The Kazakh language has used a modified version of the Cyrillic (Russian) alphabet since the early Soviet days. Now the government of the Central Asian republic has adopted a plan to switch entirely to the Latin alphabet by 2025 – with a budget of more than $660 million.
Call To Boycott Chicago’s Writers Theatre For Protecting A Harasser
“Last fall, … former Writers intern Tom Robson accused longtime Artistic Director Michael Halberstam of sexually harassing him both verbally and physically in 2003. … A few weeks later, [the Writers Theatre board] found that Halberstam had committed ‘inappropriate and insensitive comments in the workplace’ but had exhibited no other ‘inappropriate sexual behavior.'” Clyde Fitch Report managing editor Sean Douglass writes, “I don’t think Halberstam is a bad person, and I believe his apology is honest. I also don’t think he should be exiled from the Chicago theater community … But how does he still have his job there?”
Dancer Who Said Ballets Trockadero Discriminated Against Him For Being Too Feminine Joins English National Ballet
Chase Johnsey, a 14-year-member of the drag ballet troupe (and winner of best male dancer honors at last year’s UK National Dance Awards), quit the company
in January, saying publicly that he had been harassed for looking and acting too feminine. Now Tamara Rojo’s company has hired him at the rank of First Artist.
Opera Houses: Tools Of Cultural Imperialism, Or What?
That’s one theory, anyway, but it’s a bit more complicated in practice. Look at the history of Cairo’s opera house, where Arabic-language works gradually came to coexist with European repertoire. “In the late-19th century, a hybrid Arabic and Turkish (and Greek, Armenian, French and Italian) cultural economy of musical theatre developed. Arabic music made European acting acceptable and contributed to the acceptance of the new performance genre. Arabic operetta developed in ‘low’ and ‘high’ versions that remain alive today.”
Metro LA’s Two Biggest Public TV Stations To Merge
“Independent broadcaster KCETLink Media Group (KCET), based in Burbank, and PBS SoCal (KOCE) in Costa Mesa, unveiled Wednesday a plan for ‘a merger of equals.’ They aim to become a powerful new hub for original public media content and innovation that serves 18-plus million people in Southern California.”
You Can’t Do Philosophy Properly Without Considering Human Nature (This Should Be Obvious, But …)
“A strange thing is happening in modern philosophy: many philosophers don’t seem to believe that there is such a thing as human nature. What makes this strange is that, not only does the new attitude run counter to much of the history of philosophy, but – despite loud claims to the contrary – it also goes against the findings of modern science. This has serious consequences, ranging from the way in which we see ourselves and our place in the cosmos to what sort of philosophy of life we might adopt.”
Art History Gets The TED-Talks Treatment
“The [Heni Talks] website currently has 25 videos and plans to post new films once every two weeks. Many are presented by high-profile artists and art-world figures such as Damien Hirst, Jeremy Deller and The Art Newspaper‘s new editor, Alison Cole. … The video subjects range from important works such as the Mona Lisa, and the oeuvre of masters such as Cézanne, to art movements like Pop art and Modernism.”
Photographer Laura Aguilar, 58
“[Her] powerful, quietly beautiful photographs explored the lived realities of members of various marginalized groups, including women, lesbians, Latinas, the working class, overweight people, and those with learning disabilities.” (She was especially known for her nude self-portraits taken in desert landscapes.) “Long under-recognized by mainstream institutions, her work had a sudden resurgence in popularity last year thanks to her traveling retrospective and the inclusion of her work in several group exhibitions across the Pacific Standard Time program.”
How Pretty Yende Became The Star Coloratura Soprano She Couldn’t Conceive Of Being
The South African soprano was astounded when her coaches in the young artist program at La Scala told her to study the role of Lucia de Lammermoor. “I could barely sing a high C,” she says now – but also, as she asked her teachers, “Who looks like me and sings this repertoire?” (Kathleen Battle was not a star in 1980s and ’90s South Africa.) Here, she tells – and shows – Anthony Tommasini how she came to master the quintessential coloratura star vehicle.
The Foundation Dedicated To Funding ‘Hard-To-Fund Work’
Mike Scutari profiles the Michael Kelley Foundation for the Arts, endowed by the late sculptor, which works to fill in the gaps left by the mega-gifts-to-mega-institutions that has developed in Los Angeles.
