“The Nijinsky name, however, does not belong to [Vaslav] alone. In an era where static positions were the marrow of classical dance, [Bronislava] Nijinska envisioned a modernist ballet, one which saw focus shift towards the movement which connected these positions. Ultimately, she believed it was not the final posture that encapsulated the beauty of ballet, but the spaces in between.” – The Calvert Journal
Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Attractive To So Many
Experts say that the majority of people do not easily fall for falsehoods. But when misinformation offers simple, casual explanations for otherwise random events, “it helps restore a sense of agency and control for many people,” says Sander van der Linden, a social psychologist at the University of Cambridge. – National Geographic
Derelict East German Amusement Park Will Become (Another) Berlin Arts District
“Some €45 million has been raised for the project, which was first proposed in 2014 after the city, through the government-owned company Grün Berlin, took over the park’s management. The former Spreepark, as the theme park is known, spans 56 riverside acres that are currently fenced off as old rides and amusement sites sit in various states of disrepair.” – Artnet
Opera Australia Sued Over COVID-Related Job Cuts, Alleged ‘Intimidation’
“Opera Australia has paid out tens of thousands of dollars in confidential settlements to musicians it sacked at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s most heavily subsidised performing arts company is now preparing for a federal court battle with one of the musicians refusing to settle, alleging Opera Australia management has created a culture of ‘intimidation, bullying and antagonism’.” – The Guardian
The Architect of the Capitol Assesses the Damage: Our Nation’s Art & Architecture (if we can keep it)
This was a week when blogging-as-usual struck me as irredeemably frivolous. Trying to promulgate commentary about art and the artworld seemed fatuous, at a time when our nation’s adherence to the rule of law, reason and humane values (and even its very existence) seemed at stake. – Lee Rosenbaum
Aaron Copland: “One Red to Another”
“If they were a strange sight to me, I was no less of a one to them. It was the first time that many of them had seen an ‘intellectual.’ I was being gradually drawn, you see, into the political struggle with the peasantry!” That’s Aaron Copland in 1934, reflecting upon addressing a Communist picnic in Minnesota. – Joseph Horowitz
For The Third Year In A Row, Last Year UK Opened More Independent Book Shops
Released as part of the BA’s annual membership survey, the number of independent bookshops holding membership at the end of 2020 rose to 967 shops, up from 890 shops in 2019, 883 in 2018 and 868 in 2017. This figure marks the highest number of independent bookshops in BA membership since 2013, as the period of growth was preceded by two decades of decline. – The Bookseller
Images From An Insurrection
Whether or not these fever-dream images show the actual point of insurrection or are, more likely, the inevitable byproduct of twenty-first century-rioters armed with smartphones and social-media accounts, their power shouldn’t be underestimated. These pictures will now constitute a powerful folklore for a whole subculture of whacked-out, anti-establishment far-righters, the latest chapter in alt-right visual storytelling which includes the equally absurd Pepe The Frog. – Art Review
Freelancers, The Lifeblood Of British Theatre, Are In For Another Terribly Rough Year
The situation under the third lockdown is, if anything, worse than in March because the freelancers don’t have anything to fall back on. “In telephone interviews this week, four theater freelancers said they had set up their own businesses to get through the pandemic; another said he was working as a delivery driver; and another said she was relying on a combination of unemployment checks and parental support.” – The New York Times
The Book That Predicted, And Probably Was The Blueprint For, Last Wednesday’s Coup
In a way, The Turner Diaries shows how white supremacists carried out the insurrection – and it provides a pretty clear idea of what’s coming next. Historian Kathleen Belew says that even in the 1980s, supremacy groups “kept stacks of them, not just one copy but 15 copies in the book house of one white power terrorist group. They distributed them at paramilitary training camps. Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh carried and read and sold the book to others on the gun show circuit. And it’s just one of those things that keeps coming up because it answers this question of how a fringe movement can exert military control on a superstate like the United States.” – Los Angeles Times
The Day Tacoma’s Movie Theatre Burned Down
During The Birds, even. The loss of the venue deeply affected Seattle’s southern neighbor. “Before it was the Music Box the building was originally called the Tacoma Theater. Built in 1890 as an opera house, all that remains today is a single stone wall.” – KING 5
The Pandemic Saw A Return Of Space To Listen To And Really Appreciate The Album
The lack of touring, time to sit with songs instead of performing them every night, and a ton of time in or near recording studios has made musicians remake, remix, rethink, and re-release albums even in the not-quite-year of the pandemic in Europe and the US. – The Guardian (UK)
Homage To A Mentor And A Muse
Kambui Olojimi, an artist from the Brooklyn neighborhood Bedford-Stuyvesant, addresses his childhood and his block, and the idea of collective memory, in his work – especially in 177 portraits of the block president, Ms. Arline. “Initiated in grief, the series is a mourning practice that has carried Mr. Olujimi through the political and social turmoil of the last few years, opening new artistic directions for him. But it is also an experiment in memory work — an effort to convey something of the soul of a local community, through repetition and variations on an icon.” – The New York Times
The Number Of Indie Bookstores In The UK And Ireland Soared In 2020
What the actual heck? Well, a lot of people opened bookshops in 2020, during the pandemic, because why not? Their jobs had evaporated, and the bookshops were a long-held dream. But in the UK’s third hard lockdown, the numbers may change again – for the far, far worse. – The Guardian (UK)
Los Angeles Loses Its Great Blue Whale Jazz Club
Thanks so flipping much, pandemic and a government that refused to get its COVID response together in time to save the arts. Owner Joon Lee decided not to renew the lease after it ended in November. It’s a serious loss: “‘What Joon was able to cultivate there in terms of how artist-forward it was, that doesn’t exist anywhere else I’ve played on the planet,’ says vocalist Sara Gazarek, whose rising star paralleled the influence of the club.” – Los Angeles Times
How Joan Micklin Silver Beat A Path Toward A New Kind Of Romantic Film
It’s a path that others could follow, if they had the courage (and the funding). “Crossing Delancey is a culturally distinctive romcom, not one that mutes down its differences in an attempt to assimilate, and is all the more enjoyable for it, whatever the audience’s ethnicity. More pickle, less vanilla.” – The Guardian (UK)
Carol Johnson, Whose Landscape Architecture Transformed The Country, 91
Johnson, who was also known for her public housing project designs, became famous for her “large-scale public projects, which often involved environmental remediation. For the Mystic River State Reservation, a nature preserve in Eastern Mass., a commission she received in the 1970s, she transformed a toxic landfill into a public park. The John F. Kennedy Park along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass., had once been an oil-soaked storage site for train cars before Ms. Johnson’s firm took it on in the early 80s.” – The New York Times
Remember The Art Of Multiples? They’re Back
Art isn’t only for the One Percenters, even if that one percent can afford to buy a ton of multiples to go along with their laser-focused unique pieces. Despite how their allure faded after the 1970s, “Multiples have retained just enough of their ‘provocative and disorienting message,’ as Celant’s essay put it, to make them a good fit for today’s progressive causes.” But they can be still more than that. – The New York Times
Michael Apted, Director Of Coal Miner’s Daughter And The 7-Up Series, 79
Apted’s series – the latest, 63-Up, came out in 2019 – was only one project from the director of many movies, including Gorillas in the Mist and The World Is Not Enough. But the British director referred to the Up documentaries as “the most important thing I have ever done.” Last year, he said that “The series was an attempt to do a long view of English society, … The class system needed a kick up the backside.” – The Guardian (UK)