Trump has already hit language very strongly, and not just because of his own idiosyncratic manner of speech. As the Times has noted, his administration has developed a confounding but effective bizarro-world stylebook, in which phrases like “free speech” are deployed to quash exactly that. - New York Magazine (MSN)
During apartheid, in addition to being Athol Fugard's leading actor, he co-wrote and co-starred in the seminal plays Sizwe Bandi Is Dead and The Island. Since majority rule began in 1994, Kani has written what's now a trilogy looking at the triumphs and troubles of post-apartheid South Africa. - The Washington Post (MSN)
A Minneapolis theater organization says it will decline federal funding in order to preserve its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. - Bring Me the News
Hundreds of artists signed a letter sent to the National Endowment for the Arts asking it to reverse policy changes made as a result of recent executive orders issued by President Donald Trump. - NPR
Thirty-four dancers performed The Nelken Line, a piece by choreographer Pina Bausch that pays homage to the seasons. It's been performed widely since Bausch created it in 1982. There's even a tutorial. In the piece, dancers walk in a single-file line and make synchronized movements. - NPR
"(Starting in) the late twentieth century, a family of technologies moved from the fringes of novelty attraction and the avant-garde to the heart of mainstream culture. … The main character in this story is a device named for its ability to fabricate music artificially, producing sounds that are, by definition, synthetic." - Literary Hub
If we could stop bickering about which creatures do or don’t deserve to be called smart, an emerging movement of scientists and philosophers argue that we might discover fundamental elements of intelligence that are common to all life. - Noema
Gone are the days when academics simply conducted research and published their findings. Now their papers are less valued for their content than for providing measures of academic performance. Citation is chief of these. - London School of Economics
The call to action was to develop a blueprint for the TCC to take to Capitol Hill to advocate for arts funding, with the $207 million earmarked for the National Endowment for the Arts on the line. - The Hollywood Reporter
"Frost, who turned 20 in 1894, uncertain of his gift, … had written a poem called 'My Butterfly.' … It is what it is, a bad poem. A random-feeling extrusion of lyrical matter, like something that might come out of the tube when you pull the lever marked POETRY." - The Atlantic (MSN)
But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 dealt Kharkiv’s puppetry a heavy blow, as much of the city’s population of 1.4 million evacuated in the face of the Russian onslaught. The puppet theater closed its doors. Yet, as it turned out, not for long. - Christian Science Monitor
This is the latest event to be canceled by the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover. The show “Finn,” which could be read as a metaphor for the LGBTQ+ experience, was also canceled. - OperaWire
As Messiaen saw it, the real revolution in 20th-century music had been launched not by an Austrian Jew but by a Frenchman, Claude Debussy, who ‘introduced the idea of haziness, not only in harmony and melody, but above all in rhythm and in the succession of timbres’. - London Review of Books
"'You become the lie,' (Lisa) Schiff said. … By the time it all came crashing down in 2023, she had stolen some $6.4 million. ... But out of all her transgressions, she seemed most ashamed of the glamour that gilded her crimes. 'I was miserable in that helicopter.'" - The New York Times
The change proposed by Arts Council England was that any organization which had a grant from National Lottery proceeds had to wait until that funded project was complete before applying for another Lottery grant. It seems the Arts Council forgot just how long lead times in the arts are. - The Guardian
