“Across the nation thousands of actors, musicians, dancers and other entertainment industry workers are losing their health insurance or being saddled with higher costs in the midst of a global health crisis. Some were simply unable to work enough hours last year to qualify for coverage. But others were in plans that made it harder to qualify for coverage as they struggled to remain solvent as the collapse of the entertainment industry led to a steep drop in the employer contributions they rely on.” – The New York Times
Why Are There So Few Women Percussionists In Orchestras?
“Today, in London’s seven top orchestras, women only account for 3% of all the timpani and percussion positions. In fact, there are more men called David with jobs in percussion than there are women.” – The Guardian
The Switch To Virtual Concerts Has Changed These Musicians’ Work Permanently
“It seems like a good time, as the pandemic continues to block live performances in all but a few socially distanced, outdoor shows, to revisit the topic of performing for the camera. … Their responses range from poetic to practical to pensive to feeling trapped-in-a-digital-prison and beyond, … [but] the musicians all say their professional careers now and forever forward will consist of a hybrid of live and virtual performances.” – San Francisco Classical Voice
The Artistic Power Of AI
“AI as scientist conception runs the risk of missing out on a — the — characteristic feature of AI, particularly machine learning. Once this feature of machine learning is thrown into relief, AI as artist seems a more fitting conception.” – 3 Quarks Daily
The Constant Crises Of British Theatre
The UK’s theatrical culture is obsessed with the idea of theatre as storytelling, both as a discourse and as a conditioning of what the work is and should be like. This is extremely rigid: theatre is not storytelling but an experience. In London almost every season announcement sounds the same, everyone seems to be saying, “We are telling new and important stories.” – Howlround
Dance Among The Irradiated Ruins Of Fukushima
Eiko’s performative gestures are captured in opulent compositional detail as she defiantly inserts her body amidst crumbled buildings, vine-encrusted train tracks, large bags of radioactive trash, upended cars, tender memorial altars, washed-away fields, crushed fishing ports, and abandoned beaches. Over the course of the collaborator’s five trips, nature’s resiliency is revealed as Eiko inhabits regenerating (while still contaminated) gardens, fields and forests in her traditional kimonos, red silks, and futons now tattered and torn. – VTDigger
What It Was Like At The Movies The First Weekend New York’s Cinemas Reopened
Capacity Limits: “Not really an issue for Chaos Walking, a poorly-reviewed mess of a sci-fi adventure.” Distancing: “Fortunately, AMC’s ordering system handles this well, automatically blocking off two seats on either side of your party.” Mask Compliance: “This is where the whole thing kind of falls apart.” – Gothamist
How Companies Are Rethinking What It Means To “Own” Something
Business leaders, and their lawyers, have a bias — an unjustified faith, really — that legal ownership matters. Surprisingly often, it doesn’t, and some businesses today voluntarily forgo ownership altogether, even when the law makes protection available. – Harvard Business Review
The Democratization Of Storytelling
By now, a successfully kickstarted short is a rather common occurrence, but an Oscar-winning one is rare indeed. Crowdfunding is, of course, not the only way that storytelling on a mass scale has become more democratized in recent years. – Fast Company
Settlement In Copyright Suit Against Robert Indiana Estate
The settlement agreement brings the legal wrangling over the estate of the artist known for his iconic “LOVE” series closer to an end. – AP
Big Worries About The Met Museum’s Plans To Sell Art To Survive
“Critics of the new guidelines, including Hollein’s predecessor, Thomas P. Campbell, believe in the sanctity of public collections and want to maintain strict controls to protect them. They view the shift as the first step in a fundamental change in museum operations.” – Washington Post
“Genre” Is Disappearing In Pop Music
“It’s difficult to imagine a Grammy ceremony that doesn’t rely on genre as its organizing principle—I suppose that would entail the bestowing of just one award, Best Music—yet genre feels increasingly irrelevant to the way we think about, create, and consume art.” – The New Yorker
So What Will The Financiers Who Bought Second City Do With It (Or To) It?
“Though private-equity firms are notorious for ruthlessly wringing efficiencies out of the properties they pick up, the investors who just bought one of Chicago’s most treasured cultural institutions contend a growth strategy is the only play that makes sense.” – Crain’s Chicago Business
I Miss Theatre. I Didn’t Know I’d Miss The Audience Too
“What it has taken me a year to realize is how much I also miss the community of the audience — the strangers surrounding me, obscured by the dark, who have tacitly agreed to escape and exalt and squirm together.” – Washington Post
What People Regret On Their Deathbed
“Broadly, people seem to wish for a more meaningful life. They wished they’d been more authentic in their activities (1; 3). They wished they’d prioritised friends and themselves, rather than work (2; 4; 5). They wished, in short, that they’d stopped and smelled the roses.” – Aeon
Why Music Schools Like Juilliard Have To Change
Classical purists clutch their hearts in disgust at the mere suggestion of their holy shrines teaching business skills like freelancing or contemporary styles like pop, rock, or electronic music. But consider that the geniuses we hold in high regard from ages past — the very ones we teach in classical schools now — were trail-blazing innovators in their time. – Rolling Stone
Putting Together The Pieces Of A Lost Florence Price Score
The pioneering Black composer’s Fantasie Nègre No. 3 in F minor was thought to be incomplete: only the first two pages were known to have survived. Here’s how musicologist Samantha Ege found the rest of the piece tucked away in the archive of music discovered in Price’s old summer house in 2009. – BBC
Brown Paper Tickets Will Pay $9 Million To Stiffed Customers
Following a consent decree from the Washington S\state Attorney General’s office, Seattle ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets has agreed to pay $9 million in restitution to an estimated 45,000 customers at both ends of the company’s business model: ticket buyers owed refunds and event organizers owed box-office revenue.” – The Seattle Times
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet To Cease Performing
“The 25-year-old [company] will eliminate its centerpiece: the professional performing arm of the company. The ballet schools and youth Folklórico programs in Santa Fe and Aspen, Colo., will continue to operate, but Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will shift its post-pandemic focus to creating and producing, as well as consulting other companies on their strategies for successful touring.” – Santa Fe New Mexican
Lauren Lovette, Only 29, Will Retire From New York City Ballet
“I spent a lot of last year feeling like I didn’t make a difference. [Some colleagues] were saying some sweet things to me about different ways that I impacted their lives and how I could never leave. I sat there and I felt so embraced and comforted by everything that I was hearing, and loved — really, genuinely loved. … I woke up the next day, and I sent my letter of resignation. That was it.” – The New York Times
NY’s Iconic Metro Pictures Gallery Announces It Will Close
It wasn’t “because of declining sales, co-founder Helene Winer said in an interview, but with a sense that reopening the gallery once the pandemic subsides would require more energy than she had to give at age 75. “We just feel like we did our thing,” she added. “I don’t think at my present age that I want to be reinventing the wheel.” – The New York Times
“Queen’s Gambit” To Be Made Into Theatre
Level Forward, a company whose founders include Abigail Disney, a grandniece of Walt Disney, said on Monday that it has won the rights to adapt Walter Tevis’s 1983 novel, which has become newly noteworthy thanks to the enormous success of last year’s streaming series adaptation on Netflix. – The New York Times
During The Last Decade, Women’s Representation In Music Has Not Improved At All
Discouraging news from a USC study for International Women’s Day. – The New York Times
This Woman Has Narrated More Than 600 Audiobooks
Here’s how to be good at it: Plan ahead. “What’s really important when you’re listening is to be able to know who’s talking. One of the hardest things is when you have a group of, like, five men and they’re all 40, and they’re all having a beer together. How you make those voices sound different?” – Slate