There have, of course, been AI actors before. Carrie Fisher was famously resurrected for The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. James Cameron used background “actors” to populate Titanic in 1997, but until now no AI creation has achieved the media cut-through that Tilly has. - The Conversation
“How can you write in a way that shows somebody working day after day on a piece of work?” asks Richard Holmes, with the triumphant twinkle of someone who has an answer to his own question. “How do you actually narrate that?” - The New Statesman
Human connections have been eroding for some time. We’re all dwelling in Uncanny Valley now, staring into our personal screens, not sure what’s real or fake, to the detriment of talking, dating, reading, living. - The New York Times
“I have a real problem with the idea that theater is meant to achieve narrative fluidity, as if it could somehow resolve the world’s chaos,” he said. “It drives me crazy. A show, to me, has to be a mass of contradictory elements.” - The New York Times
This observation could potentially have serious consequences in a society where images of big, engaged crowds at public events like rock concerts, protests and political rallies have major currency. - NPR
“They are going to use our work, use all this information, to perfect every possible inflection and expression. And they are just going to steal all of that?” - Los Angeles Times
“The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.” - NiemanLab
Stations that once struggled to fill airtime are now turning people away, shortening shows, alternating time slots, and running training programs just to keep up with the demand from aspiring student DJs. - Emily White Noise
Global protests are not just about chanting slogans and marching anymore. What was really eye-opening was seeing different groups coming together organically and using very creative languages and tools, like singing, dancing, body movement, and graffiti, as well as taking common everyday acts like cooking or doing yoga and bringing them into public space. - Hyperallergic
The ubiquity of the flag is down to anime, you see. Specifically, young people waving the flag from Nepal to Madagascar to the Philippines - and even to the U.S. - are referencing the show One Piece. - NPR
What’s next? The union’s new president says AI, of course, but also in regard to Kimmel, "I somehow doubt this is the last instance we’re going to see where censorship and free speech are going to be a topic.” - Los Angeles Times
Burney, who created a new zine to showcase the artists of his city: "Baltimore is a good microcosm, not even just for the social aspects of America, but the social aspects of the western world in general.” - The Guardian (UK)
“In the long, ignominious history of American book banning, portrayals of sex have been cited again and again as beyond the pale for schools and libraries, but in recent years the list of forbidden topics has grown.” - The Atlantic
He was accused of sexual misconduct in 2023, but no charges have been filed. Three of his buildings are about to open, and he’s nowhere to be found in the publicity. - The New York Times
“The activities we more often do with others seem to be associated with the most benefits, such as eating or drinking. … But the benefits also applied to the activities that participants most frequently did alone, such as reading.” Arts groups: Time for two for one ticket sales? - Washington Post (MSN)
“The women of HUNTR/X, the fictional pop trio that leads the sleeper hit, provided the kicker to a sketch that poked fun at what it’s like to be on the inside (and outside) of a huge cultural phenomenon.” - The Atlantic
Portland is very clearly not “hell,” and just as clearly not a war zone. But also: "Although the number of events and the amount of ticket sales have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, they have increased significantly ... and are now getting close to pre-2020 levels.” - Oregon ArtsWatch
“The idea of priesthood, to devote yourself to others, really, that’s what it’s about. I realized I don’t belong there. … And I tried to stay, but they got my father in there, and they told him, ‘Get him out of here.’ Because I behaved badly.” - Variety
Human connections have been eroding for some time. We’re all dwelling in Uncanny Valley now, staring into our personal screens, not sure what’s real or fake, to the detriment of talking, dating, reading, living. - The New York Times
“The activities we more often do with others seem to be associated with the most benefits, such as eating or drinking. … But the benefits also applied to the activities that participants most frequently did alone, such as reading.” Arts groups: Time for two for one ticket sales? - Washington Post (MSN)
“For theatre to remain ambitious, kinetic, and meaningful, we can’t let institutional constraints like funding models or planning cycles become barriers to fresh perspectives, and I can’t allow my personal preferences to overrule or narrow the choices of the many artistic directors who produce in our venue.” - American Theatre
Like the negative space against which words become visible (voids emphasised in Cage’s original typography), nothing generates speech and the speaker, poetry and the ‘I’ who needs it. - Aeon
For most, participation in the online attention economy feels like a tax, or maybe a trickle of revenue, rather than free fun or a ticket to fame. The few remaining professionals in the arts and letters have felt pressured to supplement their full-time jobs with social media self-promotion, subscription newsletters, podcasts, and short-form video. - BookForum
Global protests are not just about chanting slogans and marching anymore. What was really eye-opening was seeing different groups coming together organically and using very creative languages and tools, like singing, dancing, body movement, and graffiti, as well as taking common everyday acts like cooking or doing yoga and bringing them into public space. -...
