"After more than a year of planning, fundraising, obtaining nonprofit status, holding auditions and settling on a name (Azura Ballet), that vision – to revitalize ballet culture and infuse it with a profound emphasis on the mental and emotional well-being of the dancers – is becoming a reality." - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
A controversial Hungarian law bans the "display and promotion of homosexuality" in materials accessible to children, such as books and films. The museum recently hosted the World Press Photo exhibition, featuring shots of LGBT people in the Philippines. - BBC
"The orchestra first visited China in September 1973, marking a thaw in U.S.-China relations just as the two nations began normalizing ties. … Fourteen of its members (are) traveling to China, including 73-year old Davyd Booth, a violinist who was on the orchestra’s first tour to the country ago." - AP
An ardent metalhead and community college dropout who was shaped by a turbulent immigrant experience, the 29-year-old Ursus Magana has built his company around supporting artists who are often isolated by their creativity, and by their oddness. - Wired
In the 1880s, the script was rejected by major theaters all over Europe. Its first London performance (1891) was denounced by the Telegraph as "a dirty act done publicly." (The plot involves incest, syphilis, and euthanasia.) Michael Billington identifies three productions that changed attitudes toward the play. - The Guardian
Jaroslaw Suchan, a former director of the Museum of Art in Lodz whose contract was not renewed by the Law and Justice government, said that the party had “treated culture as an ideological weapon.” But if a new government simply fired Glinski’s appointees, “they’d be repeating the last government’s behaviors.” - The New York Times
"High-end fashion houses like Burberry have experience in the performing arts, creating bespoke ballet costumes for special performances. The idea is to expand these collaborations by integrating luxury brands into the fabric of the ROH’s daily operations seamlessly." For instance, Rolex sponsoring the precise timing of ballet performances. - Ludwig Van
"Woodbury and her artistic partner, Shirley Ririe, formed Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company in 1964, when they both taught dance at the University of Utah. … Woodbury and Ririe — along with Repertory Dance Theatre’s Linda Smith and Ballet West’s Bené Arnold — are credited with giving birth to professional dance in Utah." - The Salt Lake Tribune
The awards are still for written journalism only, but NPR, CNN, and the US TV Networks have been producing written journalism on their websites for years. Until now, that text-based work was considered ineligible for the Pulitzers. - AP
"All Seasons Press alleges that sworn testimony by (Mark) Meadows undermined The Chief’s Chief, in which he wrote that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. … (The publisher) cited media reports from last month alleging that Meadows knew Trump had lost to Democrat Joe Biden." - AP
The notorious art object, titled America, was stolen from an exhibition at Blenheim Palace in England in 2019. There's as yet no indication of the whereabouts of the object itself, which is widely presumed to have been melted down. - The Guardian
"The Wall Street Journal has stopped running its weekly bestseller lists. The final lists were carried in the past weekend's editions. The paper ran a total of six fiction and nonfiction lists, as well as a hardcover business list. All were powered by Circana BookScan." - Publishers Weekly
Two members of the British group Just Stop Oil took hammers to the glass protecting Diego Velázquez’s "Rokeby Venus" at the National Gallery in London. (This isn't the first time that painting has been damaged by a protester: it was attacked by a suffragette in 1914.) - CNN
The widespread success of the new science was facilitated by a preexisting experimental culture that crossed boundaries between academic and the social realms. - Lapham's Quarterly
The things we think will make us feel happier – acing exams, securing a dream job, buying that dress – usually don’t, but small habits can make a big difference. One of them is talking to strangers. - The Guardian
