“The bookstore covers a sprawling 21,000 square feet, draws in more than a million tourists, and sells about 700,000 books every year. And while most of the titles are printed in Spanish, just marveling at the theater-turned-bookshop is worth a trip.”
Dance Writers Need To Rethink How They Write About Tap (Says Tap Artist)
Brenda Bufalino: “When writers cover other forms of dance they speak about the particulars that make up a satisfying performance. They are equipped to reference past works and compare specific dances from a choreographer’s repertory. In contrast, tap dance to date has been written about as if it were a folk dance. Many critics have created a hierarchy of authenticity that keeps tap dancers competing on the street corner. Wouldn’t it be helpful to share with the public the subtleties and techniques of tap dance?”
Ballerinas, Here Are Some Tips About Partnering From The Guys Doing the Lifting
“Communication is key – but there are also some mistakes that your counterpart may not think to mention.” Here are half a dozen of them.
Behold The First-Ever Virtual Reality Ballet
“Night Fall, a dreamy ballet inspired by the white acts of Swan Lake and La Bayadère, was choreographed specifically for virtual reality by Peter Leung” on the Dutch National Ballet. “Viewers are dropped right in the center of the action, with the dancers and a lone musician swirling around them.”
Why Do We Need Disability Arts Festivals? (Hint: There Are A Lot Of Disabled People)
Actor Mat Fraser thinks we’ll need them “until disability is reflected in one seventh of all media” – so until we are adequately represented, since disabled people worldwide make up a seventh of the population. He goes on to express the importance of sharing our stories and perspectives. “Disability art is art that talks about the experience of disability in a disabled context, and until people agree that disability is just a social construct, disability arts events will be needed. In an ideal world, we would not need them, but the world is far from ideal.”
The World’s First Travel Guide
“In ancient times, tourists and travelers in Greece have gotten into some pretty intense situations. An adventure-seeking traveler would bathe in the river Herkyna, then consume sacrificial meat, wander through a dark cave of Livadeia to seek out the oracle, and emerge ‘paralyzed with terror and unconscious both of himself and of his surroundings.’ And that’s just a one-day itinerary.” So wrote [the] Greek geographer Pausanias.
Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists Bring Their Approach To Art Collecting
“Venture capitalists’ characteristic business models suggest approaches to collecting and philanthropy that many gallerists find appealing. Andy Rappaport, a VC who now runs his own family office, described the differences between venture capitalists and other types of investors.”
Movie Written By Algorithm Is Quirky, Interesting
Benjamin’s writing sounds original, even kooky, but it’s still based on what humans actually write. [Director Oscar] Sharp likes to call the results the “average version” of everything the AI looked at. Certain phrases kept coming up again and again.
National Anthem Critics Have It Wrong
“The Star-Spangled Banner” echoes the past and gives voice to our present. It is a living historic performance that resounds with the hopes and devotion of many to the nation, while also serving as witness to the country’s legacy of contradictions and a vehicle for social comment. Kaepernick’s star-spangled protest is part of this tradition, and thus is a productive call for Americans to make this “land of the free” serve all its people. However, related claims about the song and its author as especially racist have been distorted and exaggerated.
Movie Industry Turns To The Patron Martyr Of The Black Lives Matter Movement
Sixty-one years after the night 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched, “the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and the string of controversial killings of black men by the police have given new impetus to efforts to film the story of Till, with at least three screen adaptations in the works.”
Lucas Museum Relaunch In San Francisco Learns From Aborted Chicago Attempt
“Now that billionaire “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and his wife, Ariel Investments President Mellody Hobson, have taken their plans back to San Francisco, their team appears to have learned a lesson from their doomed approach in Chicago.”
Cultural Equity You Say? So What Does That Mean?
“Over the course of the past half-century, conversations about diversity have tended to focus first on audiences, then on programming, and finally on leadership. Diversity’s core concern is about who is ultimately benefiting from the work; if diverse audiences are taking advantage, then that is the surest sign of success.”
Photojournalist Marc Riboud Dead At 93
“The portrait became iconic overnight. Photographed in Washington D.C. in 1967, it showed a Vietnam War protester, Jan Rose Kasmir, holding a flower as she confronted a row of National Guard servicemen outside the Pentagon. The image became a symbol of the flower power movement and helped change public opinion against a war that had already lasted more than a decade.”
Thieves Steal 12 Tons Of Marble And 10-Ton Sculpture From Anselm Kiefer’s Studio
“Early in the morning on Sunday, 28 August, the German artist Anselm Kiefer’s 35,000sq. m studio and warehouse space in Croissy-Beaubourg, about 25km west of Paris, was burgled and robbed … The thieves are suspected of cutting through wire cages and making off with a ten-tonne lead sculpture of stacks of books – valued at €1.3m – and 12 tonnes of raw marble, worth around €1m.”
