The African nation is getting prosperous enough to begin (slowly) offering state funding to the performing arts. One beneficiary of this development is Mophato Dance Theatre, which combines traditional Botswanan dance with contemporary movement vocabulary. (video) – BBC
Research: Angkor Wat May Have Been Built Because Of An Engineering Disaster
A new study published recently in the journal Geoarchaeology shows that there was more than political intrigue at play. A water reservoir critical for large-scale agriculture in the Koh Ker area collapsed around the time the capital moved back to Angkor. – Smithsonian
More And More Men Are Dancing On Pointe
And it’s not just the Trockaderos and Cinderella’s mean stepsisters, either. Gilbert Bolden of New York City Ballet, James Whiteside of ABT, Bennet Gartside of The Royal Ballet, and Raffaele Morra of (yes) the Trocks talk about how and why guys dance on their toes. – Dance Spirit
So Far California’s New Gig Economy Law Is A Disaster For Theatres And Actors
No one is arguing that theatre artists don’t deserve to be paid or shouldn’t be treated well. As Susie Medak, managing director at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, pointed out, there’s simply a fundamental disconnect between the law and the creative process of theatre. “What concerns me the most is that this law doesn’t take into consideration at all the way creative artists work. It has a desire to codify everyone’s work. The impulse behind AB 5, in making everyone an employee, is that everyone will work according to standard work conditions.” – American Theatre
Philadelphia Museum Of Art Retail Exec Abused And Hit Staffers For Two Years Before He Was Fired
“After [James A.] Cincotta was hired as the museum’s retail director in 2015, staffers who worked for him began reporting what they said was routinely abusive behavior. Cincotta slapped, punched, pinched, shoved, grabbed, and verbally berated workers, according to interviews with 14 current and former museum employees.” The museum investigated complaints against him in 2016, but he was not dismissed until 2018. – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Lind: Blame The Elite Managers For The Rise Of Global Populism
Once, Michael Lind observes, “trade unions, participatory political parties, and religious and civic organizations compelled university-educated managerial elites to share power with them or defer to their values.” But beginning in the 1970s, the managers “unilaterally abrogated” this power-sharing settlement. Now, “no longer restrained by working-class power,” the “metropolitan overclass” has, as Lind puts it, “run amok.” – Washington Post
The Streaming Wars Are Bringing On A New Media Dystopia
The return to piracy is both a bit of a meme and a bit of a reality. And its return is absolutely the result of a market that giant companies have built to intentionally trap customers into either a single-company ecosystem (one ISP, one easy streaming service) or an annoying, expensive patchwork. And while piracy signals discontent with the system, it’s quite unlikely that these companies will react by changing their approach, let alone lowering prices. – Slate
In Memoriam: Tobi Tobias (1938-2020)
Alongside the the wonderful, illuminating dance criticism she wrote for decades, she wrote wonderfully well about fashion, and only when I became a mother did I realize that while Tobi was raising her offspring, she was writing dozens of children’s books. – Deborah Jowitt
From caftan to opera hat: the greatest living playwright takes on the Jewish bourgeoisie and its destruction
There’s something a bit ho-hum, mean and pinched about the reception of Sir Tom Stoppard’s new (and, he says, perhaps final play), Leopoldstadt. – Paul Levy
Trump Administration Is Moving National Archives Out Of Seattle. Native Americans Are Furious
“The U.S. government made us paper Indians — our ancestors are here,” Jack proclaimed last week at Sand Point. To close and remove the archives is to physically remove the ancestors (word is the contents of these warehouses would probably be transferred to facilities thousands of miles away in Missouri and in Southern California). – Crosscut
New Pew Study: Experts Believe Tech Will Weaken Democracy
Some 49% of these respondents say use of technology will mostly weaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation in the next decade, 33% say use of technology will mostly strengthen core aspects of democracy and democratic representation and 18% say there will be no significant change in the next decade. – Pew Research
Is It Possible To Enjoy The Instagram “Museum” Without Your Phone?
