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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
ideas
How Caffeine Can Short-Circuit Creativity (Uh-Oh) "We do know that much of what we associate with creativity - whether writing a sonnet or a mathematical proof - has to do with the ability to link ideas, entities, and concepts in novel ways. This ability depends in part on the very thing that caffeine seeks to prevent: a wandering, unfocussed mind."
The New Yorker 06/17/13
ideas
But Dim Lighting Can Spark Creativity (Say Two Researchers) "'Darkness increases freedom from constraints, which in turn promotes creativity,' report Anna Steidle of the University of Stuttgart and Lioba Werth of the University of Hohenheim. A dimly lit environment, they explain ... 'elicits a feeling of freedom, self-determination, and reduced inhibition,' all of which encourage innovative thinking."
Pacific Standard 06/18/13
dance
A Participatory Dance Performance You Don't Have To Be Afraid Of "In Yanira Castro's new
The People to Come, five dancers each create two 19-minute solos based on material - sketches, photos, patterns, tasks - submitted by audience members. And it all happens right before the viewers' eyes, over the course of four hours."
The New York Times 06/16/13
media
The Wall Street Journal 06/17/13
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
theatre
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/17/13
media
Golden Age For TV - But Where's The Golden Revenue? "This is, ironically, a new golden age of television, with no end of smart, sophisticated content - call it what you will. You might even call it TV, despite the fact you may never own one. TV is dead. Long live TV."
The Globe & Mail (Canada) 06/15/13
theatre
Broadway Has A Great Week, Basking In Tony Glow "Summer tourism and the PR boost of the Tony Awards combined to land 11 Broadway shows in the millionaires' club last week, with the four trophies scored by "Pippin" helping that revival to break the $1 million barrier for the first time."
Variety 06/17/13
theatre
Why New York Theatres Should Be Eligible For Regional Tony Awards "The regional Tony Award, which began from an initiative from the American Theater Critics Association to recognize theater outside New York, is the only chance for these theaters to get significant national attention -- which many then parlay into a fund raising tool for their institution."
Hartford Courant 06/14/13
media
Has The XBox Become Big Brother? "The Xbox One, you see, can recognize you from the others in the room. And, it can track up to six people in the room at a time! It can track whether you're actively watching the TV, whether you're watching or just have it on while you're doing other things. It can tell your reaction to what you're watching by looking for smiles or grimaces. It can even measure your pulse to see how the show is causing you to react. And, it can do all this in a room completely in the dark. And it can do this for six of you at a time."
JamesGames 06/16/13
music
How The Van Cliburn Competition Changed With Social Media And Streaming "They are already accustomed to being insulted by the closed-door decisions of jurors. They may crack under the strain of massive repertoire requirements. Some will quietly withdraw and go into insurance. But probably the most wrenching strain on a competition pianist today is the public battering they are exposed to by critics amateur and professional, now spreading their instant opinions by social media to a global audience."
Facts And Arts 06/15/13
issues
The Moscow News 06/13/13
media
Greek Court Reverses Shutdown Of National Broadcaster "A Greek court has ordered that state broadcaster ERT, which was shut down by the government last week, can resume transmissions. However, the court also upheld a plan by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras to replace ERT with a smaller broadcaster."
BBC 06/17/13
music
The Tennessean (Nashville) 06/17/13
visual
Ruins Of Ancient Cambodian City Discovered By Aerial Lasers "The discoveries matched years of archaeological ground research to reveal Mahendraparvata, a lost mediaeval city where people lived on a mist-shrouded mountain called Phnom Kulen, 350 years before the building of the famous Angkor Wat temple complex in north-western Cambodia."
The Age (Melbourne) 06/15/13 (includes video)
dance
Defecting Cuban Dancers Start Over In U.S. "These dancers could be among the young talent of any ballet company, but for now they are something else: Immigrants in the United States trying to land dancing opportunities while navigating cultural differences. The ballerinas fled from the Cuban National Ballet while on tour in Mexico."
Yahoo! (AP) 06/14/13
issues
Sacramento Lags In Arts Funding And Economic Benefits, Finds Study The most recent "Arts and Economic Prosperity" study from Americans for the Arts finds that arts organizers pumped $82 million into the region's economy (with attendees contributing almost $30 million more), but that, compared to cities of similar size such as Portland and Indianapolis, Sacramento sees less arts spending and notably less economic benefit.
