Today's Stories

A Visit To Africa’s Largest Contemporary Dance Festival

“Founded in 1997, the African Dance Biennial has spent nearly three decades rotating across African cities — most recently Maputo, Mozambique, in 2023 — with the aim of raising the visibility of choreographic work on the continent. The three-day event, which closed Sunday, was held at the École des Sables … in Toubab Dialao, Senegal.”...

Trends In Biennale Artists And Their Work

The most-visible type is an artist who digs into the history of colonialism, surfaces some charged document or symbol, and highlights it by doing something poetic with it. The tone is more reflective than truly didactic. Often, the art is channeling the look of an exhibit in a science or history museum. - Artnet

Conductor Fired From Venice’s Opera House Speaks Out

Beatrice Venezi’s appointment as music director of Teatro La Fenice was greeted with an avalanche of criticism that she was unqualified, hired only because she’s a protégée of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Now Venezi says, “The (political) Right needed my clean face; they used me and then threw me away.” - Moto Perpetuo

Media’s “Find Us” Problem

Broadcast once provided a predictable, repeated structure built into daily life. As the “tune-in” habit has eroded, we haven’t been deliberate enough in designing something to take its place. - Greater Public

What We Lose When “The Late Show” Goes Away

 The cancellation of Colbert’s show right before a deal that needed government approval has given his exit an additional resonance. - The New York Times

Study: Relocating New Orleans Needs To Start Now Because Of Climate Change

The process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, as the city has reached a “point of no return” that will see it surrounded by the ocean within decades due to the climate crisis, a stark new study has concluded. - The Guardian

Leon Botstein To Retire As Bard College’s President Following Epstein Revelations

The 79-year-old music historian and conductor will step down in June after 51 years leading the small liberal arts college in New York’s Hudson Valley. Botstein is not accused of any involvement in Epstein’s sex abuse of young women, but he maintained much closer ties to Epstein than he had previously admitted. - AP

Just How Long Should An Arts Leader Stay?

As one artist told ArtsHub: ‘Artistic director and executive director jobs are so few and far between in Australia that it is no wonder that when someone is appointed to one, they hold on to them for more than 10 years. - ArtsHub

The Tiniest Particles In The Universe Don’t Tell You What The Universe Is

We are taught from a young age that matter is made of atoms, built from particles such as electrons, and electrons are not built from anything else. For this reason, these particles are sometimes said to be fundamental. But are they? Is the Universe really made from the smallest constituents? - Aeon

What Happened To The Viral Kid Dance Stars?

Watching these dancers online was like looking into a crystal ball: There was the future of dance. But did that promise bear out? - The New York Times

Boston, Cape Cod, Central Mass. Public Radio Outlets To Merge

“WGBH Educational Foundation and New England Public Media plan to formally merge operations by the summer of 2026. ... The merger will combine Boston-based GBH, Springfield-based NEPM and Cape Cod’s CAI into what executives describe as one of Massachusetts’s largest statewide public media networks, reaching more than 1.3 million people weekly.” - Inside Radio

AI Actors, Scripts Won’t Be Eligible For Oscars

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said that only performances “credited in the film’s legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be eligible for Academy Awards. Similarly, the academy said that screenplays must be “human-authored” to be eligible. - TechCrunch

Personal Encounter: Music That Reflects Back Grief

"Having my own churning emotions echoed back to me in this way was a stunning experience, one that, perhaps paradoxically, lifted me out of my own pain for a time. Catharsis was the last thing I expected going in, but it’s precisely what I experienced." - San Francisco Classical Voice

Nicole Hollander, The Acerbic Cartoonist Who Created Sylvia, Has Died At 86

“Hollander made Sylvia, who got her own strip in 1980, a tart-tongued, witty, loquacious single mother who held court — sometimes from her bathtub — on sex and relationships as well as politics, health care reform, the environment and other hot-button issues.” - The New York Times

BBC’s Newsroom Will Be Hit Hardest By Job Cuts

“The division, home to about a quarter of all BBC staff, is being saddled with one of the highest cost-cutting targets as the corporation attempts to cut as many as 2,000 jobs in the biggest downsizing of the public service broadcaster in 15 years.” - The Guardian

