Stories

In U.S. Libraries, At Least, Book-Banning Efforts Are Slowing

"The American Library Association released its preliminary data documenting attempts to censor books and materials in public, school, and academic libraries, finding that the number of tracked challenges fell significantly for the first eight months of 2024." - Publishers Weekly

Dallas Black Dance Theatre: Where Things Stand Now And What Comes Next

With DBDT management having fired all the dancers (with an unconvincing explanation) after they tried to unionize, both the National Labor Relations Board and the city of Dallas are investigating the company. There will be no quick resolution: NLRB investigations take months. - KERA (Dallas)

UK Culture Secretary Says Previous Government Had A “Violent Indifference” To The Arts

Lisa Nandy said that, under the 14 years of Conservative government which ended this past summer, "there's been a vandalism of the arts" and pledged that the Labour government would get arts funding spread throughout the country and arts education back into state schools. - The Guardian

Why San Diego Symphony’s Concert Hall Needed That $125 Million Renovation

"Audience members had long complained about lousy acoustics under the balcony overhang and bad views from many seats. … Musicians coped with a backstage area that felt like a cramped obstacle course. … Guest performers had to walk out to steel catwalk stairs and down four floors from the artist entrance." - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Venmo Is Actually A Social Network, Sort Of

Unless a user opts out, every profile is visible to the public and every transaction is shown in the feeds of a user's friends. So now — unlike video-focused TikTok and (increasingly) Instagram, or Facebook, dishing out political disinformation and "Shrimp Jesus" — Venmo feeds show what one's friends are up to. - The Atlantic (MSN)

Longtime Houston Ballet Executive Director Steps Down

James Nelson who began his career as a dancer and went on to to serve in a succession of roles with Houston Ballet: company manager, general manager and then chief executive in February 2012, taking over from C.C. Conner. - Houston Press

Does “The Show Must Go On” Create Unhealthy Workplaces?

Theatre workers across the sector have now described to The Stage how they feel pressure to "power through" all but the most extreme health conditions due to financial insecurity and a "strict" culture. - The Stage

Learning To Appreciate Neurodivergent Reaction To Art

"Listening to you also reminded me of my own adult son, who is autistic. When Ezra was a child, my wife and I sometimes hesitated to bring him along to concerts or movies for fear he might do or say the wrong thing." - The Wall Street Journal

Study: Why Public Media Needs More Stable Funding

The CSRL study says most local NPR stations lack the resources to systematically gather and report on local news, and in turn, spend too much of its limited resources covering issues that the wealthy care about. - Inside Radio

Critic Frederic Jameson, 90

For decades, Mr. Jameson’s voluminous work — more than 30 books and edited collections as well as reams of journal articles — has been required reading for graduate students (and some precocious undergraduates), not just in literature but also in film studies, architecture and history. - The New York Times

“La Haine,” Revelatory Film About Paris’s Suburban Slums, Is Now A Stage Musical

Matthieu Kassovitz's 1995 prize-winner is still considered the reference film about the crisis in France's suburban housing projects. After almost 30 years, Kassovitz and stage director Serge Denoncourt have turned it into a hip-hop musical — with the new subtitle "So Far, Nothing Has Changed." - AP

Creative People Prioritize Information Differently Than Others

My work explores the ways in which creative individuals prioritise information differently to their less creative counterparts. In one of our studies, my research collaborators and I used a classic task to see how the brain responds to another type of high priority information: surprising information. - Psyche

Saving The Day: NYCBallet Dancer Subs In During Performance With Four Minutes Notice

In dancer shorthand, this is what’s known as being thrown on. It’s scary sounding, isn’t it? Phelan, on Instagram, wrote that she was given about four minutes’ notice. - The New York Times

How Our Culture Is Being Eroded

Olivier Roy argues that culture in the sense we have understood it is being inexorably eroded. It’s not, as some of his countrymen believe, that one culture is being replaced by another - say, Christianity by Islam. It’s that all culture is being hollowed out by technology, data, globalisation, bureaucracy, and consumerist individualism. - Ian Leslie

Visitorship At French Heritage Sites Is Back To Pre-COVID Levels

According to the statistics department at the country's Ministry of Culture, the total attendance figure for more than 1,450 museums and 46,000 monuments is, at 46.8 million visitors, up 13% from 2022 and 7% from 2019. - ARTnews

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