The Sacramento Bee 06/16/13
media
Chinese Cinema's Answer To The Social Network The new hit movie
American Dreams in China tells "the story of three friends who launch an online English instruction school for Chinese students." The film, writes David Weigel, "is an oddly fascinating tribute to the three Cs: capitalism, China, and copyright theft."
Slate 06/17/13
music
Chicago Tribune 06/18/13
people
Thomas Pynchon Hides In Plain Sight "It is not clear why he so intently avoids the public eye. His literary peers - Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, among others - regularly appeared before the masses, either to teach fiction or grant interviews about this or that upcoming book. By contrast, Pynchon appears to interact only with people in his own line of work ... It's equally unclear how principled his avoidance of others is."
The Atlantic 06/17/13
ideas
Empathy Vs. Disgust In The Human Brain The sight of an injured rat hauling itself along a Manhattan sidewalk prompts Arielle Duhaime-Ross to consider the struggle between the two antithetical impulses.
Scientific American 06/15/13
ideas
The Ambivalence Manifesto "We are the Ambivalents, unable not to see both sides of the argument, frozen in the no-man's land between armies of true believers. We cannot speak our name, because there is no respectable way to confess that you believe two opposing propositions, no ballot that allows you to vote for competing candidates, no questionnaire in which you can tick the box, 'I agree with
both of these conflicting views'."
Slate 06/13/13
Monday, June 17, 2013
visual
What's Behind The Urge To Deface Public Paintings? "That is three highly publicised art attacks in less than a year. It looks as if a shared spirit is gripping the assailants. In all three cases over just a few months, each attacker thought she or he was making some kind of public statement."
The Guardian (UK) 06/16/13
people
The New York Times 06/15/13
music
Turkish Police Confiscate Piano From Taksim Square "Turkish police have reportedly confiscated a piano that was being used to serenade Istanbul's protesters. Davide Martello claims that officials seized his grand piano as part of Saturday's raid on Gezi Park."
The Guardian (UK) 06/17/13
visual
Detroit City Manager Plan Doesn't Include Sale Of DIA Art "The report makes no mention of monetizing the museum or its art to raise money to pay down the city's massive debt. But the report does not rule out the possibility that the museum might be asked to contribute revenue as part of the restructuring plan as it evolves."
Detroit Free Press 06/15/13
visual
Detroit Attorney General Says DIACan't Sell Its Art "The art collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts is held by the City of Detroit in charitable trust for the people of Michigan, and no piece in the collection may thus be sold, conveyed, or transferred to satisfy city debts or obligations."
Detroit Free Press 06/13/13
media
3D Movies Seem To Be Losing Their Allure "On the big family films there seems to be a lower proportion of people opting to choose 3D. There were very successful films like Madagascar 3 and Brave, and only about a third of their total revenue came from 3D ticket sales."
BBC 06/14/13
media
Gamers Rally Against Microsoft "Innovation" "Microsoft is promising new experiences with the Xbox One, which will require a constant Internet connection, because hundreds of thousands of machines in the cloud will enhance an individual console's computational power. But players seem to be hearing only what is being taken away by Microsoft's online monitoring of their gaming: the ability to resell or give away your games to whomever you choose, whenever you choose."
The New York Times 06/15/13
issues
The Oregonian 06/12/13
media
PBS' NewsHour Struggles To Survive "A deep financing crisis forcing layoffs and other cutbacks this week, some public television employees believe that format -- and a general unwillingness to embrace the digital realities facing journalism -- may be jeopardizing the program's future."
The New York Times 06/15/13
Sunday, June 16, 2013
media
Salon 06/16/13
ideas
The Awl 06/13/13
dance
Cincinnati.com 06/16/13
media
Secret Power Struggles Fill Back Rooms Of The Academy The new Oscars prez will be in place "to finish a $300 million movie museum whose 200 or so employees will line up with an existing academy staff about 260; to sort out contract renewals for two top executives; and to wrestle anew with perennial questions about the sustainability of the academy's crown jewel and primary source of income, the annual Oscar ceremony."
The New York Times 06/16/13
visual
Are Three Starchitects Ruining Germany? "How is it possible that these grand masters are responsible for construction sites where many things have been going wrong for years? What are the reasons that public building sites in Germany so often turn into scenes of disaster?"
