More than 100 indie feature filmmakers have unanimously ratified its constitution, and more than 300 have signed letters of intent to join. – Deadline
Instagram Is Full Of Perfect Ballet Bodies, But TikTok Offers More Fun And A Wider Range
Dancer Jennifer McCloskey first realized her medium was TikTok in 2020, during the shutdown. “On her feed, McCloskey seamlessly blends comedy, criticism of ballet culture, and how-to videos. Her mission is to whittle away at toxic ballet culture one TikTok at a time — all while having a little fun, of course.” – Elite Daily
An Israeli Airstrike Has Destroyed Gaza’s Largest Bookstore
“The beloved Samir Mansour Bookshop was destroyed on Tuesday by an Israeli airstrike. The shop, which was established in 2008, had thousands of books, including the largest collection of English literature in Gaza, and was also part of a publishing house that focused on Palestinian writers.” Israel claimed the strike’s purpose was to destroy Hamas tunnels. – LitHub
How A Book Gets Adapted For A Movie
It’s not always obvious or a direct line. Start with a good story. Characters that lift off the page. And then it gets complicated. – LitHub
Do Away With Classics Because They’re Imperialist?
“As the field’s most famous practitioner, and a dedicated anti-racist and feminist, Mary Beard takes a middle position: she believes neither that classics deserves a pedestal nor that it must be destroyed. Recently, in conversation, Beard defended her stance—and spoke about feminist translations, Internet manners, and the fluid properties of the canon.” – The New Yorker
The Pitfalls Of Public Philosophers
“We urbanites, who dwell in the medium of public political discussion, also live in the element of opinion. Leo Strauss loved to intimate that a few of us could instead live in the element of knowledge, as if he were hanging up a shingle that read ‘Secrets, this way!’ The irony of saying such a thing in public is obvious.” – Aeon
Meet The Grand Old Man Of Kathakali
Kalamandalam Gopi, who’s about to turn 84, has been studying and performing the dance-drama form from the Indian state of Kerala for 70 years, taught generations of performers, and set new standards in the genre’s stage makeup, gestures, and use of facial expressions. To celebrate his 80th birthday, he chose to perform one of the most demanding roles in the entire Kathakali repertoire. – The Hindu (India)
Gavin Larsen: The Everyday Ballerina
“I danced some fabulous ballets and fabulous roles. And yet there’s hundreds more like me — thousands maybe. We might be exceptional in one way: You reached the top level of your career, and you have these pinnacle moments onstage. But at the end of the day, we’re all a gang. We’re all a crew, we’re all a posse of ballerinas.” – The New York Times
Sex Scenes On Screen Aren’t Disappearing. In Fact, They’re Getting Better.
“Today’s sex scenes are first and foremost fun — as ideally sex itself should be — and emphasize the truthful over the tasteful. In some cases, you’ll see likable, relatable characters revealing perverse predilections. … Other moments make for embarrassing yet endearing waypoints en route to real intimacy. … Other filmmakers bulldoze the boundaries of which bodies the culture industry deems fit to depict.” – The Conversation
Eight Ways The Protests After George Floyd’s Death Changed American Culture
“From Judas and the Black Messiah to H.E.R.’s ‘I Can’t Breathe,’ from the canceling of podcasts to the toppling of monuments to oppression, from White Fragility to Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist: Thanks to the culture we shared in a year unlike any other, the world looks, for better or worse, at least a little different.” – The New York Times
The Enduring Influence Of Midori
What might sound like general pep-talk fodder for the averagely scheduled person is actually just pragmatic paraphrase for Midori, whose prodigious musical talent was merely the first movement in a career that has extended into music education, community outreach and arts advocacy. – Washington Post
Manhattan Gets A Cool New Little Island
Mega-mogul Barry Diller’s $260 million, 2.4-acre pet project and civic mitzvah, near 13th Street in Hudson River Park, is the architectural equivalent of a kitchen sink sundae, with a little bit of everything. Who knows what it will feel like when crowds arrive this weekend. I suspect they will be enormous. – The New York Times
New TRG Report: Arts Activity Increased In April
Currently the sales revival is uneven across venue types, with aggregate sales for symphonies and concert halls the lowest compared to the equivalent month in 2019. –TRG
A Strong Art Auction Season, Featuring Controversial Museum Sales
One work, Thomas Cole’s “The Arch of Nero” (1846) from the Newark Museum of Art, was a highlight, going for $988,000 with fees to a private foundation operated by the Florida-based collectors Thomas H. and Diane DeMell Jacobsen, in a sale of American art totaling $15 million. Last week, Sotheby’s made a combined $703.4 million from its contemporary, impressionist and modern art auctions. Its competitor, Christie’s, had similar successes, reaching more than $775.2 million for the week. – The New York Times