After she discovered the work of African-American spoken-word poets, Vanessa Chisakula co-founded Word Smash Poetry in Lusaka, Zambia's capital, and she's seen poetry events spread across the country in the years since. - The Guardian
The Artspace is the latest manifestation of a resurgence of Native cultural traditions and ceremonies and the increased national and international visibility of Indigenous artists. - The New York Times
As Civic Platform, the leading party in the new governing coalition, put it last year, "Poles deserve real public television, not like Russia Today, but like the BBC." But the old governing party, Law and Justice, had passed legislation that has made depoliticizing the public broadcaster complicated. - Columbia Journalism Review
Haring created the 1989 work titled Unfinished Painting as a comment on the lives unlived and the creativity unrealized because of the AIDS epidemic, which killed Haring himself a few months later. So when someone posted an AI completion on social media recently, reaction was swift and ferocious. - Hyperallergic
I don’t want it to be an art form where people feel like it’s only for certain types of people. Because it’s not. I mean, my story is sort of a testament to that. - Washingtonian
The orchestra says it reduced the programming to save money, because SoundBox concerts lose a lot of it even when they sell out. Yet the very-well-endowed SFS reported $144.9M income and only $74.7M in expenses for FY2022. Two SFCV writers consider what orchestra management has said about this. - San Francisco Classical Voice
If A.I. is the key to a gleaming utopia or else robot-induced extinction, what does it matter if a few poets and painters got bilked along the way? - The New Republic
"Under a new deal with an artificial intelligence company, members of the Screen Actors Guild will be able to create and license digital simulations of their voices for video games and other projects while enjoying safeguards against their potential misuse." - Los Angeles Times (Yahoo!)
"Unionized teachers and others at the Second City Training Center said Tuesday they have authorized a strike and will set up a picket line proximate to the comedy company’s theaters if their employer refuses to bargain further, with the strike and pickets beginning Jan. 16." - Chicago Tribune
"Jeremy McCarter, the former New York magazine drama critic and co-author with Lin-Manuel Miranda of the behind-the-scenes book Hamilton: The Revolution, has been named Literary Executor of the Wilder Family LLC … (with a brief) 'to devote special time and energy to the adaptation possibilities in Wilder’s full range of works.'" - Deadline
Following the 2021 merger of the orchestra with the organization that operates its concert hall and three other venues (and presents shows in a fourth), ticketholders sometimes didn't know which theater to go to. So the umbrella organization has taken a new name that doesn't include a venue. - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)
Six of the board's 30 members have stepped down since Colette Pierce Burnette suddenly left Newfields in November after only 15 months as CEO. Most of the ex-board members have said nothing publicly about their resignations, though two have given hints of unhappiness about the manner of Burnette's exit. - ARTnews
"Helped by a 1.7% increase in the fourth quarter, unit sales of print books fell only 2.6% in 2023 from 2022. ... The dip was less than many industry members had feared this summer, when sales were steadily declining and were down 4.1% after the first nine months of the year." - Publishers Weekly
"(The company will) more than triple its footprint, moving its headquarters to a Midtown Manhattan office tower next year from its current home on the Lower East Side. The company will use the space to build more dance studios and expand its education programs." - The New York Times
George Lewis is one of the most formidable figures in modern music: a composer of international renown, a legendary improvising trombonist, a computer-music pioneer, a professor at Columbia, a stalwart of the Black avant-garde collective known as the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. - The New Yorker