Der Spiegel 06/14/13
theatre
What's The Deal With 'Digital Engagement' And Youngsters? "Luring millennial generation theatergoers has meant experimenting with a variety of outside-the-box events and tactics that center around a single conviction: Young patrons, Woolly believes, aren't content to show up at theater and passively watch a production."
Washington Post 06/14/13
ideas
Mental Floss 06/12/13
people
The New York Times 06/15/13
media
The Guardian (UK) 06/16/13
issues
BBC 06/15/13
music
iTunes Radio May Provide A Cash Bonanza For Music Labels "Just keeping it in the US, if we assume that 50 million people upgrade, and listen to 10 hours of iTunes Radio per month (about 200 tracks), that's $96.9m per month going to the labels. Pure gravy! Order some fresh flowers!"
The Guardian (UK) 06/16/13
ideas
Wired 06/15/13
visual
Swashbuckling Defenders Of Peru's Artistic Treasures Stake Out The Post Office "Gladiz Collatupa, an archaeologist, once stashed six mummies at her parents' house for safe keeping. That was when she dug for artifacts in the dirt of Peru, rich with the leavings of past cultures like the Inca and the Moche. Now she digs through packages at the post office instead, searching for ancient treasure being smuggled out of the country."
The New York Times 06/13/13
theatre
Returning To The Stage With A Terrifying Task "Probably this world of theatres and galleries is the strange fantasy, and most people in the world live lives closer to those desperate people on the verge of collapse every day."
The Observer (UK) 06/15/13
ideas
The Atlantic 06/13/13
theatre
The Star-Tribune (Mpls) 06/13/13
people
Is Kanye West The Andy Warhol Of Hip-Hop? "He said crazy stuff in this interview, but he also referenced making his album by going to the Louvre five times. He talked about architecture and design. When was the last time you read that in a hip-hop interview? You know, he's just - he's a genius."
NPR 06/14/13
media
BBC 06/14/13
people
The Observer (UK) 06/15/13
media
Los Angeles Times 06/14/13
visual
The Art Newspaper 06/14/13
music
The New York Times 06/14/13
ideas
The Observer (UK) 06/15/13
dance
io9 06/15/13
issues
Why Have Egyptian Artists Stormed And Occupied Government Offices? "The angry protesters say the firing is an example of how the ruling Muslim Brotherhood is trying to control Egypt's cultural scene through the new minister. Some fear the Islamists are trying to suppress artistic expression that runs counter to their conservatism."
NPR 06/16/13
music
BBC 06/14/13
music
The Observer (UK) 06/15/13
theatre
Hollywood Stars Might Be Tiring Of Broadway - Is That Good News? "You can't blame movie stars for thinking twice about the whole Broadway affair. In addition to the lower pay and smaller audience -- some of the least-watched films or TV shows will still get in front of more eyeballs than the most-watched Broadway plays -- the stage has that crazy work schedule."
Los Angeles Times 06/14/13
ideas
The New York Times 06/14/13
music
Denver Business Journal 06/14/13
theatre
Is A Good Bartender A Performance Artist? "The dive-bar geezer pouring shots with a surly flourish is offering a solo show, as is the nightclub barmaid popping open a Bud Light grasped between her thigh and calf."
Slate 06/14/13
issues
California Budget: Abysmal For Arts Funding The budget "positions California to extend its hold on last place in the nation in per capita funding for its state arts agency. It has ranked 50th since 2003, except for a brief escape in 2011 when Kansas temporarily eliminated all arts funding."
Los Angeles Times 06/15/13
media
Yep, Hollywood Is Totally Broken (And You Know Why: Technology) "There was none of the extra cash that fueled competitive commerce, gut calls, or real movies, the extra spec script purchase, the pitch culture, the grease that fueled the Old Abnormal: the way things had always been done. We were running on empty, searching for sources of new revenue."
Salon 06/15/13
Friday, June 14, 2013
music
The New York Times 06/14/13
music
Salzburg Director Will Leave Job Before Contract Is Finished "When Alexander Pereira was appointed last week as general manager of Teatro alla Scala, starting in 2015, the presumption was that he would remain in his current post, artistic director of the Salzburg Festival, until his contract ended in 2016. But the notion of a one-year overlap did not sit well with the festival's board, which has decided to let him go at the end of September 2014."
The New York Times 06/14/13
visual
German Art Forgery Ring Busted "The forgers are believed to have sold more than 400 pieces of counterfeit art painted in the style of artists such as Kandinsky and Malevich. The suspects are alleged to also have forged authenticity certificates to give the impression the paintings were previously unknown works."
