In her new role at PBS, Chu will help identify opportunities for public media to broaden access and representation in its presentation of the arts to audiences nationwide. Chu announced in May that she was resigning from her role as Arts Chair of the NEA after a four-year term.
Survey Suggests Pro-Brexit Voters Do Not Engage With Arts
“It’s not just that there’s a relationship between engagement in the arts and voting Remain at the area level: it looks like it’s particularly about attending cultural institutions, which must come as a challenge to the institutions themselves.”
History’s Most Dangerous Dances
The notion that dancing is dangerous and subversive is actually deep-rooted and wide-ranging. Throughout history, international dances have inflamed passions and come under Puritanical fire.
How A Vancouver Family Turned Out A Generation Of Star Pianists
Jon Kimura Parker, Jamie Parker, Ian Parker, and Liz Parker are siblings and cousins. All three Parker pianists have garnered praise for their recordings as well as their performances across North America and beyond. How did the Parkers of Vancouver manage to produce a generation of musicians that has left such a discernible mark on the world of classical piano? On a practical level, it boiled down to a family discipline.
Legendary Editor Robert Gottlieb At 87
As industrious a writer as he was an editor (John McPhee marveled that Gottlieb once read an 80,000-word article of his overnight, with cogent suggestions for improvements), Gottlieb has published biographical treatments of Sarah Bernhardt, Charles Dickens’s children and the choreographer George Balanchine. Given that he turned 87 in April, the title of his new book, “Near-Death Experiences … and Others,” might suggest a meditation on impending mortality, a midnight reflection on the exit sign hanging at the end of the hall. Nothing of the sort.
How Ventriloquists And Their Dummies Trick Our Brains
“The common misconception is that this trick involves the performer somehow ‘throwing’ their voice through a clever trick of the voice box.” But that’s not it at all. “‘Imagine you hear a loud sound, and at exactly the same time, there is an abrupt appearance of something. Then, automatically — because of the coincidence in time — you would tend to associate these two events as originating from the same cause,’ says [researcher] Salvador Soto-Faraco … ‘That is the inference that happens in ventriloquist illusions.'”
Could This Be How To Organize A Museum For The 21st-Century Age Of Migration?
A new exhibition in Hamburg by curator Roger M. Buergel (still known for his provocative Documenta 12 in 2007) “delivers on its contention that European museums need to do much more than just restitute plundered objects in their collections, important as that is. A 21st-century universal museum has to unsettle the very labels that the age of imperialism bequeathed to us: nations and races, East and West, art and craft.”
Woman Brings ‘Enigma Variations’ Manuscript To ‘Antiques Roadshow’ – And Elgar Foundation Suggests That It’s Stolen
On last weekend’s UK broadcast of the popular TV series, one Jude Hooke showed the resident specialist a printed score of the “Enigma Variations” with annotations and pasted-in corrected passages of music in Elgar’s own hand. Imagine the surprise of the Elgar Foundation: that very score had gone missing in 1994 – at which time, it turns out, Ms. Hooke’s late husband was an attorney at the same firm as the Foundation’s former vice-chairman.
Are We On The Cusp Of A New Age Of African Literature?
“If so, the key to new novels from African writers seems to be the fresh use of historical fiction to articulate a new future.”
Why Big-Venue Concerts Are A Pain In The Ass
If you write about music, your job takes you to these places on a regular basis. In the past few weeks I have been to Wembley Stadium, Twickenham and the London Stadium; I’ve been to the O2 Arena and almost ended up at Wembley Arena too. I feel as if I’ve spent most of the early summer negotiating poor transport, incomprehensible entry arrangements and interminable queues. And, in between times, seeing some musicians.
How Puerto Rican Musicians Became A Global Force
Puerto Ricans such as the Despacito duo were responsible for 27 of the top 100 most-viewed music videos on YouTube in 2017. Over on Spotify, four of the six most popular Latin artists are also Puerto Rican: Fonsi and Yankee again, plus Bad Bunny and Ozuna. All this from an island of just three and a half million souls, plus the other five million Puerto Ricans who live in the US.
Running A Theatre Is About So Much More Than The Plays, As These First-Time Artistic Directors Found Out
“Most UK theatres are run by people with the title of ‘artistic director’. But many taking over a building for the first time, even if they are not doing the job of chief executive as well, very quickly understand that being artistic is only one part of the job. … Lyn Gardner talks to those in the know and finds they all agree the overall experience of an audience is as important as the plays they stage.”
Now In Middle Age, How Hip Hop Is Moving On
Over the past three months, four superstars have released albums that assess, from different angles, what a genre-dominating rapper does when the genre is beginning to move on: Kanye West’s “Ye” (as well as his collaborations with others); Drake’s “Scorpion”; J. Cole’s “KOD”; and Jay-Z’s “Everything Is Love,” which he and his wife, Beyoncé, put out as the Carters.
