This shift has led to changes in how people interact socially, both online and offline. The convenience and accessibility of gaming platforms, including platforms like a Canadian online casino, have allowed players to connect with others across vast distances, creating virtual communities that transcend geographical boundaries. - The Walrus
Daniele Cipriani, a dance impresario well-known in Italy, has been nominated by the minister of culture to be artistic director of the Spoleto Festival; he will succeed incumbent Monique Veaute following this summer’s event. As Cipriani is a dance specialist, there may be separate directors for the festival’s music and theater. - Gramilano (Milan)
In his first season as successor to founding artistic director Stoner Winslett, Cong has revitalized the company’s offerings with contemporary pieces by the likes of Christopher Wheeldon, Ben Stevenson, and Yuri Yanowsky as well as Cong’s own work — repertoire rarely if ever seen in Virginia’s capital before. - Virginia Living
The NYCB stalwart is about to give his farewell performance after 25 years with the company. Yet he almost didn’t make it to this point, and he now acknowledges that his involvement with alcohol, drugs, and two female colleagues nearly derailed his career and his life. - The New York Times
“The life-size wall sculpture in Moscow’s Taganskaya metro station depicts Stalin standing on Moscow’s Red Square surrounded by a crowd of Soviet citizens looking at him in admiration, and is a recreation of a monument that was unveiled in the same station in 1950, three years before Stalin died.” - Reuters
The IMLS, a federal agency whose grants were all summarily cancelled by the Trump/Musk DOGE, has started reinstating grants and rehiring employees following a preliminary injunction by a Federal judge blocking the Trump administration’s stated plan to dismantle the agency. - Hyperallergic
“After three years of painstaking restoration work, the J. Paul Getty Museum is unveiling Hercules and Omphale, a long-lost Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652) painting nearly destroyed in the explosions that struck the Lebanese capital of Beirut in August 2020.” - Artnet
In order to “thoughtfully match artists and their work with venues that best serve the art, the audience, and the moment,” Washington Performing Arts — which presents performances by touring musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma, Igor Levit, and the Chicago Symphony — will offer concerts it would have held at the Kennedy Center elsewhere. - Washingtonian
Roberto Beltrami had traveled to Boston University to study, and in his sophomore year a Dale Chihuly exhibition awakened his fascination with glass, and he went to Murano, the famous glassmaking island in Venice, to apprentice. Now, with his own workshop at age 34, he’s introducing new, money-saving equipment and techniques. - CNN
Google is funding short films about AI that portray the technology in a less nightmarish light than in many Hollywood science fiction depictions. - Los Angeles Times
“The Korean public holds celebrities to a higher moral standard than normal people, and the media is very aggressive (in) reporting on scandals. They take unconfirmed allegations and report them as facts. (Yet) when it comes to politicians and public figures with real power, the media is very cautious.” - The Hollywood Reporter
To reimagine open space is not to think bigger—it is to think deeper. To look between, beneath, beyond. It is to ask: How do we shape space to be responsive? How do we design for encounter, for joy, for the unplanned but meaningful moments of connection? - Fast Company
Overall, Ron Chernow’s “Mark Twain” is less a literary biography than a deep dive into “the most original character in American history.” - Washington Post
hen untrained people, predisposed to fly off the handle, interact with emotionally neutral machines that have set higher ethical bars, will they or can they begin to adopt some of that tone and recognize the value of more composed and pro-social responses? Could AI be an emotionally soothing influence. - 3 Quarks Daily
The countertenor/company director allows as how yes, ticket revenue under the policy fell from 8% to 4% of the company’s budget — and then he runs through the ways in which the policy has brought newcomers to try out an art form which the wider world sees as elitist and uninteresting. - Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)