The Guardian (UK) 06/13/13
issues
Is Censorship Stifling Australian Art? "Unfortunately, it seems that challenging Australian art is attacked and censored. And if we are only permitted to view "correct", officially sanctioned work then art's primary function - to reveal us to ourselves - is destroyed. "
The Guardian (UK) 06/14/13
theatre
Yahoo! (AP) 06/14/13
visual
BusinessWeek 06/14/13
music
The Jazz Opera "What can you think, as a jazz musician, when somebody comes up and asks you to write an opera? For a little while, I was so intimidated I stayed away from it."
The Wall Street Journal 06/14/13
music
Lawsuit Seeks To Free "Happy Birthday" From Copyright The proposed class action asks a federal court to declare the song to be in the public domain and that Warner/Chappel Music Inc, the music publishing arm of Warner Music Group, return "millions of dollars of unlawful licensing fees" it has collected for reproductions and public performances of the song.
The Globe & mail (Canada) 06/14/13
issues
UK Arts Funding Cuts Will Be 5 Percent "The extent of spending cuts had been expected to be much higher after the Treasury wrote to departments earlier in the year, warning most ministers they would have to cut up to 10 per cent of their budgets for the year 2015-16."
BBC 06/14/13
media
The Hollywood Reporter 06/13/13
music
Nashville Business Journal 06/13/13
music
The Star-Tribune (Minneapolis-St. Paul) 06/14/13
visual
The Daily Mail (UK) 06/11/13 (includes gallery)
theatre
A Playwright Edits Sweet Bird Of Youth Tennessee Williams "spent nearly two decades writing and rewriting, long after productions had opened and closed, long after film adaptations and printed texts appeared. There are an eye-watering numbers of performable versions. In some of them characters survive, in others, they don't. Endings are sometimes hopeful, in others gruesomely tragic." James Graham writes about sorting through them all for a new production at the Old Vic.
The Independent (UK) 06/12/13
dance
ABT's Ballet Mistress Remembers Vaganova Irina Kolpakova: "Vaganova told us to use all parts of our body together at the same time. Not only this movement for the leg, this movement for the arms, this movement you're supposed to learn how to use for your head, neck. No, all together,
all the time."
The Paris Review 06/13/13
dance
ABT Names New Ballet Master "Keith Roberts, a former principal dancer with American Ballet Theater, has been named a ballet master, Kevin McKenzie, the theater's artistic director announced Thursday. The appointment is effective this September."
The New York Times 06/13/13
ideas
Why The Distinction Between 'Less' And 'Fewer" Matters "In fact, far from being a mere linguistic slip, this error does a profound disservice to concepts that are at the very foundation of modern technology. The fundamental distinction that is glossed over in that usage is the one between the continuous and the discrete."
Scientific American 06/11/13
people
Evelyn Waugh On Truman Capote "Of Mr. Capote's prose it is hard to speak temperately. It is some sort of jargon quite unfamiliar to me. Of the information he seeks to convey, I am no judge. I have a distant acquaintance with a few of the subjects."
The Paris Review (The Spectator) 06/13/13
theatre
A Look At Honolulu's Theater Scene "Except for Honolulu Theatre for Youth (HTY) there is no resident professional theater in Hawaii." And when one local directeor was doing a fellowship at DC's Arena Stage and was discussing with colleagues the purpose of theater, he surprised them by saying this: "The purpose of the theater is community service."
HowlRound 06/13/13
ideas
The Power of Parting Words "Goodbye is larger than just a word. It encompasses an entire ritual." And why do many of us, for instance, end an email message with "Thanks" even when there's been no occasion for gratitude to the reader?
Scientific American 06/11/13
ideas
New Scientist 06/13/13
Thursday, June 13, 2013
issues
BBC 06/13/13
visual
Oprah Gives $12 Million To DC Museum "After previously giving $1m (£640,000) to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, her total contribution is its biggest so far. The museum on Washington's National Mall is due to be completed in 2015."
BBC 06/13/13
ideas
The Physical Benefits Of Laughter "At the physiological level, humor reduces levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and is thought to enhance our immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems. Laughter also provides a workout for the muscles of the diaphragm, abdomen, and face. A joke can raise our spirits, or ease our tension. If we're able to laugh during a stressful situation, we can put psychological distance between ourselves and the stress."
