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The Egyptian Government Just Rented Out The Pyramids To MrBeast

MrBeast says on the podcast that he worked with the Egyptian government to get access to the historic site. “I’ve never been inside of it,” he says. “I want to just find secrets and go through all the rooms and the tombs and that kind of stuff.” - Fast Company

Fired Members Of Dallas Black Dance Theatre Reunite For A Final Performance

The National Labor Relations Board ruled in their favor and they're getting compensation, but the ten dancers are declining to return to DBDT. So they got together for one last performance — a program of new pieces collectively titled Emergence —before figuring out where their careers will take them next. - KERA (Dallas)

How Judith Jamison Shaped The Alvin Ailey Dance Company

Under Jamison’s direction, the Ailey dancers grew more and more godlike in technique without losing earthly looseness and soul. - The New Yorker

The Year That Was In NY Theatre

Broadway returned to boom times, and several commercially produced shows did gangbusters business in smaller theatres, but Off Broadway’s nonprofit companies continued to struggle. Yet a lot of what made the city artistically exciting this year required that all parts of the ecosystem flourish. - The New Yorker

How Music Shapes Our Future Perceptions

“Sound directs our passage through time. It shapes our orientation to the future moment and also to the moment when the future stops.” - The Wall Street Journal

Ballet Genius/Putin Superfan/Notorious Train Wreck Sergei Polunin Says He’s Leaving Russia

The Ukrainian-born dancer, who has three tattoos of Putin (despite the Russian military's near-obliteration of his hometown, Kherson), now says "My time in Russia ran out a long time ago … I've fulfilled my mission here." Last week he posted a message calling for peace negotiations and promptly lost his job. - CBS News

Rousseau’s Philosophical Diagnosis Of What Ails Us (Still Relevant Today)

Rousseau was, in effect, the diagnostician of despair who captured the affliction of alienation in all of its dimensions. The source of our affliction was the very thing we thought made us better: civilization. - The American Scholar

How Did A Publishing Startup Land 25 Books On The Bestseller List In A Year?

So far this year, Bloom has landed 23 books and two series on the New York Times best-seller list. Last year, it surpassed $100 million in gross sales, and its 2024 sales are up 58 percent. - The New York Times

Nearly 15,000 Media Jobs In The US Were Eliminated In 2024

"While the 14,909 jobs lost by mid-December this year offered an improvement on the 21,417 jobs cut in 2023, it would be unwise to consider this year a 'comeback' by any stretch. Combined, the number of jobs lost between 2023-24 more than quadrupled the amount lost between 2021-22." - TheWrap (MSN)

Charlotte Symphony Is Making Big Investments In Immersive Performances

“It is going to be a space you can choose where to be and how to listen,” Fisk said. “We want people to lose themselves in this music and to be swallowed up by the experience of being part of nature.” - Charlotte Observer (MSN)

Why Some Non-Christian Composers Are Attracted To Christmas Material: David Lang

"Every Christmas, I ask myself this question, because accidentally I — a Jewish composer — have also written something of a Christmas classic: the little match girl passion. Cynics may think that these artists make Christmas music because they’re chasing the market. I believe there is something deeper at work." - The New York Times

Movie Producers Sue National Parks System Over Permits In Parks

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Wyoming federal court, Alexander Rienzie and Connor Burkesmith challenge the constitutionality of federal permit and fee requirements on First Amendment grounds. They accuse National Park Services of censoring speech by requiring advance permission to film commercial content. - The Hollywood Reporter

Can A Musical Be A Better Way Of Focusing Politics On An Issue?

Like the drama series about the Post Office scandal aired a year ago, “Mr Bates vs The Post Office,” dramatizations of the news can often draw more attention to an event. They can also build public pressure for injustices to be addressed. 

The Top 10 Bookselling Stories Of 2024

"We saw booksellers, publishers, and others in the industry step up to aid stores that sustained extensive hurricane damage, call for greater rights and representation for people with diverse identities, and more." - Publishers Weekly

What Nonprofit Theater Leaders Told The NEA

"(A) series of listening sessions, held this past summer, helped the (NEA theater) team to learn more about evolving challenges, successful strategies, and potential pathways to future sustainability of the field. Those conversations have now been distilled and analyzed in a new report." - National Endowment for the Arts

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