Portland is very clearly not “hell,” and just as clearly not a war zone. But also: "Although the number of events and the amount of ticket sales have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, they have increased significantly ... and are now getting close to pre-2020 levels.” - Oregon ArtsWatch
Sure, McCarthyism mostly ended (until, well, now) in the late 1950s, but in the 1980s, Madonna and Prince scared some adults so much that they got funding from Coors Beer and the Beach Boys, and went after popular musicians. - The Guardian (UK)
“County council leader Mick Barton banned the Nottingham Post and its online arm, Nottinghamshire Live, from speaking to him and other councillors ‘with immediate effect’ on 28 August.” - BBC
As the art world grows ever more corporate and culture continues its slide into an anti-intellectual dumpster fire, we will start to see a cultural rebellion — the return of a 1970s and ’80s “New York Drop Dead” barbarism, and with it a movement of making art for its own sake. - The New York Times
Todd Arrington, a career historian who previously worked at the National Archives, said he was ordered to resign from the Eisenhower Presidential Library. He had declined to turn over one of Eisenhower’s own swords so Trump could present it to Charles III while on a state visit to the UK. - CBS News
One artist who removed his music: “Spotify is going to have to make Herculean efforts to roll back tons of damaging choices they’ve introduced to their platform over the years. I don’t see that happening.” - The Verge (Archive Today)
“Two lighting technicians and a video operator bring the opera to its full pyrotechnic life. Hunched over banks of consoles, screens and keyboards, they execute a tight script as they manipulate videos, lights, scrims, screens, stage panels and dry ice.” - The New York Times
The city has had notable trouble keeping such a group. The long-established Newberry Consort performs earlier repertoire; Baroque Band folded in 2016; Haymarket sticks to opera; the long-dominant Music of the Baroque clings resolutely to modern instruments. Now a new group, Bach in the City, is giving things a go. - Early Music America
In the position, which runs for the next two seasons, the beloved composer for Studio Ghibli animated features will get a major commercial recording, curate a contemporary music concert series, provide mentorship for composition students, and conduct the world premiere of his Piano Concerto in spring 2027. - Moto Perpetuo
Musicians have become influential activists and symbols of political resistance, just as they were in the final years of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has repeatedly tried to suppress the music scene and punish its leaders, a sign that Putin seems to understand the danger they pose. - The Atlantic (Yahoo!)
The ubiquity of the flag is down to anime, you see. Specifically, young people waving the flag from Nepal to Madagascar to the Philippines - and even to the U.S. - are referencing the show One Piece. - NPR
He was accused of sexual misconduct in 2023, but no charges have been filed. Three of his buildings are about to open, and he’s nowhere to be found in the publicity. - The New York Times
"By adjusting the focus just a little, adding suggestions of both humor and tension, and pumping up the characters’ sensuality, Segovia turns these recognizable dudes into something more vulnerable, not quite feminine, but sexualized and apart from the hypermasculine, movie-world standard.” - Seattle Times (NYT)
At the V&A East Storehouse, “visitors have the option to choose up to five via the ‘order an object’ service and have them delivered to a study room for a private viewing.” - The Guardian (UK)
“‘Just like a toppled confederate general forced back onto a public square, the Donald Trump Jeffrey Epstein statue has risen from the rubble to stand gloriously on the National Mall once again,’ The Secret Handshake member wrote in an email to NPR.” - NPR
Things aren’t going well right now, and the Florida-located museum and archives may need to find a new home. Corporate “contacts no longer return calls or texts; they no longer sponsor events. They have backed off joining the board.” - The New York Times
“How can you write in a way that shows somebody working day after day on a piece of work?” asks Richard Holmes, with the triumphant twinkle of someone who has an answer to his own question. “How do you actually narrate that?” - The New Statesman
“In the long, ignominious history of American book banning, portrayals of sex have been cited again and again as beyond the pale for schools and libraries, but in recent years the list of forbidden topics has grown.” - The Atlantic