The American Scholar Summer, 2013
media
New Statesman 06/07/13
music
Struggling With Who Sets Value For Music "None of the people I met in D.C. last week were content to create music in a society that doesn't value it, either aesthetically or economically. We should not be content either."
NewMusicBox 06/12/13
issues
The Architecture Critic Who's Making A Difference In New York The New York Times' Michael Kimmelman has "all but dispensed with reviewing buildings, focusing instead on 'who benefits from them and who doesn't.' Architecture, as he defines it, encompasses real estate, zoning, transportation, bike lanes, rising sea levels, affordable housing, and the workings of power--not the least of which his own."
New York Magazine 06/07/13
visual
The Art Newspaper 06/12/13
media
The Stage 06/11/13
issues
How The "Black Swan" Ruling Could Change How Interns Are Used "For anyone who has ever had an unpaid internship, the Black Swan situation sounds familiar, which makes this ruling even more encouraging. Indeed, many internships appear to be within the grounds of the very internship that a U.S. federal judge just found illegal, both setting a precedent for future disgruntled worker bees and also scaring potential intern abusers into paying their summer or short-term staffers some actual money."
The Atlantic 06/12/13
ideas
Want To Become A Less Rigid Thinker? Read Novels "Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? It's a common condition, but a highly problematic one. The compulsion to quell that unease can inspire snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making. Fortunately, new research suggests a simple antidote for this affliction: Read more literary fiction."
Pacific Standard 06/12/13
media
Greece's Public Broadcaster Will Be Back Soon, Say Officials "The government promised to relaunch ERT within weeks, saying it was taken off air so suddenly only due to fears that workers would damage state equipment. ... Many Greeks have little love for ERT journalists and the state broadcaster is often cited as an example of inefficiency, overspending and jobs given in return for political favors. ... About 2,000 of its 2,600 employees are non-journalists."
Reuters 06/12/13
people
Joni Mitchell On Being Venerated "Depends on the venerator. You know, I mean, in a certain way, honour died in World War II. You know, it just kinda died. Not very many people know how to do it anymore. If they honour you wrong, it makes you arrogant, because it stung. If they honour you right, it's humbling because it's inspiring."
CBC 06/10/13 (includes video)
theatre
L.A.'s Center Theatre Group Can't Stop The Deficits "The 2012-13 fiscal year that ends June 30 is expected to yield the fifth consecutive splash of red ink since mid-2008 for the company that runs the Ahmanson Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Kirk Douglas Theatre."
Los Angeles Times 06/12/13
music
Pittsburgh Symphony Settles On New Musicians' Contract A Year Early "Management and musicians of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra have settled a new contract more than a year before the current one expires. The agreement calls for a 4 percent wage increase for the 2013-14 season, a wage freeze in 2014-15 and a 3 percent increase in 2015-16."
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 06/11/13
media
Pay Your Interns, Judge Orders Hollywood Studio "A Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated federal and New York state minimum wage laws by not paying production interns who, Judge William H. Pauley III said, were effectively regular employees on the set of
Black Swan."
Salon 06/12/13
issues
The Guardian (UK) 06/12/13
dance
Eliot Feld Expands His Dance Education Project Into NYC Public High School "Every year, roughly 30,000 students ... audition for Ballet Tech, formally known as the New York City Public School for Dance, which provides dance training run by Mr. Feld along with academic study for 156 students in grades 4 through 8. ... Beginning in the fall of 2014, the organization will team up with the Professional Performing Arts High School, allowing the students to continue ... through 12th grade."
The New York Times 06/13/13 (includes slide show)
dance
The Guardian (UK) 06/13/12 (includes video)
ideas
What Creativity Researchers Know About Performers "Three seeming contradictions - energy/rest, extroversion/introversion, and openness/sensitivity - are not separate phenomena but together seem to form the core of the creative performer's personality."
Scientific American 06/10/13
theatre
The Guardian (UK) 06/12/13
people
Yoram Kaniuk, 83, Maverick Israeli Writer A scion of Jewish Palestine's high-culture aristocracy, a veteran of Israel's war of independence, a prolific author with an innovative (not to say quirky) prose style, and a provocative commentator on his nation's social and political issues, Kaniuk struggled for acceptance in literary circles (and a decent income) until a 2010 memoir made him into a national celebrity.
