India has had languages of the elite in the past — Sanskrit was one, Persian another. They were needed to unite an entity more linguistically diverse than Europe. But there was perhaps never one that bore such an uneasy relationship to the languages operating beneath it, a relationship the Sanskrit scholar Sheldon Pollock has described as “a scorched-earth policy,” as English.
Why Do Little Girls Think There’s Only One Plot?
“The girls were terrific. Silly and shy, coy and rambunctious, attention-seeking, wise beyond their years, strikingly immature, they strutted about the room like little heroines in a post-modern novella. … Their monologues, however, were a disappointment. Not because they were poorly written or lacking in style or stingy with words, but because only one girl wrote a monologue that wasn’t about getting a boyfriend, keeping a boyfriend, or losing a boyfriend.”
How Did A (Possibly) Hunchbacked King Become The Epitome Of Villainy?
“Dr Fayard gave examples of performances of Richard III in Italy being inspired by Benito Mussolini’s fascist party, in Kuwait by Saddam Hussein and in the Eastern Bloc by the communist era. … She said that it was ‘safer’ to guise foreign villains under a distant English play.”
New Database Seeks To Record Street Art Worldwide
“A new worldwide database of public art aims to preserve — if only in digital form — street art, a medium that is often political, sometimes renegade and, perhaps most important, frequently fleeting. These are artworks that may get tagged by graffiti or fall into decay because of weather exposure.”
Why Are European Theatres Broadcasting But American Theatres Aren’t?
“Yeah, this is embarrassing. And the Broadway ego takes a shellacking every time a list like this gets published. How are we supposed to uphold our reputation as being the biggest and best producer of live theater if other countries are beating us to the market? The UK and Canada are exporting and distributing better than we are!”
New York Police Surround NY Museums After Attack On Tunis Museum
“They have to think now, ‘Is ISIS going after cultural heritage? Are they going after museums? And could our museum be next?'” said Peter Herdrich of the Antiquities Coalition in ABC News’ report.
The Oldest Ballerina Dies At 101
“Galina Petrova was born in the city of Kerch in Crimea in 1913. She was educated as a ballet dancer at the Moscow Choreography School. During her student years the young, promising ballet dancer already danced ballet parts at Bolshoi. Upon graduation from the ballet school Petrova joined the Bolshoi ballet.”
Here Is The Movie Trailer That Got A Record 34 Million Views In Its First 24 Hours
It’s a record for a Sony movie, 50% above the previous mark of 22 million streams for “The Amazing Spider-Man 2.”
Yemenis Take Refuge In Country’s Emptied Museums
“Among the cultural institutions being used as a shelter is Zinjibar Museum, the province’s main museum. Looted twice in 2012, and virtually empty of artefacts since then, today it houses around 60 people, who share the museum’s 15 rooms and its second-floor toilet.”
What Does Art Smell Like?
“Imagine you’re in an art gallery, studying a portrait with a red background. Does your interpretation of it change if you taste ketchup while you look? Or smell blood? Or both? Tate Sensorium, an upcoming exhibition at the London museum Tate Britain, is attempting to answer these questions by using interactive technology to experiment with how senses change the way people interpret visual art.”
‘The Human Earthquake Of Modern Theatre’ – Peter Brook At 90
Michael Billington: “Brook himself hates looking back over his career … [but] the rest of us are entitled to put his 70-year-long career in perspective and the stock idea is that it falls into two distinct parts” – the British period and the internationalist period. “It’s a neat division but, to me, Brook’s career is far more unified than it seems.”
French Comedian Convicted Twice In Two Days, For Condoning Terrorism And Inciting Racial Hatred
“A French court on Thursday fined Dieudonné 22,500 euros ($24,000) for anti-Semitic comments … It caps a bad week for the comic, who was on Wednesday handed a two-month suspended sentence for condoning terrorism after a comment suggesting he sympathised with one of the jihadists who attacked Paris.”
When ‘The Glass Menagerie’ Conquered Broadway
In an excerpt from his prize-winning biography, Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the Flesh, John Lahr recalls the atmosphere in New York and the rest of America at the time of the play’s Broadway success – the close of World Wat II.
What’s The Deal With Mardi Gras Indians?
“The inevitable first question, though, can always be answered with: ‘No, they’re not Native American.’ This is a purely African-American tradition. … Some suggest it was a way of honoring Native Americans who sheltered runaway slaves, and also a means of paying respect to a culture that fiercely resisted European domination. Others say it arose after Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show passed through New Orleans in 1884.”
Japan’s Ministry Of Cool
“For over a decade, the country has embraced ‘Cool Japan,’ a government-supported movement focused on selling what many have described as its ‘gross national cool.’ … There is some irony at work here – an eagerness to promote something as trendy usually signals the opposite – but for years the country’s efforts have paid off. “
How The Solar Eclipse And Vernal Equinox Have Cast Shadows Across Literature
“A solar eclipse will be visible across the UK on Friday, coinciding with the vernal equinox. To celebrate, we look back at how authors have been inspired by this ‘obliteration’ of the sun as well as the onset of spring.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 03.19.15
If Our Value Were Self-Evident, Would We Need Advocates?
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-03-19
Extreme Users: Look Outside the Everyday Audience Member
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-03-19
Research, Reports & Real People Talking About the Arts (Oh My!)
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-03-19
Everyone’s a Potential Partner: Building Value Together
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-03-19
What’s Up With The Met’s Lauder Center?
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2015-03-19
Mysterious Disappearance: Michael Taylor’s Unceremonious Departure from Dartmouth’s Hood Museum
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-03-19
Other Matters: Duke’s Bread … Homemade
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-03-19
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“Empire” TV Show Album Tops The Billboard Music Charts
“The compilation marks the first time a TV soundtrack debuted on top of the charts since 2010, when Fox’s high school musical “Glee” had three of its compilations hit No. 1. It’s also the first time a network show saw an album featuring original music land at the top since since “Miami Vice” — and that was 30 years ago.”
Geena Davis: Our Kids’ Movies Are Sexist! Why?
“What are we saying to kids when the female characters are hyper-sexualised, narrowly stereotyped or not even there? The message clearly is girls are not as important as boys, women are not as important as men and they take this all in completely unconsciously.”
Samuel Charters, 85, The First Blues Musicologist
“When [his] first book, The Country Blues, was published at the tail end of the 1950s, the rural Southern blues of the pre-World War II period was a largely ignored genre. His book immediately caused a sensation among college students and aspiring folk performers … [and] created a tradition of blues scholarship.”
Plays That Should Be Seen And Not Read
“The bare dialogue and stage directions give no sense of the unsettling and innovative spectacle that the work becomes in the theatre. Someone … who read the text without seeing it would be in the position of an archaeologist asked to guess the personality of a skeleton.”