The two great African-American writers happened to run into each other on the street in Mobile, Alabama on a summer day in 1927, and she invited him to ride along with her to Tuskegee and beyond, through Georgia and South Carolina and ultimately home to New York. As biographer Yuval Taylor recounts, they visited a traveling rural school, saw a Bessie Smith traveling tent show, had a session with a conjur-man, and plenty more. – Longreads
What Happened To Shakespeare’s Library?
And why would we care? “We do know a few things about Shakespeare’s relationship with books. He wrote plays according to a method that has been labeled plagiaristic; “appropriative” is a more polite term, and historically more accurate.” – Lapham’s Quarterly
Nathan Glazer Rose In An Era Of Rich Intellectual Stew. It’s Fascinating To Reflect On What’s Changed Since Then
Peter Skerry’s essay is quite pessimistic about how the world has evolved. He writes that the meritocracy structures we have built have become ingrown, timid and self-involved. He wonders if Glazer would agree with him… – The American Interest
Washington National Opera Commissions New Work About Black Teen Shot By White Police Officer
“With a libretto by Tazewell Thompson and music by Jeanine Tesori, Blue complicates the narrative by making the teen’s father — played by local bass Kenneth Kellogg — a police officer himself. ‘Police are placed in incredibly difficult situations,’ says [WNO artistic director Francesca] Zambello, ‘and we try to present both sides of the story rather than just saying, ‘Okay, police violence is bad.”” – Washingtonian Magazine
The Internet Seems To Have Killed Many Things, And You Can Now Add Buffets To The List
At least this one isn’t just Millennials’ fault. But seriously, buffets used to dot the landscape in the United States. No longer. “Yelp and Google Reviews and TripAdvisor and all of their ilk could be partially responsible for the demise of buffets. When things go awry — be it food poisoning or oyster crackers — a record is online instantly. There are no secrets.” – Vox
Is English (Finally) Losing Its Grip On Pop Music?
As K-Pop and Spanish rappers start to climb the charts, the utter stranglehold of English over pop is starting to relax a little. “The idea that the [English-speaking] public would listen only if they understood the lyrics? Wrong, it turned out.” – The Guardian (UK)
This Norwegian National Ballet Principal Is Balancing A Career, Another Career, And Parenthood
Moving to Norway can focus the mind, or so says former Houston Ballet star Melissa Hough: “I had quite a few life revelations that took me by surprise. I began to ask myself a lot of hard questions and forced myself to find the answers. One of these questions was, ‘Do you want to be a choreographer and if so, why?'” – Pointe Magazine
Brexit Will Have A Debilitating Effect On British Pop Music
Brexit’s greatest impact on music looks likely to be on the live sector, both on British musicians going abroad, and on foreign artists and fans travelling to the UK. – The Guardian
Art Gallery Of Ontario Says It Will Sell 17 Works To Diversify Its Collection
The works for sale aren’t unimportant. They’re by Montreal native and Group of Seven member A.Y. Jackson. They will be included in Heffel Fine Art Auction House’s upcoming auctions, beginning in May. “A founding member of the Group of Seven, A.Y. Jackson is one of Canada’s most celebrated and important artists,” the auction house said in a statement. – ArtForum
The Battle Between What You Believe And What You See
Work on artificial intelligence suggests that our brains engage in constant battles between what we think we know versus what we actually experience. It’s a kind of constant skepticism that informs our consciousness. – Aeon
50 Years Of Dance Theater Of Harlem
In 1969, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook started the company in a converted garage. “Together, they wanted to prove to the world something that still needed proving back then: that blacks could indeed dance ballet — and marvelously.” They did, and the company developed a worldwide reputation, one that survived even an eight-year hiatus due to financial troubles. “In honor of the anniversary, current and former members talked about their time with the company and, of course, Mitchell and his legacy. Here are edited excerpts from those interviews.” – The New York Times
Stairway To Heaven? Designs Revealed For New Shanghai Grand Opera House
“The building’s most prominent feature will be a helical roof that connects to the ground via a spectacular open-air spiral staircase. Snøhetta has designed this to resemble an unfolding fan, evoking ‘the dynamism of dance and the human body’. The building is reminiscent of the Oslo Opera House completed by the firm in 2008, which also featured a publicly accessible roof that slopes down to meet the waterfront.” – Dezeen
Absurd? Why Would LA County Museum Of Art Spend $650M To REDUCE Its Gallery Space?
Christopher Knight: “What was once a project designed to add nearly 50,000 square feet of critically needed gallery space committed to showcasing the museum’s impressive and still-growing permanent collection of paintings, sculptures and other global works of art has been turned on its head. Now, rather than enlarge the capacity, the scheme is to reduce the existing gallery square footage by more than 10,000 square feet.” – Los Angeles Times
Can The Shed Mitigate The Corporate Wasteland Of Hudson Yards?
Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rockwell Group, the Shed is meant to be the cultural giveback that compensates for the vulgar mess of the larger Yards project. Looking a bit like a bubble-clad airplane hangar, it sits on the southern edge of the Yards with two distinct elements defining its architecture: a boxlike form projecting out of the bottom of a high-rise residential tower, and a canopy with translucent plastic side panels, mounted on wheels and rails, that opens onto a public plaza. – Washington Post
What If You Imagined An Ideal, Democratic, Artistically Vibrant Arts Space? Would It Be The Shed?
“We kind of stepped off a cliff and proposed a multi-use, multi-genre space that wasn’t devoted either to visual or performing arts, but could embrace that whole spectrum and anything we couldn’t forecast in the future.” – CityLab
Nancy Pelosi Has Stepped Into The Role Of Supporter-In-Chief Of The Arts
Peter Marks: “In the absence of a White House that welcomes the nation’s preeminent composers, painters, scholars and singers to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — and let’s face it, many of them would probably say no thanks — Pelosi seems more and more inclined to cast herself as the ceremonial head of state for the arts.” – Washington Post
The Scripts From The Translating-Shakespeare-Into-Modern-English Project Are In
“Four years ago, the news that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had commissioned modern English ‘translations’ of all of Shakespeare’s plays drew headlines, and no small alarm, from purists who saw it as a kind of literary vandalism. Now, the public will have a chance to judge the full fruits of the effort for itself” as all 39 scripts get public readings in June in New York. Jennifer Schuessler looks into the progress of the project and the guidelines the commissioned playwrights followed. – The New York Times
How ‘Hadestown’ Went From Community Theater To Concept Album To Broadway
The Anaïs Mitchell/Rachel Chavkin musical about two Greek myths — Persephone’s abduction by Hades and Orpheus’s (failed) rescue of Euridice — traveled a long road that went from Vermont and New Hampshire to Manhattan’s East Village to Edmonton to London (the National Theatre, no less) to Braodway. “Along the way [Mitchell and Chavkin] experimented with everything from the set design, to the size of the cast, to their way of thinking about the main characters’ roles in the story.” – Vulture
‘Netflix Of E-Books’ Begins Offering Original Content
Scribd, a subscription service for e-books and audiobooks with over 1 million paying subscribers, is launching Scribd Originals, which will “focus on ‘the space between a magazine article and a book’ — namely, pieces up to 50,000 words in length that are too long to run in a magazine but aren’t long enough to be published as a standalone book.” – TechCrunch
Philadelphia Orchestra Hires Two Women Conductors
“Erina Yashima has been appointed the orchestra’s assistant conductor, and Lina Gonzalez-Granados conducting fellow. Both are 32 years old, both trained as pianists as well as conductors, and both take up their posts in September with concert dates yet to be announced.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
To Increase Access, English National Opera To Reduce Lowest Ticket Prices And Introduce Early Start Times And Relaxed Performances
The London company has held its highest ticket price at £125 and cut its lowest to £10 and is expanding its free-balcony-seats-for-under-18s from Saturdays to Fridays and opening nights. In addition, the company will offer its first-ever relaxed performance (with accommodation for learning-disabled and autistic attendees), and at least one performance in each run of an opera will end by 10 pm. – The Stage
US Justice Department Warns Movie Academy Against Excluding Netflix From Awards
“In the event that the Academy — an association that includes multiple competitors in its membership — establishes certain eligibility requirements for the Oscars that eliminate competition without procompetitive justification, such conduct may raise antitrust concerns.” – Variety
Canada’s National Arts Centre Indigenous Theatre Endangered After Government Turns Down Funding
Two years ago the National Arts Centre decided to add a company devoted to indigenous theatre to its french and english theatres. But the Canadian government has turned down a $3.5 million funding request and the plan is now in jeopardy. – Toronto Star
Recorded Music Revenues Up For Fourth Year In A Row, Soar To Global Record
Streaming revenue grew by 34.0% and accounted for almost half (47%) of global revenue, powered by a 32.9% increase in paid subscription streaming, according to the report. There were 255 million users of paid streaming services at the end of 2018, with paid streaming accounting for 37% of total recorded music revenue. Growth in streaming more than offset a 10.1% decline in physical revenue and a 21.2% decline in download revenue. – Variety
Mark Twain, Charles Ives, and Race
Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 2 are twin American cultural landmarks, comparable in method and achievement. They both transform a hallowed Old World genre — the novel, the symphony — through recourse to New World vernacular speech. – Joe Horowitz