The Guardian (UK) 06/10/13
people
The Dozens Of Deaths Of Yoram Kaniuk Nicole Krauss: "He used to say that in 1941, he was killed by the
Einsatzgruppen in Ternopil, Ukraine, even though he was eleven at the time, and busy eating sour cream on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. When he was seventeen, he volunteered for the
Palmach, the strike force of the Haganah, fought bloody battles for Israel's independence in the Judean hills, was shot in the leg, and died in the arms of a nun who quoted the second century rabbi Ben-Azzai in Germanic Hebrew."
The New Yorker 06/12/13
media
Trauma Queens: Women Who Love Law & Order: SVU Emily Nussbaum: "The audience was two-thirds female, young women, for the most part - the same demographic that drives fan fiction, romance novels, and vampire stories. 'Oh, you enjoy this, do you?' an angry john says, in the
SVU pilot. 'Is this how you get your rocks off?' He's talking to some detectives, but he might as well have been addressing viewers, for whom the show's pulp appeal was simultaneously addictive and faintly shameful."
The New Yorker 06/10/13
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
dance
NYCity Ballet's Master Marks 30 Years "At age 66, Peter Martins, the ballet master in chief, has weathered 30 years at its helm. He may well end up lasting longer than the 35 years enjoyed by the company's founding ballet master, George Balanchine."
The New York Times 06/11/13
issues
Much-Awaited Report On Liberal Arts Education To Land Among Controversy "The report, requested with much fanfare in 2010 by a bipartisan group in Congress and produced by a blue-ribbon commission assembled by the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, is likely to land as controversy continues to surround Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, the academy's embattled president and one of the report's prime movers."
The New York Times 06/11/13
visual
Massive Remaking Of The Way China Looks "All over China, planners are busy emptying the countryside of people, leveling villages, and replacing the small-plot agriculture that defined rural parts of the country for millennia with American-style industrial agriculture. Urban areas, meanwhile, have lost most of their distinctive characteristics."
New York Review of Books 06/12/13
theatre
Crosscut 06/10/13
media
Chicago Reader 06/11/13
music
MinnPost 06/11/13
issues
Huffington Post 06/11/13
visual
Feds Seize Millions' Worth Of Allegedly Smuggled Antiquities From Jailed Dealer "Federal agents have seized an estimated $100 million in art over the last two years from a prominent Manhattan antiquities dealer they describe as one of the most prolific antiquities smugglers in the world. Subhash Kapoor, a 64-year-old American citizen, awaits trial in India, where he is accused of being part of an antiquities smuggling ring that American and Indian investigators say spanned continents."
Los Angeles Times 06/11/13 (includes slide show)
media
Greece Shuts Down Its Public Broadcaster For Reorganization "The Greek government has shut down the public broadcaster ERT, calling it a 'haven of waste'. ... While all 2,500 employees would be sacked, [said a government spokesman,] they would be paid compensation and would be able to apply for work when the corporation relaunches as a smaller, independent public broadcaster."
BBC 06/11/13
dance
Covent Garden Clash: Royal Ballet Quits Royal Opera Production "After what the [Royal] Opera House called 'artistically differing approaches to the project' between the director Stefan Herheim and choreographer Johan Kobborg, Mr Kobborg has left the production [of Verdi's
Les Vêpres siciliennes], along with 32 dancers from the Royal Ballet, the Royal Ballet School and the Royal Danish Ballet."
The Independent (UK) 06/07/13
ideas
Scientific American 06/11/13
people
Ai Weiwei Says America's NSA Is Becoming Like China "Even though we know governments do all kinds of things I was shocked by the information about the US surveillance operation, Prism. To me, it's abusively using government powers to interfere in individuals' privacy. ... I lived in the United States for 12 years. This abuse of state power goes totally against my understanding of what it means to be a civilised society, and it will be shocking for me if American citizens allow this to continue."
The Guardian (UK) 06/11/13
people
Now Iran Has A Jon Stewart - And His Satire is Illegal "[Kambiz] Hosseini's scathing and hysterical news podcast is an essential part of the weekly media diet of Iran's middle class. Produced by the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, and incorporating sound bites from the week's headlines and commentary from Hosseini, the show channels the pathos of a generation desperate to intervene in a meaningful way in Iran's political charades."