Days Before Opening, Iran Withdraws From Venice Biennale

“On Monday, in a statement, Biennale organizers announced that Iran had dropped out and would no longer be exhibiting its planned pavilion. The announcement comes … amid a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran. Organizers offered no information as to why Iran had decided to bow out.” - Artforum

Backstage Workers’ Union Files Charges Against Kennedy Center Over Layoffs

“The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has filed charges (with the National Labor relations Board) against the Kennedy Center, accusing management of permanently cutting union jobs as it prepares to close for a two-year renovation at the behest of President Trump.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Picaflor” Wins 2026 Pulitzer Prize For Music

“The work, … premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with conductor Marin Alsop in March 2025. … is based on an original story inspired by Andean Peruvian mythology and reimagined in a futuristic setting. … Its 10 movements follow a hummingbird as it attempts to escape cataclysm.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

2026 Pulitzer Prize For Drama Goes To Bess Wohl’s “Liberation”

“Liberation centers on a group of women who gather to talk, during the second wave feminist movement of the 1970s, about changing their own lives and the world. Fifty years later, one of their daughters looks to the past for answers when she finds history repeating itself.” - Playbill

Architecture Critic Mark Lamster Of Dallas Morning News Wins Pulitzer Prize For Criticism

“Lamster won for a series of columns about downtown Dallas that sparked civic debate and revealed how past decisions have shaped the present. A focus of his criticism has been the fate of Dallas City Hall, a celebrated yet controversial work of brutalist design by architect I.M. Pei.” - The Dallas Morning News (MSN)

By Topic

The Tiniest Particles In The Universe Don’t Tell You What The Universe Is

We are taught from a young age that matter is made of atoms, built from particles such as electrons, and electrons are not built from anything else. For this reason, these particles are sometimes said to be fundamental. But are they? Is the Universe really made from the smallest constituents? - Aeon

So Maybe That AI Bubble Wasn’t Real After All

The worry that the country is building too many data centers now coexists with the fear that we won’t have enough of them to satisfy the public’s growing appetite for these products. And the company previously known as OpenAI’s junior competitor has become possibly the fastest-growing business in the history of capitalism.  - The Atlantic

When AI Surrounds Us, What’s The Point Of Human Minds?

“As great as humans are, we can still be impressed by how birds navigate, how ants cooperate, and how spiders hunt. Each of these animals has been shaped by its environment to be smart in a different way.” - The Guardian (UK)

Stop Saying Satire Is Dead

“Can satire really change anything? Isn’t it a limp, almost quaint kind of protest?” - LitHub

Wait, Portland Has Another New Analysis Saying Two Concert Halls Would Be Just Fine

Competing studies find that Portland can support one performing arts center or maybe two performing arts centers, or not. And of course, "Portland has appointed a number of advisory committees to study the choices more closely before holding public hearings to make a final decision.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

Wait, Just How Big Is Trump’s Desired Garden Of Heroes Supposed To Be Now?

Big, with a “Heroes Walk,’” and “accompanying the statues would be formal gardens, reflecting pools and plazas arranged in a style reminiscent of classical European planning traditions, according to renderings.” - The New York Times

Study: Relocating New Orleans Needs To Start Now Because Of Climate Change

The process of relocating people from New Orleans should start immediately, as the city has reached a “point of no return” that will see it surrounded by the ocean within decades due to the climate crisis, a stark new study has concluded. - The Guardian

Just How Long Should An Arts Leader Stay?

As one artist told ArtsHub: ‘Artistic director and executive director jobs are so few and far between in Australia that it is no wonder that when someone is appointed to one, they hold on to them for more than 10 years. - ArtsHub

Backstage Workers’ Union Files Charges Against Kennedy Center Over Layoffs

“The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has filed charges (with the National Labor relations Board) against the Kennedy Center, accusing management of permanently cutting union jobs as it prepares to close for a two-year renovation at the behest of President Trump.” - TheWrap (Yahoo!)

