Do Egyptians Think Verdi’s “Aïda” Is Cultural Appropriation? Merely Silly? Actually, They Don’t
to Cairo and asked people there about it — and she found that people, even those who've never seen it themselves, seem generally proud...
Brigitte Lefèvre Helped Transform France’s Entire Dance Scene Into What It Is Today
She led the way in introducing the country to contemporary dance, not least at the Paris Opera Ballet, which she ran for two decades,...
Even The Color Blue Is Having Supply-Chain Problems
Two factories in France produce much of the world's synthetic ultramarine pigment; one stopped making it, and the other couldn't meet the extra demand...
Conservatives Trying To Ban Certain Books From Schools Forget About The Streisand Effect
In Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, whether the topic is race, sexuality, history, or something else, grownups trying to keep particular books from teens...
Enormous Changes At The Last Minute At The Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Messiah”
The scheduled conductor and all four soloists, who'd been rehearsing together, tested positive the day before Wednesday's concert — and, rather than canceling, the...
Fifteen Minutes Before Curtain Time, Broadway Playwright Steps In To Save Performance From Cancellation
With three cast members testing positive for COVID and only two understudies available, Keenan Scott II grabbed his script for Thoughts of a Colored...
England Doubles The COVID Arts Relief Funding It Announced Just Days Ago
On Monday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that £30 million ($40 million) was being added to Arts Council England's Culture Recovery Fund. On...
How The Internet Changed Music This Year
The geeks among you will recognize that the words “decentralization” and “distributed network” invoke a nearly 10-year-old model of equitable Web-based information flow, one that’s currently...
I Think, Therefore I Have Language
So how does language and thought relate, then? And what is “thought”, anyway? Perhaps one way of answering both questions is to determine whether...
British Film Classification Board Rethinks Some Of Its Previous Ratings
Recent rereleases of films such as Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Jaws have led the board to reconsider...
Seriously? Curators Crack The Top Five “Most Trusted” Professions
Curators enjoyed a 4% increase in trustworthiness across gender and political affiliation in 2021. Notably, however, advanced degree holders were much more likely to...
Big Entertainment Comes To Riyadh. But…
Mass entertainment events are no longer a novelty in the once austere kingdom, but there have been reports by local and foreign women that...
Schadenfreude For The Holidays: The Meanest Book Reviews Of 2021
"Among the titles being cast into the maw of the volcano this year: Blake Bailey's oozing hagiography of Philip Roth, Mitch Albom's latest cavity-inducing...
Can Machines Measure Common Sense?
Consciousness, thought, creativity, will, imagination, and agency — once considered to be explainable only through philosophical reflection were now reformulated as precisely defined cognitive...
Intelligence, Machines, And Why It’s Increasingly Difficult To Tell The Difference
Any of us have interacted with apparently thoughtful machines often enough—for instance, when on the telephone and trying, often fruitlessly, to get to a...
Why Cecily Strong Dares To Do “The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In...
"Of course I wanted to do this. The biggest reason to say no is, why would you ever put yourself in a position to...
How The Met Museum Dances Around The Looting Of African Art
If you want to see an acrobatic display of ducking and weaving in a gallery by people trying desperately not to set off any...
Mapping One Of Machu Picchu’s Most Unusual Features
"Pilgrims traveling to Machu Picchu in the 15th century were greeted by Chachabamba, a ceremonial water complex that was designed to demonstrate the power...
Joan Didion, 87
Didion came to prominence with a series of incisive, searching feature articles in Life magazine and The Saturday Evening Post that explored the fraying...
For Her First Piece As Choreographer, Tamara Rojo Remakes Petipa’s “Raymonda”
Says the artistic director of English National Ballet, "I am by no means Petipa, but what I'm trying to do with Raymonda is what...
Researchers: Where Your Sense Of Right And Wrong Comes From
The researchers found that higher conscientiousness – the tendency to be organised, hardworking and disciplined – was related to rating loyalty, authority and purity/sanctity as important...
The Lucille Ball Almost No One Saw
The first woman to run a TV studio (a job she never liked and only did after she and Desi Arnaz divorced), Ball was...
Nielsen Confesses It’s Been Undercounting TV Audiences For A While Now
"The media-measurement giant informed TV networks and other clients Wednesday that it has, since September of 2020, undercounted so-called 'out-of-home' audiences — the people...
Omicron Is Keeping Older Viewers From Going Out To The Movies
A YouGov poll of 1,000 Americans found that roughly 56% of 18-to-44-year-olds weren't deterred by the new, rapidly spreading coronavirus variant, with only between...
Baltimore Is Becoming A Matisse Capital
The Baltimore Museum of Art has roughly 1,200 works by the artist, and it's just opened the Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies,...
