“Wherever a dance professional’s focus might be in their work with older people, most agree that performing for an audience can have transformative effects, not only for older dancers but also for the audience. The range of emotions that comes with taking part in a performance can make it a significant life event.”
Looted Antiquities Found In Refugee Tent In Europe
“Three ancient Mesopotamian sculptures, thought to have been excavated illegally in Syria or Iraq, have been found in a Slovenian refugee camp on the border with Croatia, police said on Wednesday.”
Allen Ginsburg’s Uncollected Gems
“There were hundreds of poems composed and never collected, poems spanning the broad range of his life and career. Ginsberg loved gathering his works together. He kept copies of his essays, his interviews, his music, and his speeches and organized them in large file cabinets in his office.”
A City Where Women Are Running The Arts
“The fact is a sea change is going on in the biggest cultural institutions in the city—almost all of which are, or are about to be, run by women.”
Researchers: Taking Selfies Is Changing The Way We See Art In Museums
It seems many museum-goers “want to quickly ‘consume’ the work without actually engaging (much) in its content,” the researchers write. “That is, they seem to take it in quickly and then move on to the next work. But not before creating a visual record of the fact they were there.”
Being Irrational Is Good (Sometimes), Says Study
“We know people aren’t great at making choices, and sometimes the choices we do make are downright weird. (See: politics.) Well, take heart, fellow humans: It’s actually pretty common to make odd, irrational decisions – and, according to a new study, it might even be for the best.”
This Writer Is On Trial For A Risqué Poem About His President
“The Burmese poet Maung Saungkha does not have a tattoo of Myanmar’s President on his penis. At least, that is what he has told everyone who has asked him recently. He may soon have to prove it in court.”
Hindu Right Attacks Classical Indian Lit Project At Harvard
“A group of Sanskrit scholars in India are calling for an American professor working on a groundbreaking project on Indian classics at Harvard University to be removed because of his ‘deep antipathy’ to Indian ideals and culture, according to a Change.org petition filed Saturday.”
When Aztecs Made Catholic Icons Out Of Feathers
“Following their takeover, the Spanish encouraged amantecas, or feather artists, to continue their work … Crafted carefully with glue from orchid bulbs, feather art remained very much connected to precolonial history, even as the indigenous art was forcibly altered into a new fusion between the Old World and the New.”
Britain’s Class System Affects Even Actors’ Pay
“New research has claimed there is a ‘class ceiling’ in British performing arts which deters working-class actors and means they are paid less than their middle-class contemporaries.”
The First-Ever Worldwide Dance Critic Started Out As A Eurhythmics Instructor
But by the time she was 30, in 1907, she had launched a career that would take her to Bali and Java, India and Ceylon, and North Africa, writing about the dance she found for London publications from Ballet to The Daily Telegraph.
One Of The Asian-American Kids At The Oscars Tells What It’s Like To Be The Butt Of The Joke
“By the time they made it back to the dressing room, Estie’s older sister had already texted them a screenshot of the flurry of angry Twitter reactions that were starting to pop up. She was so upset on behalf of her little sister that she was shaking.”
Give Me A Break: Anne Midgette On Classical Stars Who Take Sabbaticals
“Pierre-Laurent Aimard did it quietly. Evgeny Kissin did it in a casual remark to a presenter. Piotr Anderszewski, evidently, has done it in an interview with the website Humans of New York … What’s ‘it?’ Time off. Stepping off the treadmill.”
Missing Hong Kong Booksellers Turn Up – On Mainland Chinese TV, Confessing
“Five booksellers who disappeared from Hong Kong last year have re-surfaced in detention in mainland China. They appeared in interviews on TV in which they confessed to crimes and ‘mistakes’.”
There’s A Tradition Of Artists Skewering Politicians. So Where’s The Trump Art?
“Surely liberal and leftwing artists won’t be able to resist pointing out the monsterish qualities of Trump? We have, after all, already had the appearance of HP Lovecraft’s terrifying monster Cthulhu, who is apparently running for office, in a pulp-horror parody of America’s nightmare scenario.”
Report: Netflix Accounted For Half The Drop In TV Viewing Last Year
“The analyst calculated that based on an estimate that Netflix’s domestic subs streamed 29 billion hours of video last year, representing 6% of total American live-plus-7 TV viewing reported by Nielsen (up from 4.4% in 2014).”
Scenes Of Life In Ancient Egypt, Deciphered Via Crowdsourcing
“Tales of tragedy written on papyrus that lay hidden for centuries in an Ancient Egyptian rubbish dump have been revealed after being pieced together with the help of a small army of citizen scientists. The stories range from a doctor’s report on the drowning of a 12-year-old slave girl to a rendition of the Book of Exodus in the style of a Greek tragedy.”
A Very Odd List Of Books That Are Banned In Prisons
“It’s not hard to imagine why prison officials would deny an inmate a copy of How to Beat Up Anybody. Or The Soldier of Fortune Guide to How to Disappear and Never be Found. And surely the inmate who sent away for The CIA Lockpicking Manual knew he was pressing his luck. But it’s less obvious why the authorities would ban The 4-Hour Chef, The Illustrated Bible, and The Big Book of Solitaire.”
Cultural Diplomacy: America’s UN Ambassador Uses Broadway Musical To Make Point About Human Rights
“International diplomacy can take unexpected twists, taking in pandas and ping-pong. Now Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, has added Broadway musicals to the diplomatic toolkit.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.02.16
The Spirit of Alma Thomas
Talk about a life: Alma Thomas was born in Georgia in the 1890s, one of the most vicious decades of the Jim Crow South. She told a reporter in 1972 that when she was young, … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-03-02
Weekend Listening Tip: Terell Stafford & The SRJO
Trumpeter Terell Stafford was the recent guest soloist with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra. Jazz Northwest’s Jim Wilke recorded them and will air one of the concerts on Sunday. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-03-03
The Arts in the Small Community
2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the start of The Arts in the Small Community project led by Robert E. Gard, and we … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-03-01
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Nabil Maleh, ‘Father Of Syrian Cinema’, Dead At 79
“[His] 1972 film, The Leopard, based on a novel by the Syrian author Haydar Haydar, was the first feature film released by the state-run National Film Organization and won first prize at the Locarno Film Festival that year. It tells the story of a lone rebel who defends his village against corrupt local authorities.”
So What Exactly Has The Met Done With The Old Whitney Museum? Here’s A First Look
“On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art formally reintroduced the building as the Met Breuer.” According to one of the architects who restored the building, “most of the decisions involved simple, originalist steps backward, to [original architect Marcel] Breuer’s intentions.”