The New Workplace Surveillance Wants To Keep Your Emotions In Check

“It is not that hard for me to imagine a near future in which workers in all industries are pushed to work not only harder and more, but more happily and more agreeably. This is the new era of employee surveillance: invisible, AI-supercharged, always on.” - The Atlantic

All The President’s Men Is Now Fifty

Why does that matter? Robert Redford, for one, “insisted that fearless owners were every bit as important in preserving democracy as the reporters he and Hoffman helped glamorize.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

If You Want Privacy, Never Watch TV

Why? “Your TV and smartphone are far more interoperable and indistinguishable than ever before, and an inescapable user-tracking singularity is developing, accordingly, in your own living room.” - Slate

Conductor Fired From Venice’s Opera House Speaks Out

Beatrice Venezi’s appointment as music director of Teatro La Fenice was greeted with an avalanche of criticism that she was unqualified, hired only because she’s a protégée of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni. Now Venezi says, “The (political) Right needed my clean face; they used me and then threw me away.” - Moto Perpetuo

Personal Encounter: Music That Reflects Back Grief

"Having my own churning emotions echoed back to me in this way was a stunning experience, one that, perhaps paradoxically, lifted me out of my own pain for a time. Catharsis was the last thing I expected going in, but it’s precisely what I experienced." - San Francisco Classical Voice

Gabriela Lena Frank’s “Picaflor” Wins 2026 Pulitzer Prize For Music

“The work, … premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra with conductor Marin Alsop in March 2025. … is based on an original story inspired by Andean Peruvian mythology and reimagined in a futuristic setting. … Its 10 movements follow a hummingbird as it attempts to escape cataclysm.” - The Philadelphia Inquirer (MSN)

Study: Western Music Is Becoming Simpler And More Repetitive

A recent study found that Western music is not only starting to sound more alike but is also becoming less structurally complex than in the past. - Phys

Study: The Links Between A Talent For Math And A Talent For Music

A study of young adults with backgrounds in mathematics or music found that individuals with better mathematical abilities tended to have better musical abilities as well, and vice versa. - Psypost

ABC Explores Evidence Classical Music Is Thriving

As Australians vote for the greatest classical music of all time, we look at who is listening, how classical music is evolving, and how it fills the world around us, whether we realise it or not. - Australian Broadcasting Company

Trends In Biennale Artists And Their Work

The most-visible type is an artist who digs into the history of colonialism, surfaces some charged document or symbol, and highlights it by doing something poetic with it. The tone is more reflective than truly didactic. Often, the art is channeling the look of an exhibit in a science or history museum. - Artnet

Days Before Opening, Iran Withdraws From Venice Biennale

“On Monday, in a statement, Biennale organizers announced that Iran had dropped out and would no longer be exhibiting its planned pavilion. The announcement comes … amid a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran. Organizers offered no information as to why Iran had decided to bow out.” - Artforum

Architecture Critic Mark Lamster Of Dallas Morning News Wins Pulitzer Prize For Criticism

“Lamster won for a series of columns about downtown Dallas that sparked civic debate and revealed how past decisions have shaped the present. A focus of his criticism has been the fate of Dallas City Hall, a celebrated yet controversial work of brutalist design by architect I.M. Pei.” - The Dallas Morning News (MSN)

Backlash Mounts To Met Gala Because of Bezos Sponsorship

Opposition to the Bezoses started almost immediately after they were announced as financial sponsors in February, and comes amid a surging anti-rich sentiment nationwide and in New York City, the event’s liberal home. - The New York Times

Could The Met’s Costume Institute Survive The Los Of Its Gala?

Along with this year’s inauguration of the new Condé M. Nast Galleries in the Great Hall, which will house the Costume Institute’s blockbuster shows, the endowment fund represents a drastic transformation in the position of the Costume Institute, not to mention its relationship to the party held in its honor. - The New York Times

The Met Gala Proclaims Fashion As Art. Is It?

