Stories

Australian Ballet Gets Its First Black Principal

Davi Ramos grew up in a Rio favela and didn’t start ballet lessons until he was 12. Only two years later, he competed in Youth America Grand Prix and, subsequently, the Prix de Lausanne; he studied in London and apprenticed in Amsterdam before coming to Melbourne, drawn by AD David Hallberg. - Dance Australia

Schools Report Surge In Library Book Checkouts After Cellphone Bans

Students at Pleasure Ridge Park High School are checking out books at a rate librarians say hasn’t been seen before, coinciding with a districtwide cell phone ban that took effect at the start of the 2025 school year. - Aging Untold

Lucas Museum Architects And The Building Of Fantasies

MAD Architects is a team that has completed major cultural and residential projects in 16 countries and counting. Their signature is hard-to-believe designs that do all of the shouting — etched towers churning like hula-hooping women; a museum honed like an ancient stone; an opera house resembling a mountain, bursting from the ground. - The New York Times

BBC Is Preparing To Shut Down Some Radio And TV Channels: Report

“Deadline hears that the BBC is expected to unveil what one source described as ‘audience-facing’ closures next week, as the UK broadcaster ramps up efforts to save £500 million ($660M) over the coming years. … Speculation (is) rife that youth network BBC Three is at risk of being unplugged for a second time.” - Deadline

Chicago Symphony Rebrands

The changes come as the CSO prepares to welcome its new, buzzy music director, Klaus Mäkelä, who will officially step into the role next fall. - WBEZ

Australia’s Performing Arts Sector Is In Crisis

Too many of our finest performers and musicians feel compelled to leave Australia. Productions, concert seasons and festivals are being cancelled or scaled back. - ArtsHub

Author Of One Of France’s Biggest Hit Novels Of The Year Accused Of Using AI

C'était ça ou mourir (It Was That Or Die) by Thélyson Orélien has sold over 35,000 copies and been hailed in France’s literary mediasphere as a revelation. On Monday, an anonymous X (Twitter) account claimed the AI-spotting software Pangram found that “this novel was written almost entirely by an artificial intelligence.” - Euronews

How AI Is Changing The Art Of Translation

Many literary translators fear that if machine-assisted translation becomes the norm in book publishing, it could fundamentally change the nature of their profession. - Publishers Weekly

Judge Granted Last-Minute Pause On Paramount/Warner Deal

With an 11 am PT virtual hearing before Judge Martinez-Olguin widely viewed as a rubber stamping of the September 21 antitrust settlement and hence the mega-merger itself, the granting of Block the Merger’s move makes it almost certain the deal won’t be formally approved today. - Deadline

Is AI Above The Law? Outside? Under?

At least for now, then, robots legally are things, not persons. But neither category quite fits. Instead, robots are outlaws: they lie outside the protection of the law, and their actions are not answerable to it. - The New Yorker

Former Microsoft CEO Repairs Damaged Calder Mobile In U.S. Senate Building

When Kim and Jon Shirley visited Alexander Calder’s Mountains and Clouds (1976/1986) in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building, the stabile portion of the sculpture (the mountains) was there, but the mobile part (clouds) had been removed due to structural damage. Ten years and $10 million later, the clouds are back. - ARTnews

The Powers Of Bibliotherapy

Today, bibliotherapy takes many different forms, from literature courses run for prison inmates to reading circles for elderly people suffering from dementia. Sometimes it can simply mean one-on-one or group sessions for “lapsed” readers who want to find their way back to an enjoyment of books.  - The New Yorker

The African American History and Culture Museum, Ten Years On

The decades-long effort got its final push with the bipartisan efforts of Congressman John Lewis of Georgia, a stalwart of the civil rights movement, and Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas; the bill establishing the museum was signed by President George W. Bush in 2003. - The Smithsonian

Judging The Aftermath Of The Paramount/Warner Deal “Concessions”

“These promises are extremely, exquisitely hard to enforce,” said Alvaro Bedoya, an antitrust lawyer, likening Paramount’s concessions to a pinkie promise. If Paramount fell short of its spending commitments, for instance, attorneys general would need to rely on the company’s own data to prove it, Bedoya said. - The Wall Street Journal

A New Wave Of Documentary Theater Sweeps Latin America

“Over the last three decades, a growing cohort of theater artists across Latin America have … used journalism, documentary and memoir to explore the boundaries between fact and fiction while confronting their region’s troubled past and turbulent present in a genre known as Theater of the Real.” - T — The New York Times Style Magazine

Our Free Newsletter

Join our 30,000 subscribers

Latest

Don't Miss