“You don’t want to have either Fox or MSNBC after you. Those are huge distractions of the time of individual board members and senior management.” – The New York Times
Don’t Call It Contemporary Dance On Ice
The Montreal-based touring company Le Patin Libre is “not interested in putting contemporary dance on ice, but in doing with skating what 20th-century modern art movements have done with other mediums, from dance to painting to sculpture. They are stripping away story and representation to leave the medium itself on full display.” Jenn Edwards, a former competitive figure skater and contemporary dancer who’s been a member of Le Patin Libre since April 2018, offers an inside view of the company’s work. – Dance International
Can Dance Be Meaningful For People Without Sight?
“The intangible exchange of energy between moving and witnessing bodies in real time is what makes the art form so impactful. It’s a beautiful and grandiose idea that I imagine resonates with many dance artists, but, in creating Translations, that belief was truly put to the test. If you take the visual away from dance, what is left? What are we performing when we aren’t being watched? What do we miss and what is revealed?” – Dance International
The Exquisite Challenge Of Merce Cunningham Class
Siobhan Burke: “Those 90-minute lessons — advancing from a warm-up of the back and feet to more complex coordinations of the torso and legs to jumping sequences that flew across the room — were always a struggle. Yet I grew to love, even crave, the difficulty. I looked forward to coming back and trying again.” – The New York Times
Ballet Theatre Of Indiana Is Partner In Real Estate Deal That Will Include New Performance Venue
“The ballet company and a redevelopment company are joining forces to unveil a major arts-driven development for a well-established Carmel intersection. It includes a four-story mixed-use building with apartments and retail on one end and a new arts center on the other.” – The Indianapolis Star
Why Is There So Much Weird Stuff In English Cathedrals These Days?
Rochester Cathedral has mini-golf (okay, an “educational adventure golf course’). Norwich Cathedral has a “helter-skelter” (a tarted-up sliding board), ostensibly so that visitors can get a better look at the exquisite medieval ceiling before sliding down. Derby Cathedral got in hot water last year when its free movie series got a bit too racy. What’s going on? Well, last fall the Archbishop of Canterbury said that people should “have fun in cathedrals,” but, in fact, some serious structural and governance issues are in play. – The Economist
England’s Arts Funding Agency May Have To Cut Commitments Already Made To Largest Institutions
A group of about 800 so-called National Portfolio Organisations — from giants like the Royal Opera House and Southbank Centre and its residents such as the National Theatre (who receive tens of millions of pounds a year) to smaller regional institutions — are guaranteed funding from Arts Council England on a rolling multi-year basis. But ACE is warning that proposed in the Conservative government’s next budget would mean that those funding guarantees couldn’t be met. – Arts Professional
Read The Art Spiegelman Essay On Comics That He Says Marvel Refused To Print
“I turned the essay in at the end of June, substantially the same as what appears here. A regretful Folio Society editor told me that Marvel Comics (evidently the co-publisher of the book) is trying to now stay “apolitical”, and is not allowing its publications to take a political stance. I was asked to alter or remove the sentence that refers to the Red Skull or the intro could not be published.” – The Guardian
France’s War To Keep Other Languages Out Of French
“There’s a tendency among some Anglophones to see the official struggle to resist English as somewhat hysterical. That attitude partly reflects the smugness of a people who increasingly expect to see their language everywhere they go—and who are accustomed to English’s ability to shamelessly gobble up terms from other tongues. If you see France’s efforts as a celebration of linguistic biodiversity, however, then the ingenuity employed in French’s defense make more sense.” – CityLab
How Fandom Endangers Women Musicians
Singer/songwriter Lucy Dacus: “Music is magic, yes, and many people use it as an outlet for their animal emotions, but I just wish people would let loose their feelings while still keeping their behavior under control.” (Examples of said behavior include a man chasing a musician down the street, screaming, “I would never chase you!”) – Nylon
Phone Booths Are Mostly Dead, But Not All Dead, In Spain
Is the phone booth a thing of art? Of commerce? Or is it just a piece of trash from an older age – a piece of trash no one, including the phone companies, wants to deal with? While Spaniards use their mobiles to call someone around 100 million times a day, and use WhatsApp for messages 125 million times a day, the number of phone calls from or between pay phones is a low 6,180. And then there are the reasons to use them: The authorities say it’s “to send a threat, claim a debt in an unorthodox way or for a date between lovers or adulterers who must hide their relationship. The advantage of the phone booth over the mobile is that the calls leave no trace.” – El País
The Weirdly Compelling Time-Lapse Video Of Milwaukee Construction Crews Moving A Symphony Wall
No, really, go watch the crews move the wall – moved so more musicians could eventually fit on the stage-to-be – and enjoy: “It took about six hours for construction crews to move a seven-story 625-ton wall 35 feet that will eventually be part of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra’s new home.” – WTMJ-TV (Milwaukee)
