“In Heliópolis, one of São Paulo’s largest favelas, the trial of a black youth agitates the community, which argues for his innocence. In a train heading to Jardim Romano, an audio brings the history of the region to the passengers’ ears, and culminates with a final point: the rains and flooding. In the very south of the city, the body of a dead person is reanimated with Brazilian funk music. These three stories, told in three stage plays, are representative of the theatre scene that has exploded in São Paulo in recent years.” – Global Voices
Change Agents: Kaywin Feldman and Bryan Stevenson on Embracing Empathy and Confronting American Racism in Museums
Kaywin Feldman is the first woman to serve as director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson and his Equal Justice Initiative founded the the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery with a shared purpose to tell stories of slavery and racism in America. Feldman and Stevenson convened for a conversation at the ARTnews office in New York. – ARTnews
Star Immersive Art Collective Meow Wolf Sued For Gender Discrimination And Unfair Labor Practices
“Two former employees of Santa Fe-based immersive arts and entertainment company Meow Wolf allege in a new lawsuit they were subjected to discrimination and unfair pay practices, and then wrongfully fired after bringing complaints to senior staff. … [They] also are seeking to have their case recognized as a class action, representing more than 50 female workers of Meow Wolf the women say have been affected by unfair labor practices since 2017.” – Santa Fe New Mexican
Listening To The World: How Our Taste Is Being Reprogrammed
Beyond obscuring labor, the switch to digital has reprogrammed our discovery and consumption of music. Despite the seemingly unprecedented supply of music, Damon Krukowski suggests that internet companies, like Spotify and Amazon, “are replacing the freedom and chaos of the internet at large, with the control and predictability of their programs.” In other words, they generally provide access to art that we are or would be comfortable with, and they otherwise restrict or obscure alternatives. “When you go into a bookstore, or record store, or library—any physical space devoted to information,” Krukowski writes, “you enter another world . . . But when you open a browser—it’s an irony that’s the word, isn’t it?—that relationship to information is reversed. It conforms to you.” – The Baffler
This Summer’s Surprise Theatre Hit: The Mueller Report
This month alone, there will be live readings of the report from theatre companies in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., starring actors like Alfred Molina and Harry Groener. – American Theatre
Woody Allen Directs Opera At La Scala
He’s directing “Gianni Schicchi.” Along with the La Scala opera, a Milan museum is launching an Allen retrospective of his films. Placido Domingo encouraged him to direct the opera, he said. – New York Post
Life As A Dancer In Khamenei’s Iran
Writing under a pseudonym, an Iranian woman who studies and practices traditional Persian dance describes both the art form and attempts to preserve and perform in in today’s Islamic Republic. – Dance Magazine
What Theatre Critics Deal With, In The U.S. And Elsewhere
Wendy Rosenfield travels to the International Association of Theatre Critics gathering in Montpellier, shares stories with colleagues, and realizes how much she didn’t know. – Broad Street Review (Philadelphia)
How ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (And A Scheming New York Phil Board Member) Got The Boston Symphony’s Conductor Sent To An Internment Camp
Alex Ross recounts the story of Karl Muck, the elegant former director of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Berlin Court Opera, who came to the BSO in 1906 and was there for an unfortunate decision, shortly after the U.S. entered World War I, not to play the American national anthem before a concert. – The New Yorker
Hong Kong’s Artists And The Protests Against The Extradition Law
As one gallerist put it, “With this extradition law, however, the firewall protecting our freedom of expression is effectively removed and everybody falls into self-censorship. One would worry if their art will be deemed politically charged or in violation of mainland laws.” And an artist marching in the protests said simply, “If this law is approved, then Hong Kong and China will be just the same.” – Artsy
Houston Post Office To Be Converted To Sprawling Arts Complex (With A Rooftop Farm/Garden)
Called POST, the new complex will feature arts and music venues, entertainment spaces, creative workspaces, dining and shops. – dezeen
The Challenge of Doing Theatre In Mexico
“Currently, Mexico is going through a change of government, which has reduced the national budget for culture and has been removed a lot of art scholarships. On top of this, more and more states are moving away from the idea that arts hubs need to be in the capital cities, which is encouraging smaller communities across the country to create their own theatrical markets.” – Howlround
The “Pursuit Of Happiness” In The Collective Sense (Rather Than Personal)
The topic of what Hannah Arendt called “public happiness” is largely ignored by those who think and write about contemporary culture. Apparently, politics and happiness don’t go together any more. Collective happiness — as Socrates intended it, as a shared political experience — is largely out of the picture. – The New York Times
Max Wright, Stage Actor Who Became Known For TV’s ‘ALF’, Dead At 75
He never much enjoyed working on the popular series, though he acknowledged that that “doesn’t matter … ALF brought people a lot of joy. They adored it.” While he did quite a bit of other film and television work, his true love was the stage, with notable roles in The Great White Hope (opposite James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander), Andrei Serban’s staging of The Cherry Orchard, the Al Pacino Richard III, the Broadway revival of Chekhov’s Ivanov (for which he garnered Tony and Drama Desk nominations), and a famous 1998 Lincoln Center production of Twelfth Night. – The New York Times
With ‘AMC Artisan Films’, Big Theater Chain Tries To Give Smaller Movies A Boost
“According to a press release, the initiative will spotlight ‘character and narrative driven movies’ that big-budget box-office behemoths tend to overshadow. … If any of this sounds familiar to you, it’s because … the promise to recognize ‘artist-driven, thought-provoking’ movies that show ‘expertise in writing, directing, acting and/or one of the many component parts that make up a movie,’ echoes one of the company’s previous initiatives” — AMC Independent from 2010. – Slate
In Barbershops And Laundromats, Bringing Books To Kids Who Can’t Get To Libraries
“This developing movement, supported by nonprofit groups, entrepreneurs, libraries and community fund-raising, is redefining the borders of traditional neighborhood public libraries by creating literary spaces in places where children find themselves with time on their hands. It is bringing the book to the child, instead of the child to the book.” – The New York Times
Philanthropy Seems Good. But Is It Also Part Of The Problem?
