreamed this all up. – The New York Times
- Why Is Music Being Released On Vinyl Missing What’s In The Digital Versions?
It’s the year’s worst pop trend: fans paying the highest price to pre-order what is ostensibly the most desirable, collectible or elaborate edition of an album are instead receiving incomplete or unpolished versions of the music. – The Guardian
- This Standup Comedian Sold Out Arenas In His Homeland — And Angered The Government. Now He’s Figuring Out American Humor.
Pandji Pragiwaksono was a household name in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most populous country. In a Netflix special last year, he made fun of the president and was interrogated on criminal charges. Now he’s in New York, working comedy clubs, learning which routines don’t translate, and preparing for his first English-language tour. – Variety
- The Difficulties Of An AI For Africa
- The Video Game Industry Is Collapsing. Why?
As movies and shows like “Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” and “Fallout” prove Hollywood has finally figured out how to successfully adapt video games — after years of failure so deep a “video game movie curse” moniker was coined — the makers of those games are in disarray. – The Wrap (MSN)
- Sure, Attack The Smithsonian. But Americans Really Love It
Even now, as the museum complex continues to face a pressure campaign from the White House, public fondness for the Smithsonian—for its free entry and eclectic collections—is hard to break among those otherwise receptive to President Trump’s anti-institutionalism. – The Atlantic
- Building An AI Program To Generate K-Pop Choreography
Youngjun Choi, who has created dance routines for some of South Korea’s biggest pop stars (including BTS), and Joon Jung, a choreographer-turned-tech exec, co-founded the startup MVNT to build an AI system for dance, much like Suno, the generative AI music platform. – Business Insider
- English National Ballet Suffers Cyberattack
ENB said some customer email address and business contact information “may have been included in the affected data” from the cyber attack and that it was taking the matter seriously. – The Standard
- Author Denies He Used AI To Write Book That He Sold For Millions
The author accused of using artificial intelligence to craft the debut novel that landed him a multimillion-dollar book deal said he was innocent and that the claims against him were racially motivated. – The Wall Street Journal