George R.R. Martin Has A New ‘Game Of Thrones’ Book Coming (But It’s Not The One Fans Are Panting For)
“[The author] told fans today that the long-awaited sixth volume in his Game of Thrones fantasy series, The Winds of Winter, would not be published this year – but softened the blow by revealing that his ‘imaginary history’ of the Targaryen family in Westeros would be released on 20 November. Fire and Blood is set 300 years before the events of A Song of Ice and Fire and … will chronicle ‘the Targaryen civil war that nearly ended their dynasty forever’.”
San Francisco Conservatory Of Music To Build New 12-Story Facility (And Finally House Its Students)
With a lead gift of $46.4 million from biotech investor William Bowes, the school will construct a building – just across the street from Davies Symphony Hall – with two recital halls, rehearsal and recording studios, a restaurant, and apartments for 420 students.
It’s Impossible To Achieve Gender Equality In Theatre Without Quotas: Study
A report prepared by the women’s rights organization the Fawcett Society states that “the discrimination, harassment and structural barriers that women face are too prevalent to be overcome without a direct intervention of this kind.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 04.25.18
ICYMI: Art Is Better Than …
Sex, food, drugs, art – are they all the same? Do they provide the same kind of pleasure and engagement? No, says Julia F. Christensen, a neuroscientist at the Warburg Institute, University of London. She says – and I seriously hope she is correct … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-04-25
An Educated Guess: What Did the Lucas Museum Pay for Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop?
In the two weeks since the announcement of the Berkshire Museum’s widely deplored sale of Norman Rockwell’s Shuffleton’s Barbershop to the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Los Angeles, none of the parties to the transaction … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2018-04-25
Does Ethical Arts Funding Make The Arts Unfundable?
The Arts Professional Ethics survey tells us that 73% of arts organisation employees consider their employer to be at reputational risk through association with a sponsor or major donor whose own reputation is subject to criticism. That’s a staggering indicator of how uncomfortable we are feeling about particular funding associations right now.
Ethical Arts Funding? Fine. But Whose Ethics?
The survey findings raise the question of ‘whose ethics’ arts organisations should adopt. “It is important to look across the whole of society and not the organisation’s own immediate echo chamber to make this judgement,” writes one. Another points out that while public consensus agrees cigarettes shouldn’t be advertised, “it is not yet the case that the general public think that mining and selling fossil fuels is unethical”.
Global Wine Production Down To Lowest Level Since 1957
The fall is mainly due to weather problems in Europe, which caused hardships for wine producers in the region. Poor weather conditions including droughts and storms hindered production in the main growing regions of France including Bordeaux and Champagne.
Are The Middle East’s Grand New Cultural Buildings European Imperialism?
Can the arrival of Western culture in the Middle East be equated simply with European imperialism? Is this how the European bourgeoisie, as Marx would say, ‘creates the world after its own image’? First, let us consider the question of power. The Khedivial Opera House and other new Western-style cultural spaces represented authority to ordinary people in the streets of Cairo. The intention of European states to enforce their economic interests on the Ottoman Empire, Egypt included, is also crystal clear throughout modern history: just look at the Suez Canal.
Report: No Systemic Harassment At WNYC
The investigation did not find “systemic discrimination” that was known to, and tolerated by, senior management. The investigation also largely absolved Laura R. Walker, the president and chief executive of New York Public Radio, who acknowledged last year that she had “prioritized growth, and content and programming, over investment in some of the processes and people.”
A Museum Of White Supremacy… In Alabama
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opens Thursday on a six-acre site overlooking the Alabama state capital, is dedicated to the victims of American white supremacy. And it demands a reckoning with one of the nation’s least recognized atrocities: the lynching of thousands of black people in a decades-long campaign of racist terror.
Actor Who Voices Apu On ‘The Simpsons’ Offers To Step Aside
Appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Hank Azaria said, “I think the most important thing is to listen to Indian people and their experience with it. Listening to voices means inclusion in the writers room. I really want to see Indian, south Asian writers in the writers room, genuinely informing whichever direction this character takes. … I’m perfectly willing to step aside. It just feels like the right thing to do to me.”