"Overall, Berlin is slashing its cultural funding budget by around €120 million ($127 million), or about 12%. The budget for 2025 will now be around €1.2 billion. For weeks now, theatres (and other organizations) have been warning of insolvency, restrictions in operations and job losses." - DPA (Yahoo!)
"Comcast's move is the strongest sign yet of alarm reverberating throughout Hollywood's traditional companies. Cable channels have long been a key economic pillar, generating billions of dollars in distribution fees that more than covered up the misses when big-budget movies flopped or during advertising recessions. No more." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)
The original building, the smallest of the dance festival's three venues, was destroyed by fire four years ago. The rebuilt Duke, opening July 9, is three times the size of the old one, has flexible configurations for both stage and audience, and is equipped to livestream performances. - The Berkshire Eagle
After six years on the job, the 42-year-old conductor will step down at the end of this season. He is only the fourth music director in the orchestra's 53-year-history. (The second, Kent Nagano, remained for 31 years, long into his high-profile international career.) - San Francisco Chronicle
Maurizio Cattelan's conceptual piece, titled Comedian, first sold for $120,000 at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2019; last night, cryptocurrency mogul Justin Sun agreed to pay more than 50 times that amount. He gets a roll of duct tape, a banana, official instructions for installation and a certificate of authenticity. - CNN
Everett's revisionist riff on Huckleberry Finn continued its prizewinning streak in the fiction category; in nonfiction, de León's Soldiers and Kings pipped Knife, Rushdie's memoir of his stabbing and recovery. Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's Something About Living took poetry honors; Shifa Saltagi Safadi’s Kareem Between won for young people's literature. - AP
He painted them, back in 1889, in a deep, vibrant purple. Here's how two conservators at the Getty figured that out — and why the irises have turned blue over the intervening 135 years. - Hyperallergic
Judy Morr "decided to do something nobody else was doing in Southern California, which was to bring major international dance companies to Orange County. That’s how it all started. Dance became the way to establish the Center’s reputation nationally and internationally.” - CultureOC
Meryl Tankard was one of the dancers in the 1978 premiere of Bausch's Kontakthof, and she has now restaged the piece with herself and eight other performers from the first run dancing alongside film footage of the original production. - The New York Times
A.I. chatbots can imitate famous poets like William Shakespeare well enough to fool many human readers, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. In addition, many study participants actually preferred the chatbot’s poetry over the works of renowned writers. - Smithsonian
The Museum of West African Art (Mowaa), a constellation of buildings and outdoor performance spaces spread out across a 6-hectare (15-acre) campus, will hold its inaugural exhibition in May 2025. - The Guardian
Nuanxed's approach, known as post-editing (PE), combines the use of AI translation tools with human editing and proofing. According to cofounder and CEO Robert Casten Carlberg, the company completes roughly 50 translations per month, and in total has worked with 150 authors to complete around 800 translations. - Publishers Weekly
A budget series called "World's Greatest Music," produced by RCA Victor and marketed and distributed by the New York Post, included 38 discs (78 rpm) released from 1938 to 1940; ultimately more than 1 million records were sold. But the performers were unnamed — until now. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Nono saw the potential to communicate with contemporary audiences, neither bound by nor rejecting the past, building solidarity against any resurgence of the fascism he had resisted under Mussolini. - The New York Times