That Smudge On Munch’s ‘The Scream’ Is Not Bird Poop, Say Scientists
“Munch painted four versions of the artwork during the 1890s, but an 1893 iteration which resides in the Norwegian National Museum has long had a white smudge of unknown origin near the screaming subject’s shoulder. … After years of speculation, scientists from the University of Antwerp in Belgium have finally solved [the] mystery.”
Google Restores Dennis Cooper’s Blog, And Explains Why It Was Deleted Without Warning
“Artist and author Dennis Cooper re-launched his popular blog on Monday after months of legal disputes with Google, whom many accused of censorship. The artist posted a message on the blog’s Facebook account on Friday to explain Google’s reasoning for erasing his 14-year-old blog.” (It was a 10-year-old post.)
New York Times Axes Arts And Culture Coverage In Suburbs: Report
“The New York Times this week quietly ended its coverage of restaurants, art galleries, theaters and other commercial and nonprofit businesses in the tri-state region, laying off dozens of longtime contributors and prompting protests from many of the institutions that will be affected. They foresee an impact not only on patronage but, in the case of the nonprofits, on their ability to raise funds to survive.”
The Dancer Who Came Back From A Shattered Leg To Become A Company Principal
“Dragged under the wheel of a London bus, ballet dancer Joseph Skelton was told he might never walk again without a limp.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.31.16
Guillermo Del Toro at LACMA
I must admit to being the kind of museum-goer instinctively suspicious of exhibits about popular culture. I say this as someone who loves pop culture and spends most of his life there. But these … read more
AJBlog: CultureCrash Published 2016-08-31
From Private Delectation to Public Display: The Prado’s Once Hidden Nudes Flaunted at the Clark
The seemingly robust attendance (figures not yet available) at the Clark Art Institute’s current summer extravaganza — Splendor, Myth and Vision: Nudes from the Prado (to Oct. 10) — runs counter to Robin Pogrebin’s assertion in the NY Times … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-08-31
Explosion of harps
So, yesterday I blogged about how complex Wagner’s orchestration is in Götterdämmerung. Far more complex than it is in earlier Ring operas (apart from the last part of Siegfried). Today, a quirky orchestral detail. So quirky. Weird! … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-08-31
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Proposition: Culture = Power Whereas Art = The Power Of Beauty
“Ultimately, democratic politics are a numbers game. Politics are what concern everyone, which is why “everyone” talks about politics. Art, by contrast, is what concerns one person, intimately. Culture is a matter of power; art is a matter of beauty. It’s also a matter of freedom—of spiritual freedom, of free-spiritedness—and so it’s also political, though not in any immediately recognizable way and, above all, not in any way that lends itself to the think-piece brand of discourse. The power of beauty, the impact of beauty on a single person, eludes discussion and invites silence, even as it incites something radically different from analysis: ecstasy. That’s the force behind the side of criticism that, if it’s any good at all, converges with the work of art by being itself a literary, poetic, philosophical inspiration.”
Bronx Museum Names Replacement Board Members After Board Leaders Quit In Protest
“Following the abrupt resignation last week of its top trustees, the Bronx Museum of the Arts on Wednesday announced two interim appointments — Joseph Mizzi as interim chairman and Joan Krevlin as a vice chairwoman. (Marilyn Greene continues to serve as the other vice chairwoman.)”
Actors In The Doctors Exam Room – A Thriving Market To Play “Standard Patients”
“Word of mouth, and stories in trade papers like Backstage, swell the ranks of actors eager to become Standard Patients. Compensation ranges from $25 an hour in Manhattan to slightly more for assignments involving long commutes to outer boroughs; actors mobilized as “secret shoppers,” who infiltrate clinics to monitor the behavior of entire medical staffs, are paid from the moment they arrive until they leave, including, sometimes, hours of waiting around.”
NEA Study: Number Of Americans Reading Literature Has Declined
“According to the NEA, the share of adults who report reading literature has steadily fallen in recent years, from 47 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2013 and 43.1 percent in 2015.”
Italy Fought Hard To Keep Venice Off UNESCO’s Heritage In Danger List, Despite Actual, Serious Danger To Venice
“UNESCO’s World Heritage Site Committee meeting in Istanbul this July voted not to put Venice on its list of World Heritage in Danger sites, but instead to postpone the decision until the 2017 meeting. This was despite the highly critical conclusions of UNESCO’s own recent State of Conservation report on Venice.”
Why Stephen Sondheim Won’t Be Writing Us Any Sonatas Or Symphonies
“I did that in college,” he tells Anthony Tommasini. “Theater is as big an interest in my life – interest meaning something I love – as movies or as music. They’ve always been equal. And therefore it occurred to me: Why not combine music and theater? That’s called musical theater! … [Besides,] I was brought up by Oscar.”