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Museums’ Big New Security Concern: Which Visitors Might Attack Art?

With the attacks showing no sign of abating, museum directors across Europe are settling into a nervous new equilibrium, fearful for the works in their care but unwilling to compromise on making visitors feel welcome. - The New York Times

Iger’s Return Is A Chance For Disney To Pivot Strategies

The change in leadership gives Iger the opportunity to swerve away from Chapek’s fixation on Disney+. A similar redirection occurred this year at Warner Bros., where the CEO, Jason Kilar, who pushed the studio’s 2021 films to streaming, was replaced by David Zaslav. - The Atlantic

Parent Gets School Library To Remove All Its Graphic Novels

All graphic novels in the school library’s collection were recalled after parent Tim Reiland took issue with the school letting his teenage daughter borrow Blankets, an autobiographical coming-of-age story by Craig Thompson about questioning blind faith in a fundamentalist Christian household. - Vice

“Gangnam Style” Blew Up The Internet. Its Creator Had A Tough Time After That

The video, which now has some 4.6 billion views, was so culturally pervasive in 2012 that Barack Obama was asked about it on Election Day. NASA astronauts recorded a parody, and a North Korean state propaganda site evoked the dance move to mock a South Korean politician. - The New York Times

Mark Williams On Being The First Black Man To Lead A Major North American Orchestra

"I’m not saying we shouldn’t address it; we are where we are, and we have to talk about it. But it’s difficult being the person in that role, because you’re constantly balancing being a symbol and just being the person you are, with all your abilities and foibles." - The Globe & Mail (Canada)

John von Rhein Remembers Ned Rorem

Rorem came across as an artist of disarming candor, fierce intelligence, urbane wit and, above all, enormous personal charm. We hit it off immediately and, despite the professional boundaries that separate creative artists and critics, became friends. - Chicago Classical Review

Forecast: Theatre Fortunes Will Be Rough This Coming Year

By 2022, according to the same survey, 30 percent of responding theaters were projecting deficit operating budgets, and there’s a huge increase in that cohort on the horizon: 62 percent are projecting budget deficits in 2023.  - Chicago Reader

Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Completes Expansion, Will Reopen With A New Name

A $20 million commitment from New York State, announced Monday by Gov. Kathy Hochul, completes the Buffalo museum’s $230 million capital campaign, believed to be the largest for a cultural institution in the history of western New York. - The New York Times

Orchestras Are Beginning To Tour Again

With the mass introduction of vaccines, the decline in infections, and the lifting of travel restrictions, orchestras have already taken to the road, with many others just waiting to take off. - San Francisco Classical Voice

New Women Directors At Three Big Ballet Companies

As three celebrated, longtime directors depart these companies, the entrance of women is proving that female directors are staking a firm claim in a professional terrain that has traditionally favored men. - Dance Magazine

The Number Of College Students In America Is About To Fall In A Precipitous Decline

In four years, the number of students graduating from high schools across the country will begin a sudden and precipitous decline, due to a rolling demographic aftershock of the Great Recession. - Vox

In Praise Of Monotony

As one gets older and realizes that most of life’s good stuff is contained between two ledger entries, one sees that if it weren’t for dreams, for stories and for art, for inventing personas and writing books through their hands and eyes, life would be insufferable. - 3 Quarks Daily

Why Do People Keep Willingly Humiliating Themselves In Interviews With The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner?

Many have seen how the foolish and unwary "intellectually self-immolate under the pressure of his polite prodding. ... This raises a question that many ask on social media: Why does anyone ever agree to be interviewed by Chotiner in the first place? I can speculate on some possible answers." - Drezner's World

The Theatre World Never Really Understood The Subversive Side Of Lorraine Hansberry

The subversive intent of Hansberry’s art and activism has long been underestimated. Early reviews of Raisin, which debuted in 1959 and made Hansberry the first Black woman with a show on Broadway, were quick to domesticate her. - The Atlantic

In And Around Charleston, History Tourism Is Moving Away From “The Hoop-Skirt Experience”

The soon-to-open International African American Museum will be the flagship of efforts, beginning in the 1990s, to stop trying to ignore the history of slavery and to properly incorporate the Black people who built the city into the stories Charleston tells about itself to both visitors and locals. - BBC

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