Daniel Riley, who comes from the Wiradjuri people of central New South Wales, spent 12 years dancing with and choreographing for Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australia’s (and possibly the world’s) most prominent indigenous dance company. At the beginning of 2022, he starts work as artistic director of the company’s oldest contemporary dance troupe, the Adelaide-based Australian Dance Theatre. – ABC (Australia)
Graeme Ferguson, Co-Inventor Of IMAX, Dead At 91
After he and his brother-in-law, Roman Kroitor, created documentaries for Expo 67 in Montreal that used multiple screens and projectors, they decided to invent a single large-format projector. By the mid-1970s, they had established the technology and made and shown a few highly praised nature documentaries, but it took many years to overcome producer and exhibitor skepticism and get IMAX accepted as the popular spectacular it ultimately became — and Ferguson was the top creative mind behind the company that whole time. – The New York Times
Queering ‘Giselle’
Katy Pyle and her company, Ballez, have a new work called Giselle of Loneliness (click here if you don’t get the reference) “that grapples conceptually with ballet’s stringent and arguably exclusionary, conformist and outmoded traditional norms. … [The] production pairs seven dancers, all female-assigned or of femme experience, with an imaginative framing concept: They are competing to play Giselle, and confronting all the oppressive demands such a canonical role entails. Performers portraying a host and judges round out the audition-style proceedings.” – The Washington Post
Richard Robinson, Who Made Scholastic Into A Children’s Publishing Powerhouse, Dead At 84
“[His] nearly five decades at the head of the company shaped it into one of the world’s most prominent and recognizable publishers of children’s literature” — including the Baby-Sitters Club, Captain Underpants, Hunger Games and Harry Potter books — “and an influential education and media company.” – Publishers Weekly
English City Experiments With Design In Public
Set to open in autumn next year, and operate virtually, online until then, the £4.5m Farrell Centre will occupy a former 19th-century department store close to the university’s architecture school, on a prominent corner facing the civic centre. It is planned to host exhibitions, events, office space for startup companies working in the built environment, and, most importantly, a big scale model of the city where new proposals will be shown for all to scrutinise. – The Guardian
Why Are Non-Profit Endowments Under-performing The Markets?
Today, it’s possible to capture the average growth of the stock market through passive index funds, which if balanced with some government bonds, have realized 10% returns over the last 100 years. It’s hard to fathom why an endowment would spend so much time and money on actively managing its investments to do considerably worse than that. – Hyperallergic
A Keith Haring Mural In Barcelona Is Under Threat
Haring painted the mural inside a nightclub in 1989. The nightclub turned into a billiards hall, and the mural was preserved, but now the building is slated for demolition. What should, what will, happen to the mural? – The Guardian (UK)
The Creator Economy Owes A Lot To Gaming Site Twitch
When Twitch entered the picture 10 years ago, most creators – writers, artists, makers, eaters of food on YouTube – weren’t yet earning money through digital patronage. That has changed, and dramatically. Co-founder Justin Kan says “he and his cofounders spent years ruminating on how to make people interact online and give each other money. Should they have a sidebar chatroom? (Yes.) Emotes? (Definitely.) Career potential? (Yes.) The end goal wasn’t live video; it was the creator economy. Subscribing to people doing things.” – Wired
The BAFTA TV Awards Didn’t Pick Faves This Year
Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You did win two awards – best mini-series and leading actress, which Coel dedicated to the production’s intimacy director: “Thank you for your existence in our industry, for making the space safe for creating physical, emotional, and professional boundaries so that we can make work about exploitation, loss of respect, about abuse of power, without being exploited or abused in the process.” – Variety
Pose Showed How To Tell Great Trans Stories
The show, whose third season, and run, ended on Sunday night, was set at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the gay and trans subcultures in New York. And yet, it wasn’t about Capital-T Tragedy. – Slate
The Motion Picture Museum’s Timing Was Unlucky – And Very Lucky
Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s new L.A. museum was delayed, and delayed and delayed again – the last delay coming from the pandemic – that worked in its favor for staying up-to-date: “While the 300,000-square-foot, $482 million museum, designed by Renzo Piano, has been under construction, the movie business has been going through a process of deconstruction, brought about by seismic social movements like #OscarsSoWhite, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter. Recognition of the obstacles faced by female directors, Asian American actors and other groups has also intensified.” – The New York Times
How Academic Freedom Ends
Just look to Hong Kong, where by the time a group of University of Hong Kong academics gathered in a town hall meeting in May. “The assembled faculty pressed [administrators] on whether HKU would provide legal assistance if they were arrested for allegedly violating the law while working, what to do if students reported professors on a government tip line, and what educators may be forced to teach.” There was no reassurance: “The marching orders to suppress freedoms are being dutifully carried out not by police or the authorities, but by fellow colleagues, and even students.” – The Atlantic
How Lin-Manuel Miranda And Friends Made The Drama Book Shop New
From the 140-foot long sculpture of scripts and songbooks to replicas of armchairs from Hamilton, the Drama Book Shop in Manhattan will be reborn this week, from the ashes (and flood, pandemic, and rent hikes) of the old. – The New York Times