Oops! New Broadway Musical Sells $169.50 Tickets For $16.95
“This was quite the Broadway bargain. Last night, producers of the upcoming Broadway musical Gettin’ the Band Back Together, which begins previews July 19 at the Belasco Theatre, scrambled to correct a massive error they posted on Telecharge.”
New Paid Internship Program Aims To Increase Diversity Of Art Museum Staff
“In response to the demographic disparity of staff in museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) has launched a paid internship programme aimed at giving undergraduate students from under-represented backgrounds an opportunity to work in the arts.”
Five Choreographers Talk About How They Handle Reviews
Dance Magazine talks to Sergio Trujillo, Gabrielle Lamb, Joe Goode, Rosie Herrera, and Claudia Schreier, who says, “Often I am already thinking about the things they mentioned. Translating dance into words is the gift of the critic, so to hold that reflection back at you can be incredibly helpful.”
It’s Been Two Days Since The Thai Boys Were Rescued From The Cave, And Already Two Movie Versions Have Been Announced
Within a day of the emergence of the last of the boys and their adult coach from the flooded cave near Chiang Rai, faith-based studio Pure Flix Entertainment (the God’s Not Dead franchise) announced plans for a film adaptation of the story under its mainstream imprint Pinnacle Peaks (Little Women). The next day, beginning with a furious tweet saying “I refuse to let Hollywood #whitewashout the Thai Cave rescue story!,” director John Chu (Now You See Me 2, Crazy Rich Asians) and Ivanhoe Pictures revealed they had secured rights to the story from the Thai navy and government.
Michael Kaiser Named San Antonio Symphony’s Interim Executive Director
“Kaiser advised the city/county task force formed earlier this year as it worked to come up with solutions to the symphony’s recurring financial issues. … Kaiser is a well-regarded consultant whose career includes stints leading the Kennedy Center and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Foundation. He founded the Kennedy Center Arts Management Institute, now known as the DeVos Institute of Arts Management, in 2001 to serve as a training ground for arts administrators.”
Deneuve, Muti, Portzamparc Win Japan’s Praemium Imperiale
The 2018 laureates of the Japan Art Assoication’s 15 million yen ($133,000) prize, created as a sort of Nobel for the arts, are actress Catherine Deneuve, conductor Riccardo Muti, architect Christian de Portzamparc, painter Pierre Alechinsky, and sculptor Fujiko Nakaya, known for using fog as a medium.
Taking Art Out Of The Studios And Into The Streets And Communities Of Ghana
In an Accra neighborhood, a monthly parade of men in drag carrying big yellow plastic jugs, which the organizer uses to make public art in a style he calls “Afrogallonism.” An artist covering himself in blue or gold paint and slow-walking through the streets of Jamestown. Immersive installations in an old train shed and car showroom in Kumasi. Covering Accra billboards in secondhand clothing and the National Theatre in jute sacks. Billie A. McTernan writes about these and other projects to bring the arts directly to regular people in the West African country.
Today’s AJBlog Highlights 07.11.18
- Intersections of Communities Sheila Novak is a member of many communities and shares the myriad ways they overlap in a colorful drawing…. read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2018-07-11 - Communities Are Fluid Gowri Savoor, “Time Missing” (2016) Gowri Savoor reflects on the warm and evolving community of her childhood in Britain and shares original art that commemorates her cherished memories. I had a fortunate childhood; living in … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes - Want a Spanish Art Surprise? There’s One In San Antonio So you think you know Spanish art? You’ve been to the Prado and the Hispanic Society, etc., etc. and you’re pretty familiar with it. Unless, of course, you are a real expert in the Spanish … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2018-07-11 - Two Ways of Looking at a Poem No shore receives them. / All the portents dog their ride. / Their bodies sink in rough seas. Sketch for the oil painting by Théodore Géricault [1818-1819]Cold Turkey Press [2018]We surf on a gentle … read more
This Year’s NEA Jazz Masters Awards Recipients
This morning the NEA announced four new recipients of the prize: pianist and composer Abdullah Ibrahim, composer-arranger-bandleader Maria Schneider, critic and novelist Stanley Crouch, and singer-songwriter and pianist Bob Dorough.
Why Are Documentaries Doing So Well At The Box Office This Summer?
Is this just a flash-in-the-pan fad during a stressful summer, or the sign of a real shift in audience taste? The first studio that dares take a documentary wide will find out, but I’d wager it’s the latter.
Bankruptcy Judge Approves $21 Million Reduction On Sale Of Weinstein Company
The company was originally supposed to sell for $310 million under a pact the court approved in May. But in another twist in the long saga, the companies sparred over payment of the studio’s outstanding contracts, threatening to capsize the deal.
The Digital Age Will Inevitably End. So What’s Next?
Today digital technology is all the rage because after decades of development it has become incredibly useful. Still, if you look closely, you can already see the contours of its inevitable descent into the mundane. We need to start preparing for a new era of innovation in which different technologies, such as genomics, materials science, and robotics, rise to the fore.