“Philanthropy is an exercise in power, by definition by the wealthy. It’s an attempt to have some public influence. And in that respect, it’s a plutocratic element in the democratic setting.” – The Atlantic
A Fringe Festival Of A Fringe Festival Is Popping Up In Philly
“At the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the vast majority of shows require paid admission … with tickets for the curated shows (those are the shows that the festival invites to participate) regularly closing in on the $50 mark. But at Free Fringe Philly, all shows will be free.” Says Sarah Knittel, one of the Free Fringe Philly’s creators, “We’ve been getting really bummed out over how ‘fringe’ in this town has started to feel really exclusive and unaffordable. So we’re going to take fringe back to the people and Robin Hood it a bit.” – Philadelphia Magazine
After 35 Years Of Performing, Tap Master Savion Glover Is Still Searching
“His post-rehearsal explanations kept coming out like Zen meditations: ‘Do you hear what you see? Or do you see what you hear? … What does the sound look like that you see when you are listening?'” – The New York Times
Controversial Purchase Of Westminster Choir College By Chinese Company Canceled
“Rider University has dropped a controversial plan to sell Westminster Choir College to a for-profit company based in China and instead is resuscitating efforts to relocate the choir college. The decisions, announced Monday, put Rider back where it was at the end of 2016, when students and alumni fought against the idea of relocating Westminster from its own campus in Princeton, N.J., to Rider’s main campus seven miles away in Lawrenceville, N.J.” – Inside Higher Ed
Two Women Writers Claim They Were ‘Pushed Off’ Idris Elba/Kwame Kwei-Armah Play
Tree, inspired by Elba’s 2014 “character album” Mi Mandela, is debuting this week at the Manchester International Festival before a run at London’s Young Vic, where Kwei-Armah is artistic director. The current script is by Kwei-Armah, but Tori Allen-Martin and Sarah Henley argue that they worked on a script for four years before being “pushed off” and “bullied and silenced.” Kwei-Armah claims — backed up by Elba, MIF and the Young Vic — that, following workshops, the Allen/Martin-Henley script was not “artistically viable” and that they were unwilling to meet with Kwei-Armah to “discuss the future of the show.” – The Guardian
Andy Warhol’s Portraits Of Prince Don’t Violate Copyright, Rules Federal Court
“A 2017 lawsuit by photographer Lynn Goldsmith against the Andy Warhol Foundation has come to a close, as a federal judge in New York ruled yesterday that Warhol’s 1984 Prince Series works, which are based on a portrait of Prince shot by Goldsmith, do not infringe the copyright of the original portrait she shot for Newsweek in 1981.” – ARTnews
Opera Australia Director: It Would Be “Irresponsible” To Ban Classics Of The Repertoire
Lyndon Terracini was responding to a call from Australian composers, directors, musicians, and vocalists, who have called for a ”revolution” to remove what they describe as gender bias, sexism, and dramatised acts of violence against women in opera. – Sydney Morning Herald
‘Nixon in China’ comes to Princeton – literally smarter than ever
Everybody from singers to directors to conductors to critics has needed a few decades to determine what exactly is in John Adams’s first opera and how to draw the most out of it. Steven LaCosse’s staging at this year’s Princeton Festival did just that. – David Patrick Stearns
The Rise Of Conspiracy Theory Culture
Shane Dawson is a capricious conspiracist. In the middle of his paranoid rant about the moon, he places his hands sincerely over his chest and says: “Once again, it’s a theory. I don’t want to get sued, or put in jail.” Then he narrows his eyes, as if to size up the whole field of space science, and scoffs, “But I mean, the evidence is not looking good.” – The New York Times