The Atlantic 06/11/13
music
The Australian 06/11/13
dance
Sylvie Guillem Performance In Italy Is Cancelled So Theater Workers Can Demonstrate "Guillem has arrived in Florence to prepare for William Forsythe's
Steptext. However with the uncertainty of the future of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and with the almost certain elimination of its dance company, MaggioDanza, the 10 June performance [was] cancelled 'to allow the theatre workers to participate in a demonstration'."
Gramilano (Milan) 06/08/13
issues
The Stage (UK) 06/10/13
theatre
Adapting A Play For YouTube "In a small theater on the campus of East Los Angeles College, actor Christopher Gorham was performing a scene from the David Henry Hwang play
Yellow Face over and over again as a camera crew went through several set-ups of the dialogue-heavy sequence."
Los Angeles Times 06/10/13
people
Why Natalie Dessay Is Leaving Opera For Theater "There's nothing left for me to sing. I've done most of the roles I could do. I don't want to play Juliette. At my age? Please! Or Lucia or Adina or anything else like that. That's why I'm quitting. You have to love your repertoire. For a while I thought it was fun, but no. On to something else."
Examiner.com 06/10/13
people
What Pussy Riot Won't Do Rioter Yekaterina Samutsevich: "Legal, paid music performances: We're offered them to this day and we always turn them down. It's just not what we're interested in. In addition, there's all sorts of commercial activities; we've been approached to make profit, and we're against that. We're also against any sort of public statement. What we specialize in are guerrilla performances."
Salon 06/10/13
music
Gramilano (Milan) 06/10/13
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
visual
Met Museum Returns Sculptures To Cambodia "The life-size sculptures, known as the "kneeling attendants", had been displayed at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art for nearly 20 years. The museum pledged to return the artefacts after evidence suggested they had been illegally exported."
BBC 06/11/13
music
Kiri Te Kanawa Talks About Her Suspicion Of Talent Contests "There's got to be a period of study, from age 16 to 22, and then it moves along. You can't just think: 'Oh, I can sing in the bathroom, I'll be fine tonight on stage.' Not at all. There is such a demand on the voice for it to be able to produce night after night."
The Guardian (UK) 06/10/13
issues
Art Everywhere? Is That Really A Good Thing? "This is a scheme that prioritises the accessibility of art over quality. The most obvious problem is that they will be prints of real pictures, pictures that are better seen in the flesh, so to speak."
The Scotsman 06/11/13
music
New Scan Illuminates Historic Opera Score "When contemporary critics complained that the three-hour opera was too long, composer Luigi Cherubini blacked out its coda, according to legend. Now musicians have the full length of the original 1797 piece."
San Jose Mercury News 06/11/13
media
Why Does Hollywood Kill Off Its Gay Characters? "Since Philadelphia there have been, by my count, 257 Academy Award-nominated portrayals of heterosexual characters, and 23 of gay, bisexual or transsexual characters. Of the heterosexual characters, 16.5% (59) die. Of the LGBT characters, 56.5% (13) die. Of the 10 LGBT characters who live, only four get happy endings. That's four characters in 19 years."
The Guardian (UK) 06/11/13
theatre
Tony Awards Show Progress In Racial Casting "While casting minority actors in roles that would traditionally go to white performers has been common for decades, as a way to offer fresh perspectives on a classic or to recognize an actor's talents (or, yes, to sell tickets), the awards for Ms. Tyson and Ms. Miller helped ensure that these Tonys would be remembered."
The New York Times 06/10/13
ideas
Algorithms Are Running Everything Now - Even Movies "Thousands of times every second, above your head, someone will search for something on Google. It will be an algorithm that determines what they see; an algorithm that is their gatekeeper to the internet. It will be another algorithm that determines what adverts accompany the search--gatekeeping does not pay for itself."
More Intelligent Life 06/13
visual
Hyperallergic 06/07/13
music
Why Do The Chinese Love Western Classical Music? Former ambassador Nicholas Platt: "One of the things that strikes me is that most of the literature and the music and the philosophy and so forth are very practically oriented, directed toward the solution of problems, the description of events, or program music with pictures of moonlight on water. You know the routine. And it's beautiful. But it's not very abstract. And I think classical music has some appeal to the Chinese because of its abstractness. It may fill a hole in their needs. There are simpler explanations. They love grand things - big buildings and big bridges - and Western classical music is grand."
