The current emphasis on diversity and inclusivity, however warranted, endangers or distorts a cultural canon that we cannot (in fact, must not) wholly jettison. Indeed, the canon is newly pertinent. - American Purpose
Gia Kourlas: "To get a better understanding of what this strange time has been like, I checked in with … a member of the corps de ballet, a soloist and a principal to track their experiences … as they made their way to opening night." - The New York Times
Audiobooks aren’t cheating. They aren’t a just-add-water shortcut to cheap intellectualism. For so many titles in this heyday of audio entertainment, it’s not crazy to ask the opposite: Compared to the depth that can be conveyed via audio, does the flat text version count? - The New York Times
"A global survey of working conditions has found long working hours are now the norm across the film and television industries worldwide, with 50- to 60-hour workweeks common among production crewmembers in the 20 countries surveyed." - The Hollywood Reporter
"Workers at the Baltimore Museum of Art have announced plans to form a union, making the employees the latest in a nationwide push for better working conditions and higher pay at art museums, a field that suffers from drastic inequities." - Artnet
"The protest is a revival of efforts this summer …(against) what they describe as a toxic culture. … Former employees passed out fliers decrying artistic director Bernard Havard's $745,015 pay and spoke to patrons about the lack of racial representation at the theater." - MSN (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
"The contract went into effect Oct. 1 and runs through Oct. 3, 2026. The deal includes matters of health care, restoration of the musicians' pre-pandemic salaries by October 2022 through incremental increases. Musicians also negotiated for additional leave for birth and adoption of a child." - Houston Chronicle
"(With) the Staunton, Va.-based troupe, known for its Elizabethan-style, no-frills approach to the classics, … convulsed by defections and division, it has abruptly canceled its entire fall slate of in-person productions." - MSN (The Washington Post)
The author of ten novels, born and raised on Zanzibar and resettled in England as a refugee in the 1960s, was cited for "his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents." - The Guardian
Musical genres have long had a peculiar imaginative power and participatory quality. They aren’t just labels imposed by an industry; they’re shaped by passions and arguments, love and disgust, allegiances and disavowals. - The Atlantic
European movie theaters suffered a 70.4% year-on-year drop to €2.6 billion ($3 billion) in box office revenue in 2020. In terms of admissions, there was an annual drop of 68.4% to 430 million tickets sold. - Variety
Most of these prankster examples either take a jab at the art market. This intersection seems to have escalated in the last five years, with the impact of these artworks escalated by the capacity for social media to take their commentary viral in real time. - ArtsHub
Out of almost a thousand 18-70 year olds who watch at least 5 hours of television per week, more are watching via streaming platforms than traditional pay-TV services, according to research conducted by the National Research Group. - Variety
When Hollywood technicians debated how to make movies sound natural, they were unwittingly following a trail blazed by 18th-century architects, who spent decades working out the acoustic conventions of modern theatres. - Aeon
Though this opera isn't Terence Blanchard's first work to qualify as contemporary classical, he's best known as a jazz drummer and film score composer. So the paper's contemporary classical maven, Seth Colter Walls, and jazz writer Giovanni Russonello went to see the piece together. - The New York Times