So, is fashion art? And if so, at what point do clothes transform from something practical to something artistic? - The Conversation

2026 Pulitzer Prizes For Books Go To Jill Lepore, Yiyun Lin, Amanda Vaill, Daniel Kraus, Brian Goldstone, Juliana Spahr

Kraus’s Angel Down took fiction honors; Goldstone’s There Is No Place for Us won for general nonfiction; Lepore’s We the People took history honors; Vaill’s study of the Schuyler sisters, Pride and Pleasure, won for biography; Li’s Things In Nature Merely Grow won for memoir; Spahr’s Ars Poetica was honored for poetry. - Literary...

Mass Author Walkout Imperils Prestigious Australian Publisher

At least 17 authors have ended their contracts with UQP or vowed not to work with the publisher again, after a series of events stemming from responses to the Israel-Gaza war culminated in last week’s cancellation of a children’s book by the Indigenous poet Jazz Money. - The Guardian

How Booker-Nominated Author Katie Kitamura Reads

“Even a book that I know I wouldn’t enjoy now would still be interesting to read, to figure out how both it and I had changed. And there is always the possibility that I would enjoy it after all. Books are always surprising you.” - The Guardian (UK)

The Struggle To Protect Mauritania’s Medieval Library Town

Chinguetti developed as a trading post on the trans-Sahara caravan route to Timbuktu — and, as in Timbuktu, over the centuries Chinguetti families came to amass important collections of medieval manuscripts on religion, law, and science. Now, as the population dwindles and the desert sand encroaches, preserving these collections is a challenge. - The...

Idaho Legislature Changes Book Ban As Court Challenges Continue

The three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit wrote that HB 710 enables a “system of informal censorship” and potentially “encourages formal censorship through the legal process. The First Amendment does not tolerate either outcome.” - Publishers Weekly

The Guardian Now Has More American Readers Than The Washington Post Has

“(The Guardian) has found a lane in the U.S. news market as a progressive alternative to institutional American media, … backed by a voluntary contribution model that has attracted 700,000 supporters, 500,000 of them recurring. Reader revenue has grown 35% a year for the past two years, with a still-growing 150-person newsroom.” - The...

Media’s “Find Us” Problem

Broadcast once provided a predictable, repeated structure built into daily life. As the “tune-in” habit has eroded, we haven’t been deliberate enough in designing something to take its place. - Greater Public

What We Lose When “The Late Show” Goes Away

 The cancellation of Colbert’s show right before a deal that needed government approval has given his exit an additional resonance. - The New York Times

Boston, Cape Cod, Central Mass. Public Radio Outlets To Merge

“WGBH Educational Foundation and New England Public Media plan to formally merge operations by the summer of 2026. ... The merger will combine Boston-based GBH, Springfield-based NEPM and Cape Cod’s CAI into what executives describe as one of Massachusetts’s largest statewide public media networks, reaching more than 1.3 million people weekly.” - Inside Radio

AI Actors, Scripts Won’t Be Eligible For Oscars

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said that only performances “credited in the film’s legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” will be eligible for Academy Awards. Similarly, the academy said that screenplays must be “human-authored” to be eligible. - TechCrunch

BBC’s Newsroom Will Be Hit Hardest By Job Cuts

“The division, home to about a quarter of all BBC staff, is being saddled with one of the highest cost-cutting targets as the corporation attempts to cut as many as 2,000 jobs in the biggest downsizing of the public service broadcaster in 15 years.” - The Guardian

On May Day Weekend, Looking At Fifty Years Of Labor Documentaries

“Some scenes in union documentaries are almost guaranteed: organizers rallying the rank and file at meetings, workers expressing concerns about the strike’s impact on their families, tensions flaring up at the picket line. There will be corporate spokespeople, union-till-I-die old-timers, and scabs.” - The Guardian (UK)

A Visit To Africa’s Largest Contemporary Dance Festival

“Founded in 1997, the African Dance Biennial has spent nearly three decades rotating across African cities — most recently Maputo, Mozambique, in 2023 — with the aim of raising the visibility of choreographic work on the continent. The three-day event, which closed Sunday, was held at the École des Sables … in Toubab...

What Happened To The Viral Kid Dance Stars?