The Philadelphia Inquirer 06/09/13
music
Philadelphia Orchestra Ends China Tour In A Casino "Where else does your hotel serve cupcakes and ice cream for breakfast? And offer wake-up calls from Shrek? In Cantonese? [Macau, the] pleasure capital of Asia - one that is said to outstrip Las Vegas for superficial splendor - is only the latest unlikely host of the Philadelphia Orchestra."
The Philadelphia Inquirer 06/10/13
dance
It's Official: Bolshoi Dumps Nikolai Tsiskaridze A Bolshoi spokesperson confirms that the principal dancer and Russian media celebrity - who has spent at least the last two years loudly criticizing the Bolshoi's management, artistic product and renovation, and has repeatedly demanded that he himself be appointed the theater's director - will not have his contract renewed when it expires at the end of this month.
The Guardian (UK) 06/10/13
ideas
Does 'Yeah, No...' Mean Yes Or No (Or Both)? "In fact, according to research by a couple of Australian linguists, 'yeah, no' (and its less popular sibling 'yes, no') has a hidden logic all its own and can be used in a number of discrete ways. Listen to Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo dissect a construction that appears to be contradictory but is actually quite useful."
Slate 06/10/13 (audio)
issues
Is It Okay (Or Even Legal) To Make Art From Other People's 'Abandoned' DNA? "It has been described as both 'creepy' and 'cool'. But amid the publicity surrounding a provocative art project that creates 'facial reconstruction' sculptures based on the analysis of DNA on cigarette butts, chewing gum, and other detritus collected from the streets of New York City, one question has remained unasked: is it legal?"
New Scientist 06/10/13
media
The Hollywood Reporter 06/07/13
people
Opera Conductor Bruno Bartoletti, 86 "[While he] conducted around the world, including in Rome, at London's Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and, for many years, at the Maggio Musicale festival in Florence," he was best known for his 35 years as artistic director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, which he heped make into one of the world's top companies.
The Washington Post 06/10/13
people
Descartes Gets No Respect Anymore, But He Still Matters "It's a sign of his range that Descartes has made such a wide variety of enemies. Psychologists, feminists, biologists, animal rights activists, and Al Gore have all lined up to denounce him. ... Unloved, his arguments served up to undergraduates as target practice, Descartes has fallen on hard times."
Slate 06/07/13
theatre
UK National Theatre's Cinemacasts A Surprise Hit "On 16 May, the NT Live broadcast of
This House played to 45,000 people in cinemas around the UK. ... Another 20,000 watched overseas. More will follow with encore screenings. Since the first such broadcast in 2009 - when Helen Mirren's Phèdre was seen by 50,000 people worldwide - NT Live has achieved a total audience of 1.3 million."
The Guardian (UK) 06/09/13
visual
Christie's Pulled Works From Auction Over Forgery Concerns "Christie's withdrew ten works by Brazilian artists from its auctions of Latin American art in New York last month ... 'pending additional research', says a spokeswoman for the auction house. All of the works came from the Rio de Janeiro-based Ralph Santos Oliveira collection."
The Art Newspaper 06/05/13
ideas
Slate 06/06/13
issues
Can China's Equivalent Of Colonial Williamsburg Become A Hotbed Of High Culture? "About 75 miles southwest of Shanghai is a beautifully restored, 1300-year-old 'water-town' called Wuzhen where Chinese tourists flock each year." Yet with a landmark new performing arts center and an equally new international theater festival that's both artistically challenging and a big box-office success, Wuzhen is making a bid to become a cultural destination along the lines of Avignon, Aix, and Edinburgh.
Salon 06/08/13
issues
Royal Albert Hall Did Record-Breaking Business In 2012 "With a wide-ranging programme that included the BBC Proms, Cirque du Soleil, concerts by Gary Barlow and Emeli Sande, boxing and tennis tournaments and the world premieres of
Skyfall and
Titanic in 3D, ... [the London venue] reported a record year for business in 2012 with operating income growing 4.3% to £16.8 million to produce an operating surplus of £4.5 million."
The Stage (UK) 06/06/13
people
Esther Williams, 91, Aquatic Movie Star (And Godmother Of Synchronized Swimming) "With her beauty, sunny personality and background as a champion swimmer, Williams shot to stardom in the 1940s in the 'aqua musical,' an odd sub-genre of films that became an enormous hit with the moviegoing mainstream, fanned popular interest in synchronized swimming and turned Williams into Hollywood's Million Dollar Mermaid."
Los Angeles Times 06/06/13 (includes video)
people
Slate 06/10/13 (video)