“Stepping into a taishū engeki show is like being welcomed into a wild and flamboyant secret society. As performers in outlandish costumes dance on stage, delighted fans dance along in unison from their seats. Somehow, everyone knows the moves. Periodically, an excited fan will scurry up to the stage with an envelope or wrapped gift, or will jump into the aisles looking for more room to wave a glow-stick. This might sound like a crowd of teenagers at a pop concert, but many women in attendance are old enough to have teenage children of their own.” – Atlas Obscura
Even Before Buñuel, Way Back In 1908, There Was Surrealist Spanish Film
“Segundo de Chomón, a pioneering Spanish director often compared to Georges Méliès, … made bizarre trick films that experimented with color and temporality, and would eventually influence the surrealist work of filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, making him, in many ways, the father of Spanish cinema.” – JSTOR Daily
Jazz And The Pondering Of Modernism
Jazz has always been a kind of extroverted modernism, and always allowed the atonality and experimentation of introverted modernism (see Coltrane’s later works). However, it has always rejected perverse modernism. That has much to do with religion and the Christianity of the black churches. – First Things
Humanities Education Is Struggling. But Out In The Real World…
The “crisis” cannot be adequately described either by the number of openings on the academic job market, or the number of Great Books on university syllabuses. The health of the humanities should be measured instead by whether our society provides ample opportunities for its citizens to ask the fundamental questions about the good life and the just society. By that yardstick, it seems, the humanities are healthier than the doomsayers might lead us to believe. – The New York Times
Life Is Getting Better (At Least Until Recently) So Why Are We Less Happy?
“Amid these advances in quality of life across the income scale, average happiness is decreasing in the U.S. The General Social Survey, which has been measuring social trends among Americans every one or two years since 1972, shows a long-term, gradual decline in happiness—and rise in unhappiness—from 1988 to the present.” – The Atlantic
The Paris Literary And Personal Partnership That Changed Literature
Jane Heap and Margaret Caroline Anderson were, separately, forces to be reckoned with. Together? “Via their shared endeavors and the cross-pollination of their ideas—artistic, literary, and spiritual—these two remarkable women left an indelible imprint on avant-garde culture between the wars.” – The Paris Review
UCLA Study: TV Diversity Up In Front Of The Camera, Not Better Behind It
“There has been a lot of progress for women and people of colour in front of the camera,” Darnell Hunt, dean of the school’s social sciences division and the study’s co-author, said in a statement. “Unfortunately, there has not been the same level of progress behind the camera.“ – Toronto Star (AP)
Baltimore Museum Of Art Chair Defends Sale Of Warhol, Marden And Still
Clair Zamoiski Segal asserts that “there is nothing short-sighted nor nefarious about deaccessioning. It is a regular practice, undertaken by every art museum in the United States. Assertions otherwise are simply a means of inflaming controversy and serve only to maintain the status quo of museums as repositories of riches serving the elite alone.” – ARTnews
How a 25-Year-Old From Nowhere Became Podcasting’s Go-To Guy
Within a couple years of starting his newsletter, this random guy was able to quit his day job and become, for lack of a better word, a full-time expert, his pod-related opinions and observations quoted in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. His newsletter Hot Pod now has between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers (a combination of paid and free) and earns six figures, he says — a substantial figure for what amounts to a trade journal written almost like a personal zine, mixing the latest pod news with commentary and asides. – Medium
Our Biggest Strength Is Our Common Good. So Why Have We Forgotten This?
Anthropologists have long told us that, as a species neither particularly strong nor fast, humans survived because of our unique ability to create and cooperate… What is new is the extent to which so many civic and corporate leaders – sometimes entire cultures – have lost sight of our most precious collective quality. – Aeon
Michelle Obama’s Editor Launches New Publishing House With Unorthodox Marketing Strategy
“Rather than relying chiefly on bookstores, retailers, advertising and other traditional channels to promote authors,” Molly Stern plans to have her new venture, Zando, “team up with high-profile individuals, companies and brands, who will act as publishing partners and promote books to their fans and customers.” – The New York Times
Jazz Pianist Assaulted In Subway – He May Never Play Again
“I thought that this was how I was going to die,” he recalled two weeks later, describing the attack in a written note because it was still painful to talk about it. He did not know how many in the group had hit him. They fractured his right collarbone, injured his arm and bruised him all over. After surgery for the broken bones, he was not sure whether he will ever be able to play the piano again. He has been unable to use his right hand at all, and said he is learning to do everything with his left hand. – The New York Times
Some NY Theatres Lobby To Reopen Given Their Unconventional Spaces
A coalition of theaters are lobbying New York State for special permission to present ticketed performances to reduced capacity, socially distanced audiences. Because of their open spaces and flexible designs, these theaters argue that they can safely return to business now or soon, before standard theaters do. At present, though, only rehearsals, gallery exhibitions and film shoots are allowed. – The New York Times
Study: Our Brains Prefer Happy Endings To Happiness Earlier On
Participants prefer experiences with happy endings to experiences that became slightly less enjoyable towards the end. Thanks to their work with fMRI imaging, Martin Vestergaard and Wolfram Schultz are also able to suggest some of the mechanical underpinnings of this preference by showing that different parts of the brain preserve and process different pieces of information from the same experience. – Wired
Quibi Was The New Coke Of Streaming Video
How so? Like New Coke, it was “product not enough real people wanted, a solution to a problem that didn’t really exist,” writes Josef Adalian. “There is an audience for bite-size entertainment with production values closer to Netflix than what you’ll find on social media, but I’m not so sure there’s a market for it.” – Vulture
Once Dance Was A Weapon In The Fight For Social Justice. Could It Be Again?
