“When she came across Kathak, the staccato rhythms of the dance form reminded [choreographer Helena] Waldmann of the rapid needle of a sewing machine. She saw the stomping footwork of Kathak as the perfect symbol of the pressures faced by garment workers.”
Archives for January 2015
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.28.15
Orchestras, engage your audience!
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2015-01-28
The P Word
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2015-01-28
The Meaning of The Clash
AJBlog: CultureCrashPublished 2015-01-28
Just Because: Lester Young
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-01-28
[ssba_hide]
What Does An Orchestra Engaging With Its Audience Look Like?
“No more music stands. No more physical barrier between musicians and audience. Musicians free to look at the audience, to make eye contact (if the lighting allows them to see anyone’s eyes). To smile. To show how much they love the music, and love playing it. (And if they don’t love it, or love playing…that’s another long discussion of orchestra culture.)”
Carnegie Hall Will Commission 125 New Works
“Carnegie Hall will celebrate its 125th anniversary next season not only with its customary assortment of the world’s leading orchestras and performers playing long-cherished masterpieces but also by starting a new project to commission some 125 new works over the next five years.”
Kinda Creepy? New Machines That Control Your Hand As It Draws
“Teacher, for example, is a machine that coaches you to draw by forcing your hand to perform certain motions. The thinking goes, repeat the task enough times and eventually your hand will remember how to do it on its own.”
London’s National Gallery Workers Plan Strike To Protest Privatization
According to the union, the National Gallery plans “to privatise almost all staff, including those who look after the paintings and help the gallery’s six million annual visitors”.
Surely Self-Censoring Art Is Not An Acceptable Answer
“While we desperately need an open debate about free speech and the freedom to offend in our society, the obsessive focus on Muslims, religion, and blasphemy has diverted attention away from the bigger question of how we handle offending and being offended as part of a big, broad society where not everyone is going to agree.”
Battle For The Soul Of Children’s Cartoons (It Ain’t Pretty)
“Branded toys routinely make more money than the films and cartoons on which they are based—sometimes a lot more—so it’s logical in a way that yes, children’s television shows and movies are basically long, elaborate toy commercials.”
How The Meaning Of Movies Changes Depending On When You See Them
“Whatever impact a film might have on those who see it, the reality is that events, attitudes and present-day understandings affect and shape how we view movies as much, if not more. This cultural exchange doesn’t apply only to new films.”
Take That Marriott – FCC Bans Blocking Of Wifi Signals
“Willful or malicious interference with Wi-Fi hot spots is illegal…The Enforcement Bureau has seen a disturbing trend in which hotels and other commercial establishments block wireless consumers from using their own personal Wi-Fi hot spots on the commercial establishment’s premise.”
The Meaning Of Art – Is Writing A Job Or…
“There is something dreary about wanting writing to be a real job. The sense of inner purpose, so often unmentionable in a society enamored of professionalization, distinguishes a writer from a hack.”
Greece And Spain’s Economies Are Basket Cases, Yet Their Opera Companies Are Flourishing. Here’s Why
“Those countries have been stuck in a six-year depression, with unemployment rates of around 25 per cent. Yet their principal opera companies have somehow come through the valley of austerity with no debt, full and lively artistic programs, and higher standing in their communities. They have done far better, in fact, than some companies in wealthier European states.”
A History Of Shocking Art (Are We All Shocked Out?)
“To be shocking, to be offensive: the meaning of these noble terms might not be obvious. There are so many variants of shock. What might be necessary, for more precise orientation, is some kind of shock genealogy.”
The 20 Top University Fundraisers (A Record Year)
“Donors increased the amount they gave colleges in 2014 by 10.8 percent, up from $33.8 billion in 2013, which was the previous historic high. Without adjusting for inflation, the growth between 2013 and 2014 was the largest since 2000.”
Are We Exiting The Era Of Big Stage Musicals?
“I think we are in a slight time of shift, in that the sung through musical perhaps is now receding, and the book musical is starting to come back. It’s delicate…you have to have a theme which engages as much as you need glorious music.”
We’re Losing Our Working Class Actors. And Here’s What We’re Really Losing
“The important thing is: what do we do about that? Because otherwise we lose all these interesting characters like Richard Burton and Richard Harris, and playwrights like John Osborne who were writing working-class stories. What happens to that? Does that just go? Or do we go back to the 30s when you had incredibly posh people trying to do cockney accents?”
King Tut’s Beard Disaster: Conservation Chief Demoted To The Royal Stables
“Last week, her duties included the conservation of one of the world’s most important collection of artefacts, including Tutankhamun’s fabled death mask and jewellery, as well as hundreds of ancient mummies, tombs and statues. From now on her role will be limited to overseeing the contents of Egypt’s royal stables.”
Doomed Orchestra Has Actually Saved Itself With Crowdfunding
The Danish National Chamber Orchestra was disbanded at New Year’s, after “this 75-year-old ensemble’s state funding was cancelled at ludicrously short notice … Through a Kickstarter campaign to raise 3m Danish kroner (£300,000), the orchestra received more than a third of that money from supporters, and have now had pledges for the rest of the balance from the Danish business community.”
Italy’s Most Popular, And Maybe Best, TV Series Ever – Will It Be Bad For Italy?
“In short, Italy has created a popular, realistic, beautifully rendered TV series – which is what has so many people worried. The international success of Gomorrah could turn into bad publicity for Naples and Italy, just as the young government of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is trying so hard to restore confidence among foreigners.”
How To Enjoy Modern Music: A 14-Point Guide For The Perplexed By An Artist
Curt Barnes’s suggestions include “Remember when you hated what you now love”, “Music is not necessarily for your entertainment”, “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”, and “Don’t trust the program notes” (even if the composer wrote them).
Why The Idea Of Machines That Can Think Creeps Some Of Us Out
Tania Lombrozo: “My sense is that the valley of ‘uncanny thinking’ is real, but elicits a more existential than visceral response. And if that’s so, perhaps it’s because we’re threatened by the idea that human thinking isn’t unique, and that maybe human thinking isn’t so special.”
Looks Like The Tate Gave Itself To BP For Cheap
The (40% state-funded) group of museums, having lost its years-long battle against environmental activists demanding disclosure, revealed how much it has been receiving in sponsorship money from the petroleum giant over the past 17 years. The amount has been described in press headlines as “surprisingly low”, “embarrassingly small”, and “laughably small”.
We May Be Closer To Recovering The Only Surviving Library Collection From Ancient Rome
“Researchers have found a key that may unlock the only library of classical antiquity to survive along with its documents” – from a villa in Herculaneum, destroyed along with Pompeii by the Vesuvius eruption – “raising at least a possibility of recovering vanished works of ancient Greek and Roman authors such as the lost books of Livy’s history of Rome.”
Helen Macdonald’s “H Is For Hawk” Wins Costa Book Prize (And £30,000)
“[The memoir] tells of how the Cambridge historian, illustrator and naturalist was so overcome by grief after the death of her father that she went almost mad and decided to train the most untameable of raptors, the goshawk.”
D.C. Theaters Expand Helen Hayes Awards Into “Helens” And “Hayeses”
“The split generally falls along professional lines. If most of a show’s performers are Equity (union) actors, that’s a Hayes show. If they aren’t, it’s a Helen, regardless of theater. Got it? … Illustrating how the ‘Helen’ and ‘Hayes’ distinctions really go show by show, not theater by theater, is the case of Arena Stage.”