Specifically, the Ice Cream “Museum,” which is all about shareable selfies. After all, what’s the point of going if not to take appealing pictures? – New York Magazine
The Forger As Artist – A Superfan’s Show Of Work By Elmyr de Hory
In the 1950s and ’60s, Elmyr de Hory is believed to have forged over a thousand works by major artists. Many have been removed from museums. Others, some experts say, have not. Mark Forgy has spent years dedicated to the memory of de Hory. He has written a book, gives talks and contributes to exhibitions on forgery. It is his calling, he says, and has all led to his newest endeavor: putting on an exhibition of de Hory’s original work. No forgeries. Just de Hory in his own voice. – The New York Times
At The Shanghai Ballet Company, Dancers Are Practicing In Masks
The dancers, including lead dancer Wu Husheng, aren’t finding it easy to train and rehearse with masks on. “Wu, 33, says he can normally train for an hour at a time, but he feels breathless in just 20 minutes with the mask on.” The dancers have seen more than 30 of their performances, especially abroad, canceled, and some dancers can’t get out of quarantines to return to Shanghai. – Reuters
The Real-World Politics Affecting India’s Oscars
A mystery voting system, a government that has passed laws harming people in the city where the awards are held, and a ton of wins for only one film – that’s just the beginning of the issues for India’s Filmfare Awards. – The Juggernaut
Berlin Film Festival’s Gender Parity Scorecard Is Mostly Good, But Not All Good
The good: Leadership. “Its festival directorships were shared equally between men and women, and … its executive board was similarly balanced.”
The less good: Director numbers. “The majority of films shown at the competition were still made by male directors. At this year’s festival, 37.9% of films were directed by women, and six of the 18 films in competition were directed by women, which is down from seven last year.” – The Guardian (UK)
Riverdance Is Now A Quarter Of A Century Old
The dance itself, and Irish dance in general, is obviously older – but it débuted as an interval act at Eurovision, and its appeal has never gone away. Its newest star says, “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since I was a tiny little girl. I wasn’t even born yet when Riverdance began.” – BBC
France Can’t See What’s Erotic About Two Women Falling For Each Other
This is the weirdest possible sentence to write, but director Céline Sciamma says that Portrait of a Lady on Fire isn’t considered erotic in, of all places, France. What? WHAT? Quoi?? Sciamma: “It’s a very bourgeois industry. There’s resistance to radicalism, and also less youth in charge. ‘A film can be feminist?’ They don’t know this concept. They don’t read the book. They don’t even know about the fact that ‘male gaze’ exists. You can tell it’s a country where there’s a lot of sexism, and a strong culture of patriarchy.” – The Guardian (UK)
The Scottish Artist Who Brought Oz To Life
Sound stages of the 1930s and 1940s needed lots of stage sets, and at MGM, George Gibson was the man in charge. “The backdrops he created appeared in films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939), An American in Paris (1951) and Brigadoon (1954). His backdrops were as large as 60ft x 150ft (18m by 45m) and so realistic that the audience often did not realise the setting was a soundstage.” – BBC
We Lost A Lyric Poet When We Lost Amelia Earhart
But no one really knew it because her husband kept it one of her carefully guarded secrets. Now, “searching the archives for Amelia Earhart’s lost poems is a study in fragments—every tucked-away line on the back of a receipt hidden in a notebook an invitation to speculate on her thoughts. Even when her widower published pieces of her verse in his memoir, he had an independent source verify the authenticity of one of them, unsure if the private voice on the page was indeed hers.” – LitHub
Fleabag And Feminism
Well, that’s a fraught subject. Phoebe Waller-Bridges, who wrote the show and plays the character, says, “Actually, she wishes she were more perfect, and that feels like it was an attack on feminism itself.” (The writer says she does, sometimes, share her character’s views.) – BBC
Holocaust Educators Want Amazon To Stop Selling Nazi Propaganda
Yes, in recent months, Amazon has removed sellers who are peddling Nazi imagery on ornaments and a beer opener. But these are books, and “Amazon takes a different approach with books than it does with home goods. ‘Amazon’s Offensive Products policies apply to all products except books, music, video and DVD,’ the retailer’s guidelines state.” – The New York Times
Turns Out To Reach Our Goals, We Shouldn’t Keep Our Eyes On The Actual Prize
The problem is that thinking about the prize bypasses the hard work – the mountains, in some cases, of hard work – that it takes to reach those goals. So: “The key to bypassing this mental glitch is to simply think about the efforts required. Imagine yourself typing away late at night on your book after a long work day, or studying for the GRE on a sunny Saturday, or waking up at 5 a.m. on a cold morning to train for that marathon.” – Fast Company
As ‘Fresh Off The Boat’ Ends, What Did It All Mean?
Asian Americans remember how excited – and worried – they were when the show was announced five years ago, after a two-decade drought for Asian American representation on network TV. Did the series live up to its hype? One writer says, “It felt like a dream.” (And it changed the media landscape demonstrably as well.) – Shondaland
Dance Critic Tobi Tobias, A Finalist For The Pulitzer Prize, Has Died At 81
“As a critic Ms. Tobias did not pull punches. In the early 1980s, for instance, when other critics were tiptoeing around the decline in the dance skills of Rudolf Nureyev, who was then in his 40s, she declared, ‘His groupies refuse to believe it, but Nureyev really can’t dance anymore.'” (You can see two pieces about Tobias, who wrote for ArtsJournal, on ArtsJournal.com here and here as well.) – The New York Times