“Baldwin has captured his own early lifetime of shame and filtered it through the alembic of [narrator] David’s own cave-journey. It is a solid shame, thick, heavy, cold, enveloping like a darkening star.” – Literary Hub
From Noh To Manga Musicals, A Survey Of Theatre In Japan
“This special issue … looks at theatre and performance in the Land of the Rising Sun, from its foundational traditions to its most up-to-date innovations, and considers its place within contemporary Japanese culture, among East Asian cultures broadly, and in the global context.” – American Theatre
Redefining “Common” Language Is A Fraught Exercise
Looking at Amherst College’s new Common Language Guide: What the glossary contains is not “common” language by any normal reckoning. Its very first entry defines “accomplice” as “a term coined by Indigenous Action Network to critique the ways in which ‘ally’ as an identity term has been deployed absent of action, accountability or risk-taking.” Such definitions signal that we have departed the real world for an alternative progressive universe filled with specialized terminology and in-house references. – Commonweal
Surviving Auschwitz By Playing Jazz
Writer Amanda Petrusich recounts the story of trumpeter Eric Vogel and the Ghetto Swingers, a band that played for officers and the Red Cross at Theresienstadt and, for a time, Auschwitz. Vogel later came to New York and became a design engineer and a jazz critic for Down Beat magazine. – The New Yorker
World Music Is Changing (As A Genre) And So Is Who’s Supporting It
Recently Red Bull announced it would stop funding its music academy that promoted World Music. “These days, experimental art often views corporate largesse as necessary. The closing was a reminder that much of contemporary culture is produced by companies that don’t see themselves as archivists, or as custodians for the future. Art is just content, and it vanishes, too.” – The New Yorker
Study: The Twitter Universe Is Nothing Like Here In Real Life
Pew Research Center recently conducted a survey of 2,791 adult American Twitter users, and the team’s findings paint a stark contrast between those who are extremely online and those who are not. While the gender and ethnic makeup of Twitter users seems to be mostly similar to the greater U.S. population, there are significant differences in terms of political views, income-generation, and more. – Fast Company
Playwright Lucas Hnath — A 21st Century George Bernard Shaw (Via Wallace Shawn)
“Hnath is a master of Socratic dialogue … In a Hnath play, you repeatedly find yourself agreeing with a pointed speech, then agreeing with its rebuttal. … Many playwrights promote the beleaguered liberal values of tolerance and skepticism, but Hnath enacts them onstage. This, you feel, is what it means to think something through.” – The New Yorker
Here’s The Problem With The Backlash Against The Millions Pledged For Notre-Dame
Kathy LeMay: “The problem with [the complaints] is this: they do not help fundraisers unlock donor giving. … Imagine if after giving to help a family in need, articles were written about you asking why you aren’t helping families around the world?” – Inside Philanthropy
Report: By Next Year More Canadians Will Be Streaming Than Paying For Cable TV
It’s an amazingly fast shift in how people are watching. The amount they watch hasn’t gone done, just how they access it. And, perhaps a shift in what they watch too. – CBC
Everybody’s Talking About Influencers. They’ve Been Around A Long Time
Influence was worrisome long before it was digital. The word “influence” appears in a quarter of William Shakespeare’s plays, in which the condition of being influenced is rarely happy or dignified. Almost without exception, Shakespeare gives influence a darkly astrological cast. – The New Yorker
Why Even Great Social-Media Marketing By Dance Companies Doesn’t Lead Straight To Ticket Sales
“There is no clear correlation between a company’s social media campaigns and how many seats they fill in the theater. That doesn’t mean social media isn’t, of course, vital. … ‘Campaigns without social media are far worse off.'” Here’s why. – Dance Magazine
Can We Just Lose The Whole Non-Profits-Should-Run-Like-Businesses Nonsense For Good?
The donors, usually businesspeople, who keep saying that are “thinking of giving as analogous to investing when it isn’t, which leads to related mistakes like utilizing the wrong metrics [to grade success].” And (mis-)using those metrics has created a big slice of the public that dimply doesn’t trust nonprofits to spend their money properly. – Fast Company
Soprano Heather Harper, 88
“She graced the concert and opera stages of the world in roles that ranged from Ellen Orford in Britten’s Peter Grimes – where her sympathy for the character drew a near-definitive portrayal – to the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.” – The Guardian
Raggin’ the Classics
Electronica artist Max Cooper and I launch a new project this spring, a collaboration called Glassforms. We overlay electronic sounds — onto piano music by Glass. There have been Glass remixes before; Glassforms is something else. – Bruce Brubaker
The Flea That Kickstarted British Art
Without Robert Hooke’s keen drawing eye, and the microscope, who knows what might have happened? You can read “the story of British art through a scientific looking glass. The Royal Society plays a bigger role than the Royal Academy.” – The Guardian (UK)
Akram Khan Completely Overhauls ‘Giselle’
No more sweet village maiden, caddish duke, or white-clad dancing spirits. “Khan’s Giselle has a new score, new décor and costumes, a contemporary setting — migrant laborers in ghostly abandoned factories — and above all a new kind of dancing, which draws on kathak and ballet, on contemporary dance and everyday gesture, on animals and machines.” – The New Yorker