“Rather than diffusing controversy and polarisation, it seems as if statistics are actually stoking them. Antipathy to statistics has become one of the hallmarks of the populist right, with statisticians and economists chief among the various “experts” that were ostensibly rejected by voters in 2016. Not only are statistics viewed by many as untrustworthy, there appears to be something almost insulting or arrogant about them. Reducing social and economic issues to numerical aggregates and averages seems to violate some people’s sense of political decency.”
Some Lessons We Learned Bringing New Work To Small Theatres
Small venues are often encouraged to ‘buddy up’ with larger venues to develop their skills, expertise and knowledge. This can lead to an erosion of confidence, implying that small venues are somehow inferior and need help or advice. Small venues operate differently from larger ones, in that they manage their resources extremely well and develop a close understanding of and relationships with their audiences in ways that larger-scale organisations sometimes find difficult to achieve.
How Do We Make Jazz More Viable? Harvard Business School Takes Up The Case
“The dilemma here is how do you get young people at any age to start being interested in jazz? There is some research that says that people imprint on music in their romantic years, the time that they’re dating. That would be high school through college, more or less. Jazz is losing generations of young people because they’re not exposed to it during that time. Jazz is no longer the music of rebellion, hip hop is. This is not something that’s easily solved.”
Why Have So Many NYCityBallet Dancers Changed Their Names?
To go down the list: Melissa Hayden was born Mildred Herman; Allegra Kent — Iris Margo Cohen; Suzanne Farrell — Roberta Sue Ficker; Violette Verdy — Nelly Guillerm (even the French were doing it!); Merrill Ashley — Linda Michelle Merrill…
Targeting The Arts Is A ‘Lazy And Cowardly’ Way To Pretend To Cut The Budget
Alyssa Rosenberg: “Anyone who pretends that this is a particularly meaningful amount of money and that getting rid of it would be a serious step toward shrinking the federal government is trying very, very hard to delude the public. And targeting the arts is a particularly contemptuous, deceptive gesture because the Republicans who periodically propose it often suggest that the only people who care about the arts are elitist coastal liberals … But one of the things [the NEA, NEH and CPB] do is bring the arts and humanities to areas that don’t have big museums or lots of wealthy patrons.”
One Thing That’s Key To The Writing Life
“Wanting is not enough. I have wanted to climb a fourteener—here in Colorado, this is a peak over 14,000 feet—but I have yet to put in any effort to accomplish it. And unless I start training for a marathon hike, this will remain an unrealized ambition. Drive is the will to achieve. It is a state of mind that propels you to act. In the years before my book came out, I had the drive to write. I made compromises in order to have the time and space to make my art.”
On Stage Now: Resistance, Catharsis, Community
Questions for now: “What will the art be like? Will it offer effective resistance to the Trump administration? Solace to the audience? Will theatrical craftsmanship suffer in the face of what Martin Luther King Jr. called the fierce urgency of now? Is this a time that will allow for nuance and complexity? Will any protest plays emerge of lasting value?”
Known Unknowns, Or, How The Fossils We Don’t Have Are As Important As Those We Do
Evidence of absence: “Interpreting fossils that aren’t there comes with its own peculiar challenges, and these gaps and ghosts that haunt the fossil record are a big part of palaeontology’s allure. In dinosaur palaeontology, sample sizes are often small, and the challenge is to find creative ways to extract information from fossils. One of the most daring moves of all is to begin treating the fossils we don’t have as data.”
If We Can’t Articulate Something We Think We Know, Do We Really Know It?
“If something is beyond words, then it’s hard to get a handle on what, if anything, it means. Ludwig Wittgenstein, for example, was convinced that it was nonsensical to try to speak about what lies outside the limits of language. Even so, he wrote an entire book about what cannot be said.”
What Happens When We Lose Our Faith In Statistics
“Rather than diffusing controversy and polarisation, it seems as if statistics are actually stoking them. Antipathy to statistics has become one of the hallmarks of the populist right, with statisticians and economists chief among the various “experts” that were ostensibly rejected by voters in 2016. Not only are statistics viewed by many as untrustworthy, there appears to be something almost insulting or arrogant about them. Reducing social and economic issues to numerical aggregates and averages seems to violate some people’s sense of political decency.”