Gia Kourlas: “Back [in the 1930s], protests and social justice were part of the fabric of modern dance as it met the moment of the Great Depression and the rise of authoritarianism. ‘The Dance Is a Weapon.’ That was the title of the first recital of the New Dance Group, a socially minded collective formed in 1932. For me, that period of dance haunts the time we’re living in — the pandemic, the election, the uprisings against racial injustice — like a good, progressive ghost.” – The New York Times
Facing Closed Buildings And Budget Cuts, Schools Find Ways To Teach Kids Music Despite COVID
“For luckier, specialized schools, … planning for this unprecedented fall semester has boiled down to some common themes, including online vs. hybrid instruction, space constraints, and technological considerations. But for music education programs like the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and the Harmony Program, planning has hinged on a more urgent question: How can we continue to provide music education to kids whose schools can no longer afford it?” – WQXR (New York City)
Some Of Cinema’s Earliest Experiments, Preserved With The Simplest Of Technology, Are Now Restored
Moving picture clips by Georges Méliès and Alice Guy-Blaché from the 1890s, long thought lost, were discovered over the last decade in the form of flipbooks, originally produced for people who couldn’t get to or afford tickets for a picture show. Now researchers have gathered some of those books and restored their images to film. – The Guardian
Philadanco Names Successor To Founder Joan Myers Brown
Brown, now 88, has been artistic director of the contemporary dance company for its entire 50-year history and, until last year, functioned as its executive director as well. Succeeding her will be the current assistant artistic director, Kim Bears-Bailey. – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Marge Champion, Dancer, Choreographer, And Live Model For Disney’s Snow White, Dead At 101
“Fame arrived in the late 1940s, when she and Gower Champion began a professional dance partnership that continued through the next decade. … In television appearances and a slew of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musicals including Show Boat (1951), they produced a chemistry that recalled for many viewers … the earlier performances of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.” And yes, as a young woman she modeled movement for Walt Disney’s animators, not only as Snow White but also as Dopey the dwarf and the hippo in Fantasia. – The Washington Post
48 Artists Reimagine The “I Voted” Stickers
In addition to the New York Magazine covers, 500,000 stickers will be distributed for free at retail locations including Crate and Barrel and CB2, who, along with Warby Parker and EHE Health, are supporting the project’s printing costs. The sticker sheets will also be distributed by book stores and museums across the country, and at nonprofit organizations including the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, as well as official polling sites such as the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. – New York Magazine
Carlos Acosta’s Genius Idea: Socially-Distanced Tutus
For Lazuli Sky, the first new work Acosta has presented at Birmingham Royal Ballet since becoming artistic director at the beginning of this year, “we wanted a piece where nobody would touch each other and so the dancers will be wearing elongated structures” — in this case, more than six feet wide — “that are not static but are constantly moving and creating different shapes, evoking your imagination.” – BBC
Don McLean Explains ‘American Pie’
That’s not to say he finally tells us what the lyrics mean: “Carly Simon’s still being coy about who ‘You’re So Vain’ was written about. So who cares, who gives a fuck?” But he does discuss the song’s structure as a fusion of folk, rock, and old-school popular song and about the roots of its inspiration in his suburban New York upbringing and family tragedies. – The Guardian
Munich’s Entire Ballet Company Quarantined After Six Dancers Contract Coronavirus
“As part of the testing strategy at the National Theatre, … one person from the Bavarian State Ballet initially tested positive for the coronavirus and subsequent tests showed up five further cases. A spokesperson said, ‘The artistic staff are now in quarantine until further testing in the coming days.'” – Gramilano (Milan)
Australian Universities Are Axing Their Theatre Programs
“Among the wide staff and course cuts prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic, multiple theatre and performance degrees” — among them the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University in Melbourne, considered by many to be the best in the country — “have been closed or suspended indefinitely in recent months. … The peak body of arts educators has warned that this could wipe out future generations of Australian entertainers and disproportionately affect regional students.” – The Guardian