Andrea Bartz “was furious that the writing she had labored over for years got vacuumed up and fed into an algorithm, without her permission.” Then she (and others) did something about it. - The New York Times
Romancelandia is big, and “the rest of the industry wants to emulate this success, but as many editors know, chasing a trend can be a futile endeavor.” Imagine “HistoryLandia” or “BookerNomineeLandia.” - The Atlantic
Of course all, or at least many, books are cool. But the Goldsmiths Prize is for fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.” - The Guardian (UK)
Becoming the (at the time) youngest person to win the Booker Prize wasn’t all fun and games for the novelist, and it took her nearly 20 years to produce another novel. - Irish Times
There have, of course, been AI actors before. Carrie Fisher was famously resurrected for The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. James Cameron used background “actors” to populate Titanic in 1997, but until now no AI creation has achieved the media cut-through that Tilly has. - The Conversation
This observation could potentially have serious consequences in a society where images of big, engaged crowds at public events like rock concerts, protests and political rallies have major currency. - NPR
“They are going to use our work, use all this information, to perfect every possible inflection and expression. And they are just going to steal all of that?” - Los Angeles Times
“The proportion accessing news via social media and video networks in the United States (54%) is sharply up,” the report’s authors write, “overtaking both TV news (50%) and news websites/apps (48%) for the first time.” - NiemanLab
Stations that once struggled to fill airtime are now turning people away, shortening shows, alternating time slots, and running training programs just to keep up with the demand from aspiring student DJs. - Emily White Noise
What’s next? The union’s new president says AI, of course, but also in regard to Kimmel, "I somehow doubt this is the last instance we’re going to see where censorship and free speech are going to be a topic.” - Los Angeles Times
“By now I’ve spent upward of 5,000 hours in ballet classes, and roughly 1,600 hours more in other, non-ballet dance classes. … I dance as if it were my job.” - Slate
Walsh helped Scarlett create several scenes for the London premiere in 2016, then danced the title role in the 2017 revised version at San Francisco Ballet. Walsh was injured for the 2018 revival, so he helped stage it, and he has restaged it several times since Scarlett’s death in 2021. - L.A. Dance Chronicle
There are so many other things that I could be doing to accomplish my longtime goal of bringing more equity and awareness of ballet’s lack of diversity, and finding ways to meet people where they are in communities like I grew up in. That started to override how I felt about being onstage. -...
“While Vancouver offers a wealth of contemporary-dance companies and high-caliber ballet schools, ‘no one is bringing classical ballet here beyond a touring Nutcracker, or producing it on a professional level,’ Beamish says. (The well-established Ballet BC performs mainly contemporary repertoire off-pointe.)” - Pointe Magazine
The world’s oldest ballet company is known to most of the world for the precise, pristine classicism. At home, though, it’s been performing cutting-edge contemporary work for years, and it’s bringing to the States a new work by perhaps the most un-Paris Opera Ballet choreographer out there, Hofesh Schechter. - The New York Times
Mia J. Chong, a choreographer and currently a staging director for ODC, will succeed 83-year-old founder Brenda Way. The 54-year-old dance organization encompasses a dance company which tours domestically and abroad, a school, a theater and a 50,00-square-foot campus in the Mission District. - San Francisco Chronicle (MSN)
“I have a real problem with the idea that theater is meant to achieve narrative fluidity, as if it could somehow resolve the world’s chaos,” he said. “It drives me crazy. A show, to me, has to be a mass of contradictory elements.” - The New York Times
Herbert Kretzmer's letters to Cameron Mackintosh would indicate he did not. “I must emphasise that Les Miserables is not a show translated or re-written, but a show reborn,” he wrote. (Truly, anyone who listens to the French and English-language versions might agree.) - BBC
Padrón, who joined the theatre in 2019, led the nonprofit through a period of change that included adopting a new producing model, staging performances in multiple venues, and expanding community partnerships. - Hartford Business
Dutchman, written in 1964 (when Baraka was still LeRoi Jones), is set in a sweltering subway car years before air-conditioning. Recently, for the second time, Rashid Johnson staged the play in a setting hotter than an old C train in July: the sauna at Manhattan’s Russian and Turkish Baths. - The New York Times
