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Choreographer Sues Maker Of Video Game “Fortnite” For Stealing His Moves

Kyle Hanagami, a Los Angeles-based commercial choreographer, has filed suit against Epic Games for taking, without permission or compensation, his copyrighted movement from a dance video that went viral and selling it to players of the game Fortnite Battle Royale for their avatars to use. - Radar

Kirill Serebrennikov Has Left Russia For Good

After a long period of house arrest and a travel ban based on embezzlement charges widely understood to be trumped-up, the dissident director has settled in Germany. - Variety

Paris Opera’s Chief Wants A German-Opera-House-Style Group Of Staff Singers

"He plans to create a troupe of 15 to 20 professional singers who will be on salary (not working as freelancers, as most soloists do) and take all but the biggest roles. He believes greater job stability had become more appealing over the past two years." - The New York Times

How The Letter “Z” Got Co-Opted By The Russian Army Invading Ukraine

In short, the letter Z (which doesn’t actually exist in the Cyrillic alphabet used in Russia) has been transformed and made toxic; it’s a remarkable example of how swiftly and decisively the meaning of a symbol can be completely reinvented, seeming at random. - Fast Company

The Inventor Of The Animated GIF Just Died

While he claimed to have “never got 1 cent” for creating the GIF technology, his invention transformed the internet ecosystem and the ways in which people communicate online. - Slate

What Did Jefferson’s Call To “The Pursuit Of Happiness” Really Mean?

Jefferson’s Enlightenment contemporaries fully understood. They accepted happiness as our greatest good. But only in theory. And theory, as they were often quick to insist, was not practice. - The American Scholar

Twelve Masterful Literary Descriptions Of Food

Even in the hands of the greats, food scenes can seem less than central to a story, more filler or filigree than substance. - The Atlantic

What We Learned At America’s Biggest Writers’ Convention

This year’s conference was generally low on jargon, but there were still notable moments of turbidity in the conference guide. - Los Angeles Times

Which Museums Have Recovered Visitors As COVID Eases

As elsewhere in the world, the US museums that struggled the most in 2021 were the big names: the world-famous museums in the big cities that have been gutted by the evaporation of international tourism. - The Art Newspaper

How A Couple Of Philadelphia Stations Invented The Local TV Newscast (And Messed Up American Race Relations)

In 1965, KYW-TV debuted Eyewitness News, followed in 1970 by WPVI's Action News, creating many of the local newscast conventions still in place today. Soon those formats were copied all over the country. Yet the "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality made some longstanding American problems worse. - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Social Media’s Impact On Teens

Many researchers say things like Instagram and TikTok probably aren’t entirely bad for all adolescents. They’re not entirely good, either, and can cause documented problems with body image, but the impact varies. - The Verge

MIT’s Robot Dog Is Now Patrolling Pompeii

"Spot is agile enough to inspect narrow passages and traverse uneven surfaces, and will collect terrain data alongside a laser-scanning drone released to fly over the site and conduct autonomous 3D scans. The robot will also be used to sniff out underground tunnels made by tomb raiders." - Artnet

A Defiant Wall Mural That Has Galvanized Belarus

Before the battle over the mural became a symbol of the nation they would call New Belarus, there were just three nondescript buildings in the middle of a city of two million, a courtyard set around a children’s playground: swings, a seesaw and a roundabout, surrounded by benches. - The New York Times

What It’s Like To Take Over Heidi Schreck’s Role In “What The Constitution Means To Me”

Cassie Beck: "I started to make choices in my mind and see where my sense of humor might infuse it a little differently. I realized (Heidi) didn't write just a performance piece for her to perform. She ultimately wrote a very well-structured, amusingly laid-out and emotional play." - Forbes

Surprising: Museums Haven’t Yet Embraced TikTok

The total number of followers on TikTok for all 100 museums is 1.3 million. That is compared to a total of 55.3 million followers on Instagram, 47.3 million on Twitter and 33.6 million on Facebook. Startling when you consider that the platform was the most popular website in 2021. - The Art Newspaper

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