The ‘Default Mode Network’ – It’s Why Your Mind Won’t Keep Still When It’s Not Occupied With Something Particular
“When given nothing else to do, the brain defaults to thinking about the person it’s embedded in. … [That is,] brain areas related to processing emotions, recalling memory, and thinking about what’s to come become quietly active.” It’s quieting that area that Buddhist meditation practice is all about.
What Happens When You Cross Ballet With Juggling? This
Says one of the dancers in Sean Gandini’s 4×4: Ephemeral Architectures, “The juggling props are pretty light, so it doesn’t really hurt if you get hit by them, especially when compared to the pain of wearing pointe shoes.”
Musicians Fret About Repeal Of The Affordable Care Act
“Although Republicans have ripped Obamacare as a disastrous form of taxing-the-rich socialism since it passed Congress in 2010, the act has given struggling Americans a lifeline for buying health insurance, often for the first time. Musicians have been an especially vulnerable segment of this group — just before the law took effect in 2013, the Future of Music Coalition estimated they were uninsured at a rate of almost three times more than the general population.”
Watch Justin Peck And Robbie Fairchild Dance Through A Subway Station
As a teaser for his new ballet, The Times Are Racing, Peck has made a video with himself and Fairchild jeté-ing, sashaying, tapping (in tennis shoes), and sliding down the bannisters of the 34th Street-Javits Center station in Manhattan.
After Only Five Months, Director Of Museum Of Arts And Design Resigns
“Current political events compel me to turn my attention to pressing needs in the cultural sector,” said Jorge Daniel Veneciano in a statement.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 01.19.17
Killing NEA, NEH And PBS Is Just Collateral Damage In The Commodification Of American Values
So it begins. … Zeroing out the culture budgets isn’t about money; together, the NEA, NEH and PBS account for barely 0.02 percent of the federal budget. Neither is it about art the Trumpsters think is offensive or artists they don’t like. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical | Douglas McLennan Published 2017-01-20
What to stand for
I haven’t been able to assemble many words since November, so I’m grateful for those who have. On the one hand, thoughtful rhetoric and reasoned language seem increasingly discounted and disdained as core values. On the other, … read more
AJBlog: The Artful Manager Published 2017-01-19
Stumped by Trump: MoMA’s Lowry Walks “Fine Line” Between “Asserting Values” & Being Partisan
I opened up a can of worms at the Museum of Modern Art’s press breakfast yesterday, when I asked the first question after the director’s and curators’ presentation about upcoming exhibitions: … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2017-01-19
UK Members Of Parliament Want To Ban Arts Internships, Calling Them “Curse Of The Arts Industry”
The report draws on the evidence submitted from people including outgoing Arts Council England chair Peter Bazalgette, who warned that unpaid internships were “the curse of the arts industry”. He said there was an expectation that young people will work for less than the minimum wage, which he added was a “major barrier for disadvantaged young people interested in accessing jobs in the creative industries”.
Kennicott: Trump Eliminating NEA, NEH And PBS Is Significant Step To Eliminating The Free Public Realm
Phil Kennicott: “The loss of the NEA is mostly about symbolism. But along with the loss of the NEH and privatization of the CPB, these proposed budget cuts are part of a nascent but ominous larger movement to eliminate the last vestiges of a public realm free of the dictates of the market. Privatizing the social safety net and shifting tax dollars away from public schools are essential moves in a longer war on a social contract that preserves faith in the public realm. Academia is another target and is in the cross hairs as well.”
Soprano Roberta Peters, 86
Ms. Peters, who would sing with the Met 515 times over 35 vigorous years, was internationally renowned for her high, silvery voice (in private, she could hit a high A, two and a half octaves above middle C); her clarion diction in a flurry of languages; her attractive stage presence; and, by virtue of the fact that she and television came to prominence at about the same time, her wide popular appeal.
Report: Trump Plans To Eliminate The NEA And NEH
“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized,” the Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, “while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.” In total, the administration aims to cut spending by $10.5 trillion over the next decade.
What If The Future Is As Real As The Past?
Physicists have been suggesting as much since Einstein. It’s all just the space-time continuum. “So in the future, the sister of the past,” thinks young Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, “I may see myself as I sit here now but by reflection from that which then I shall be.” Twisty!