Ultimately what causes shows to take longer to recoup their initial capitalization is the high costs associated with operating a show. It’s well documented that the single largest line item in most shows budgets is the cost of being in the theatre. - Broadway World
Actors' Equity negotiations with the Broadway League are continuing for now, even though the last three-year contract ended on September 28. The number-one issue is healthcare and the contribution the Broadway League makes to the union's healthcare fund. - Reuters
Burney, who created a new zine to showcase the artists of his city: "Baltimore is a good microcosm, not even just for the social aspects of America, but the social aspects of the western world in general.” - The Guardian (UK)
“Despite financial pressures, Jenny continued the gallery’s tradition of innovation, exhibiting trade union banners and showcasing new and radical artists such as Joseph Beuys.” - The Guardian (UK)
“I would be a total disaster, because I do love to gossip. I would be going: ‘You know that guy? I think he’s working for the Russians.’” - The Guardian (UK)
“While Mr. Brilliant never truly stopped — he kept writing lines that he emailed to friends — among the official 10,000 are these: … No. 826: ‘I have abandoned my search for truth, and am now looking for a good fantasy.’” - The New York Times
“If one had to seize on a defining quality, it was her ability to see the humanity in a variety of eccentrics and outsiders. That was true whether she was playing the absurdly pretentious Hyacinth Bucket (‘pronounced bouquet’) in TV’s Keeping Up Appearances or Mrs. Malaprop in Sheridan’s The Rivals. - The Guardian
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Portland is very clearly not “hell,” and just as clearly not a war zone. But also: "Although the number of events and the amount of ticket sales have not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, they have increased significantly ... and are now getting close to pre-2020 levels.” - Oregon ArtsWatch
Andrea Bartz “was furious that the writing she had labored over for years got vacuumed up and fed into an algorithm, without her permission.” Then she (and others) did something about it. - The New York Times
One artist who removed his music: “Spotify is going to have to make Herculean efforts to roll back tons of damaging choices they’ve introduced to their platform over the years. I don’t see that happening.” - The Verge (Archive Today)
At the V&A East Storehouse, “visitors have the option to choose up to five via the ‘order an object’ service and have them delivered to a study room for a private viewing.” - The Guardian (UK)
"If The Best American Poetry captures ‘the zeitgeist of the current attitudes in American poetry,’ we should be asking: Why are those attitudes so fucked up?” - The Defector (Archive Today)
“Two lighting technicians and a video operator bring the opera to its full pyrotechnic life. Hunched over banks of consoles, screens and keyboards, they execute a tight script as they manipulate videos, lights, scrims, screens, stage panels and dry ice.” - The New York Times
The Smithsonian museums and National Gallery will remain open for as long as leftover cash-on-hand lasts, which will be at least through Monday. Kennedy Center events are privately financed and should proceed as scheduled. As for the monuments, it depends … - The Washington Post (MSN)
Denis Raisin Dadre, 69, a recorder virtuoso and specialist in Renaissance reed instruments, founded Ensemble Doulce Mémoire in 1990 and developed an impressive array of programs in performance and on disc. His lifeless body was discovered in his apartment in Tours; drugs were found at the scene. - RTBF (Belgium) (via Google Translate)
“Jonathan Church, known for his work as a director and producer on multiple hit shows in London’s West End, and as the leader of several major regional houses in the U.K., will succeed Antoni Cimolino next fall.” - Toronto Star
In July, as part of a widely-reported sweep which affected high-profile critics in three other disciplines as well, the newspaper removed Green as chief theater critic. In his new position, Green will cover classical music and visual art as well as theater, writing “news and news analysis, features and multimedia pieces.” - Playbill
“A lot of gen AI supporters see it as a tool that’s ‘democratizing’ art by lowering traditional barriers to entry like ‘learning how to draw,’ ‘learning how to play an instrument,’ or ‘learning how to write a story.’” - The Verge (Archive Today)
How huge? “About 60 per cent of professional violinists and violists experience some form of playing-related musculoskeletal disorder (known as ‘PRMDs’) that prevents them from playing their best.” - Sydney Morning Herald
