ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

Stories

The Brave, Skilled, And Versatile “Swings” Who Keep “The Lion King” Running Through The Pandemic

Jacqueline René, for instance, can do, and has done, everything from Nala the lioness and Shenzi the zebra to the bird lady, a patch of savanna grass, and the eye of the ghost of Mufasa — all depending on who tested positive for COVID that day. - New York Magazine

Badal Roy, Who Brought Indian Tabla Drumming To Cutting-Edge Jazz, Dead At 82

He had only the rudiments of Indian classical training and played in an unorthodox manner, using up to seven drums instead of the conventional two. He spent a long career working with musicians from John McLaughlin to Miles Davis to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Mann. - The New York Times

Checking In On San Francisco’s Pilot Program Of Guaranteed Income For Artists

The program, launched by the city government and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts last March, provides $1,000 a month, no strings attached, to 130 participants (chosen from 25,000 applicants). Here's a look at how two of them, a choreographer and a writer/teacher, are doing. - San Francisco Chronicle

The Entire Marcel Duchamp Archive Is Now Available For Free Online

"It is a vast online trove of Duchampiana" assembled by the Association Marcel Duchamp, the Pompidou Center, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, "a virtual 'readymade,' now available to scholars, artists, and the general public all over the world." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

“Fight Club” Gets A Whole New Ending For Streaming In China

In execution, it's sort of lame: instead of explosions, a title card is slipped in to say that the authorities foiled Project Mayhem and Tyler Durden was sent to a "lunatic asylum." And, says one source, this was probably done by the distributor, not the government's censors themselves. - Variety

Little Brick Hospital In Regional Bangladesh Wins RIBA’s Best New Building Award

In the city of Satkhira, near the giant Sundarban mangrove swamp on the Indian border, the Friendship Hospital, designed by the Dhaka-based firm Urbana, manages to channel rain, wind, and sunlight to keep people as dry, cool, and well-lit as possible in such a setting. - The Guardian

This Orchestra Somehow Kept Going Through Lockdowns, Floods, Power Outages, And The Madness Of Today’s Venezuela

The Orquesta Sinfónica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho in Caracas is already the country's least conventional symphonic ensemble: they frequently perform in the barrios and regularly explore fusion with Afro-Caribbean music. Their most recent project, Sinfonía Desordenada (Disorderly Symphony), turned out to be, er, aptly named. - National Geographic

Indie Movies Are Quite Odd Right Now

Let’s call them “bizart-house movies,” for lack of a better term — unapologetically odd and original creations, led by a gifted group of rebel auteurs who don’t kowtow to popular expectations. - Variety

What Canadian Orchestras Are Doing Online

A majority (69%) of orchestras are planning a hybrid (digital and in-person) season for 2021-22. Once halls return to full capacity audiences, 45.9% of orchestras plan to continue some of the digital activity they’re doing... La Scena Musicale

Social Media Is Flooding Us With Addictive Junk News

A digital drug for anyone with a phone, and especially young people, the TikTok app uses random reinforcement — similar to a slot machine on the Las Vegas strip — to keep users scrolling. It has changed the way Americans tell and view stories. - Salon

The Weird Spat Over A Star NPR Reporter’s Report On The Supreme Court

In her own telephone conversation with The Daily Beast, Nina Totenberg—a towering presence at NPR who has been there since 1975—responded to NPR's public editor Kelly McBride, the justices, and general criticism of her story. - The Daily Beast

Why Spats In Academia Are So Nasty

Reviewers are faced with essays that are additions to their already heavy workloads that could have used more time. And the inclination to take one’s frustrations out on the author is just too great. - 3 Quarks Daily

Artists To “Meta”: We Don’t Trust You

Many have begun fleeing Instagram... They expressed skepticism that Meta, a social-media behemoth, could develop, launch and manage a marketplace where they weren’t looking over their shoulders. - Forbes

Meet The Organist Whose Concerts Get Protested By Conservative Catholics As Satanic

Anna von Hausswolff can joke about it, but enraged demonstrators have actually shut down concerts of hers. All because a music blogger called her "the high priestess (of) satanic harmonies" and, in one track recorded 13 years ago, she sang "I made love with the devil." - The New York Times

Medical Humanities — Using Art To Build Better Doctors

“Things like disease, disability, death, the processes of scientific experimentation and discovery, they don’t happen in a vacuum. They take place in the context of human experience — so these things are always in discourse with each other." - Hyperallergic

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss

function my_excerpt_length($length){ return 200; } add_filter('excerpt_length', 'my_excerpt_length');