Watching these dancers online was like looking into a crystal ball: There was the future of dance. But did that promise bear out? - The New York Times

They Became The First Viral Dance Prodigies As Kids

But the career path post-Dance Moms or TikTok fame isn’t exactly clear. - The New York Times

Six Elite Ballet Dancers On What They Did After Retiring From The Stage

One became a kindergarten teacher and social worker; another became a midwife. One lucky fellow got to be artistic director of a company; another studied music and started conducting ballet orchestras. One got appointed to Britain’s House of Lords. And one, of course, became a consultant. - The Guardian

70-Year-Old Evelyn Hart Returns To Dance With The Royal Winnipeg — 50 Years After She Joined It

“I keep waking up every day, pinching myself, thinking I’m so lucky. It feels, literally, as if I’ve just been transported back in time,” says Hart, 70, who joined the company 50 years ago, in 1976. - Winnipeg Free Press

Louisville Ballet CEO Steps Down After 3½ Years Of Turning The Company Around

When Leslie Smart took the helm in early 2023, the company’s existence post-COVID was in doubt. She undertook both cost-cutting and fundraising campaigns, and she ultimately raised over $18.5 million and oversaw record-breaking ticket sales; just last week she announced a $9 million investment in the company’s expansion. - Louisville Courier Journal (AOL)

2026 Pulitzer Prize For Drama Goes To Bess Wohl’s “Liberation”

“Liberation centers on a group of women who gather to talk, during the second wave feminist movement of the 1970s, about changing their own lives and the world. Fifty years later, one of their daughters looks to the past for answers when she finds history repeating itself.” - Playbill

3-Alarm Fire At Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre This Morning

It is unknown if the fire has had or will have any affect on the production or future performances. No one was inside the theatre when the fire happened, and the show is not scheduled to perform until the evening of May 5. - Playbill

Slightly Too Early Tony Awards Predictions

“Lincoln Center Theatre’s revival of Ragtime will likely lead the nomination field, with the possibility of six performers getting nods, mirroring its season-leading eight Drama Desk bids.” But there’s a lot of competition out there in a strong year. - Variety

The Performance Art Mall Walkers Of (You Guessed It) Portland, Oregon

One, er, artist: “It's such a fun way to just get exercise, do something really silly, builds community. And I just love a shenanigan.” - NPR

So Many Actors Are Bopping Between HBO And New York’s Stages This Season

Actors from The Pitt, The Bear, and Hacks are taking their (in some cases, newfound) television fame back to where it all began for many of them: the stage. - The New York Times

Troubled Minneapolis Theatre Puts Its Building Up For Sale

Three months after pausing its programming because of financial hardship, the Jungle Theater has put its south Minneapolis home up for sale. The company announced April 30 that it is actively looking for a buyer of its Lyndale Avenue S. building. - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Leon Botstein To Retire As Bard College’s President Following Epstein Revelations

The 79-year-old music historian and conductor will step down in June after 51 years leading the small liberal arts college in New York’s Hudson Valley. Botstein is not accused of any involvement in Epstein’s sex abuse of young women, but he maintained much closer ties to Epstein than he had previously admitted. - AP

Nicole Hollander, The Acerbic Cartoonist Who Created Sylvia, Has Died At 86

“Hollander made Sylvia, who got her own strip in 1980, a tart-tongued, witty, loquacious single mother who held court — sometimes from her bathtub — on sex and relationships as well as politics, health care reform, the environment and other hot-button issues.” - The New York Times

Irish Actor Gary Lydon, Of Banshees Of Inisherin, Has Died Suddenly At 61

"Gary had honed his craft as one of the finest actors in Ireland on the Wexford Arts Centre stage in many of Billy Roche's plays. He forged a stellar career performing across Ireland and the UK.” - BBC (AOL)

The Pianist Who Cut Short His Career Because Of Stage Fright, And Then Became A Movie Star For Ethan Hawke, Has Died At 99

“Although he managed to perform well despite his stage fright, Bernstein eventually decided to quit. He gave his final public concert in 1977, at the age of 50.” - The New York Times

