There’s a village meeting each year to decide the theme. Village officials make a simple computer mockup and then ask art teachers to make more detailed drawings. Next, color-coded markers are staked into the watery field, and finally citizens are enlisted to fill in the spaces with the proper strain of rice plant. - Return to Now
The study surveyed 104 organizations, including 91 in the United States and 13 in Canada, from Dec. 12, 2020 through Jan. 12, 2021. The study found that, among U.S. organizations, companies in the Southeast, Southwest, and South are the most optimistic, with a majority planning a return before July. Companies in the Midwest, West, and Northeast mostly plan returns...
At its best, music theory creates simplified models that help us understand how compositions are conceived and constructed while leaving space for the mystery of artistic intervention. At its worst, it reduces composition to a numbers game, and dismisses enigmatic moments—often the most powerful ones—as irrelevant. - Van
"The danger of Trump using a presidential library to burnish his image is far more serious, with the ex-president and his surrogates still promoting the idea that his electoral loss was somehow fraudulent. That creates an ongoing uncertainty in American public life, which Trump and even more unscrupulous actors will use to further division, inflame tension, exacerbate racism and...
With the country splintered, its institutions shaken, a book documenting a classic American play affirming shared life experiences and bedrock values seems especially timely. Published Jan. 28, “Another Day’s Begun: Thornton Wilder’s ‘Our Town’ in the 21st Century” is an oral history of a dozen or so recent productions of this famously stoical and spare play. It’s a drama so...
Garry Stewart took the helm at Adelaide-based ADT — which is the country's oldest contemporary dance company — in 1999 and choreographed 20 original works there. - InDaily (Adelaide)
"At the darkest hour, with concert halls shuttered and musicians facing visa hell, Rattle’s defection is being regarded, rightly or wrongly, as a loss of faith. I have heard the word ‘betrayal’ muttered by senior figures. His appearance last week at the head of a petition for renegotiating EU access for British musicians was greeted with hollow laughs. Not...
In fact, outside North America and Europe, 78s were the standard record format well into the 1960s, and they hold an enormous variety of music from the days before globalization. A new anthology titled An Alternate History of the World's Music presents old recordings from places as disparate as Myanmar, Zanzibar, Ecuador, Albania, and Okinawa. - The Guardian
“I do not consent to being part of an arts community that engages in witch hunts of people who don’t think like me,” Carmen Aguirre says in the nearly 30-minute video, which she posted to YouTube. “If I am to argue with someone because I oppose their views or even find their views harmful, then I’d like the argument...
"I've done about 18 of these virtual shows, and I've learned things from them that I thought I had long understood after 20 years of being a professional comedian. People need comedy. At very least, they need to laugh — particularly when life is most burdensome and unwieldy. People need to laugh to be reminded what laughter feels like...
"At a moment of rampant disinformation and conspiracy theories juiced by algorithms, we can no longer turn a blind eye to a theory of technology that says all engagement is good engagement — the longer the better — and all with the goal of collecting as much data as possible. Too many are still asking the question, 'how much...
"Mary-Kay Wilmers … was one of the founders of the literary magazine in 1979, along with Karl Miller and Susannah Clapp, became co-editor in 1988, and has been its sole editor since 1992. In 2019, when the LRB celebrated its 40th anniversary, she was dubbed 'Britain's most influential editor' by the New York Times." - The Guardian
"So, uh, how — and why — did all of this happen? Here is the oral history of The Emperor’s New Groove, an irreverent, pratfall-heavy, non sequitur of an animated movie that so defied Disney’s painstakingly deliberate traditions, it’s hard to believe it actually exists today." - New York Magazine
The Vertical Theatre, as it's called, will be modular, with a capacity of 1,200 to 2,400, seated in small groups separated (if necessary) by clear screens. The structure has a roof, but the sides are open to allow airflow. The UK-based creators hope to have at least one Vertical Theatre hosting shows later this year. - WhatsOnStage (London)