Annabella Sciorra May Yet Testify In Weinstein Trial
Sciorra has said that Weinstein attacked her in 1993, which is outside of the statute of limitations – but the prosecutors want her to be able to tell the jury her story anyway. “Prosecutors hope that Ms. Sciorra’s testimony will strengthen the case, particularly the predatory sexual assault counts, by establishing a pattern of behavior.” – The New York Times
Ruling: Calatrava Must Pay Venice For The Damage Rolling Luggage Has Done To His Bridge
Whoops, forgetting (or neglecting to worry about) maintenance isn’t going to cut it anymore, or at least not in this case. “The five judges on a Roman court overseeing the use of public funds ruled on Aug. 6 that Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish-Swiss architect globally renowned for his sleek and elegantly curved designs, had committed ‘macroscopic negligence’ in constructing the glass-and-steel bridge that opened near Venice’s train station in 2008. They fined him 78,000 euros.” – The New York Times
Paule Marshall, Influential Author Of ‘Brown Girl, Brownstones,’ Has Died At 90
Marshall, the child of immigrants from Barbados, wrote novels and short stories that connected the US African American community and the communities of the Caribbean – and influenced many writers who came after her, including Angela Flouroy, author of The Turner House. – The New York Times
The Friends Who All Dress Up As The Same Movie Character
Yes, that finishes as “stay together,” of course. Though it’s a bit unusual in the cosplay community, these women have a different idea. “It was just so nice to share our resources. It made both of us so much better at what we were doing. … Actually, all three of us took ridiculous pictures of us eating peanut butter sandwiches [like Black Widow does in Endgame]. We weren’t like, ‘Oh, she stole my idea.’ No one stole anyone’s idea. We all watched the same movie.” – The Atlantic
New Cookbooks Show How Publishing Can Change – And Preserve – Regional Community
India is a huge country with many different regional cuisines. But cookbooks haven’t reflected that – until now. “As the publishing industry’s view of Indian cuisine approaches homogenization … recent years have seen a quiet renaissance of cookbooks focused on particular communities and geographies of India. Some are published privately by earnest ladies’ community groups and some are printed by small presses, while a few are helmed by big publishing houses. And it is through these essential books that we consume our country.” – LitHub
At Edinburgh Fringe, There’s A Tremendous Amount Of Raw Talent That Needs Support To Thrive
Lyn Gardner says that “the fringe is like a machine churning out ever more raw talent, which is attractive to venues who buy it up cheaply. But the issue is they then offer very little ongoing support to develop that talent in a way that allows companies to grow and develop.” (Instead, they just get more raw, cheap talent the next year.) – The Stage (UK)
A Ballerina Adventures In Postmodern Worlds
It’s not quite fair to call City Ballet principal Sara Means a force of nature because she’s so hard-working and disciplined, but it’s tempting. – Deborah Jowitt
What Happened To The Last Member Of The Harlem Renaissance?
Dorothy West was called Zora Neale Hurston’s “Kid Sister,” and her books were not immediate successes, partly, some say, because she wrote about the Black middle class. “She wrote ‘posh black’ at a time when ‘broke black’ was in vogue, and this sits at the heart of her flickering obscurity, a myopia in mainstream culture that struggled to perceive blackness as anything more than one-dimensional.” – The Guardian (UK)
Katreese Barnes, Musical Force Behind The Scenes Of Careers And ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Has Died At 56
Barnes served as a studio musician and producer for some of the most popular acts of the 1990s, including Roberta Flack, Sting, and Chaka Khan – and she propelled SNL to early viral fame on YouTube with her music for the song (whose title The New York Times will not print) “Dick in a Box.” – The New York Times
In Germany, A Girl Loses A Gender Bias Lawsuit Against A Boys’ Choir
The 9-year-old girl’s parents sued the State and Cathedral Choir of Berlin after her application was rejected, but the court ruled that “the acoustic pattern of a choir is part of its artistic freedom” and that a boys’ choir had a distinct sound. – Deutsche Welle
The World Is Getting A New John Coltrane Album
The music, to be released in September, was the Coltrane Quartet’s soundtrack to the French Canadian film Le chat dans le sac (The Cat in the Bag), which is available online now. “Coltrane hadn’t seen a cut of the film when he recorded the soundtrack, which — probably due in equal part to Groulx’s taste and the onus of licensing — consists of new versions of prior material.” – NPR
It’s Fine – It’s Great, Actually – To Take Photos In Museums
Don’t get distracted by your feelings about obnoxiousness. Well … a little, maybe. “It’s easy to see why phones can be annoying. They represent a sort of loud carelessness, the idea that someone isn’t really paying attention, isn’t really experiencing the thing that’s in front of them.” But: “The important thing about art is just that you experience it, not how, and for many people, taking photos on your phone is a natural extension of that experience.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Number Of Kids Taking A-Level Drama In The UK Has Dropped Below 10,000 For The First Time Ever
But drama is actually doing well, compared to the other arts. Yikes: “Entries for music fell by 6% to 5,125, and dance dropped 18% to 1,050.” – The Stage (UK)