Artist Georg Baselitz Dead At 88

“Baselitz pushed figuration beyond recognizable form into abstraction — ultimately, and famously, flipping the medium itself: his experiments culminated in his signature upside-down portraits and landscapes, both genres apt for his unique dissection of masculinity.” - ARTnews

The English Heiress Who Masterminded The IRA’s Biggest Art Heist

“By her mid-30s, Rose Dugdale had burned every bridge to the world that made her. She gave away her inheritance, stole money from her own family, hijacked a helicopter to attack a police station, develop bombs for the IRA, and played a central role in one of the largest art heists in history.” - BBC

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If You Want Privacy, Never Watch TV

Why? “Your TV and smartphone are far more interoperable and indistinguishable than ever before, and an inescapable user-tracking singularity is developing, accordingly, in your own living room.” - Slate

Wait, Portland Has Another New Analysis Saying Two Concert Halls Would Be Just Fine

Competing studies find that Portland can support one performing arts center or maybe two performing arts centers, or not. And of course, "Portland has appointed a number of advisory committees to study the choices more closely before holding public hearings to make a final decision.” - Oregon ArtsWatch

The Epic Journey Of Ukraine’s Origami Concrete Deer To The Venice Biennale

The journey began in 2018. “Over time became a landmark, a well-known feature of the city. It was a peaceable, delicate creature to replace a symbol of military domination and violence. Fast forward to the summer of 2024.” - The Guardian (UK)

Check Out The Plans For Putting An Actual Park In The Middle Of Park Avenue

“A century ago, the median down ... Park Avenue was much more welcoming than it is today, a place with seating and substantial plantings where you’d consider spending time. … In 2024, (New York City) announced a call for proposals wherein those two lanes would be reclaimed from traffic for leisure and greenery.” -...

Venice’s Opera House Fires Controversial New Music Director Over Interviews

After months of protests from musicians and others over the slender qualifications of conductor Beatrice Venezi, the board of La Fenice confirmed her appointment and it looked like she was all set. Then she trash-talked the opera house and its audience to an Argentine newspaper. - The Guardian

The Art Of Writing An Opera Libretto

"As a librettist, I’m always aware that I’m serving the music. It’s a humbling experience. Coming from the world of theater is a good thing, because theater is all about collaboration and interpretation—you place the work in the hands of others, and it begins to transform.” - Paris Review

How LEGO Became The World’s Most Powerful Art Medium

“Lego’s appeal, represented by its zillions of plastic blocks and many movies and TV series, transcends nations. It is one of the planet’s top-selling toy brands, and the toy’s singular pixelated appearance is instantly recognizable on any screen.” - Salon

The Next Director Of The Tate Has To Confront An Unwieldy ‘Beast’ Of An Institution

“Visitor numbers have indeed recovered after falling from their peak in 2019, but finances were hit hard during the pandemic. Those financial headwinds have led to multiple rounds of redundancies, restructures and several ‘culture war’ battles.” - The Guardian (UK)

But Opera Will Die If We Can’t Wrest It Back From Big Tech

“There is something in the embodied expression of a trained singer, on stage, in a room with other human beings, that no synthetic content can touch. But in an age when AI generates infinite aesthetic stuff at effectively zero cost, ‘irreplaceable’ needs to be made explicit.” - Opera America

The Death Of Opera Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

"Opera has had to adapt to survive, and the truth is it has done so successfully.” - New York Sun

Michael Tilson Thomas Is Dead At 81

“He was widely considered one of the most distinguished American conductors of his generation” — most notably for his 25 years as music director of the San Francisco Symphony. “In addition to making more than 100 recordings of both rare and familiar classical repertory, he created valuable instructional series for television and radio.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo)

It Is Physically Painful To Write This, But Hollywood Is ‘Screenmaxxing’ Now

“Screenmaxxing is big business for an imperiled theatrical exhibition industry. … PLF screens seem to be an effective way to lure them out of the house, and charge a little (or a lot) extra for the assurance that they’re seeing a version of the movie that goes above and beyond.” - The Guardian (UK)

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