Anna Fleischle, an award-winning designer, has defined “a moment of reset in our industry.” Rachel O’Riordan, artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith, says she is looking at the public square outside the theatre on King Street. West End producers know that the days of the premium ticket and rip-off booking charges are over. And one can only say to all three parties: what took you so long? – Prospect Magazine
How Conductor Alan Pierson Brought ‘Ten Thousand Birds’ Indoors
Back in 2014, Alarm Will Sound — the contemporary music ensemble Person founded at Eastman and has been leading ever since — played the world premiere of John Luther Adams’s Ten Thousand Birds (which is basically a big catalogue of birdsong transcriptions in no prescribed order) as a sort of outdoor sound installation. This year, as the coronavirus confined Pierson and his colleagues in their homes, he got the idea to reconceive the piece as Ten Thousand Screens, an online video in which the musicians each played from their own homes. Author Garth Greenwell, a friend of Pierson’s going back to college days, talks with him about why and how he did it. – The Paris Review
Why Apologies Are Important
How is it that a mere apology can turn long-held assumptions upside down in a way that practical solutions, such as more social support or even financial assistance, simply can’t do alone? Those one-dimensional symbols, such as statues and flags, can give way to richer, more complete stories that embrace empathy and respect. A sincere apology on a national scale can turn once-revered heroes, such as Confederate leaders, into villains, and once-despised outsiders, such as an enslaved people and their descendants, into human beings who have endured unimaginable injustices. – JSTOR
Pandemic As Inflection Point For The Arts
Today, the convergence of Covid-19 closing down all public events, along with the explosive outrage with continued police carnage in communities of color, brings us to a similar inflection point as the late 1960s. Once again a fundamental shift wherein art is stripped of any pretense is emerging. As well, the enormous chasm between aesthetics and inequity must be addressed as systemic racism is dismantled. – VTDigger
Turkey Might Really Turn Hagia Sophia Back Into A Mosque
The Byzantine emperor built it in the sixth century to be the flagship cathedral of Eastern (and perhaps all) Christianity. When the Ottoman sultan conquered Constantinople in 1453, he converted it into a landmark mosque. When Atatürk’s secular revolutionaries founded the modern Turkish republic, he made it a public museum honoring both faiths and their histories. But next week, a Turkish court will rule on whether President Erdoğan can make good on his longtime campaign promise to (as his justice minister puts it) “see its chains broken and opened for a prayer.” – Public Radio International
Chicago’s Commercial Theatre Is Devastated. Will It Return?
Why have Chicago’s for-profit institutions been so hit? The main reason is their total revenue dependence. A big non-profit potentially can rely on its board members to bankroll it through these hard times, or can sweet talk its big donors. In some rare cases, endowments can be tapped. But that’s not true of for-profit theaters, entirely reliant on ticket sales, bar takings and concessions for their survival. – Chicago Tribune
NYC Slashes Arts Education In Schools
Budgets across departments have been slashed as the city looks to recover from an estimated $9 billion loss in tax revenue due to the shutdown. Among the hard hit is New York City’s Department of Education, which will see $15 million cut from the $21.5 million budget for arts education services in middle and high schools—a roughly 70 percent reduction. – Artnet
Dance Magazine’s Editor In Chief Judged A Major Competition, And Here’s What She Wants Contestants To Know
Jennifer Stahl, who juried this year’s Boston semi-finals of Youth America Grand Prix: “Putting exact numbers to qualities like ‘musicality’ and ‘épaulement’ is just as tricky as it sounds. But I learned a few surprising takeaways that could make a big difference in a dancer’s final score. Whether you’re competing virtually right now or just starting to plan your solo for next year, keep these six things in mind.” – Dance Magazine
What Four Great Black Female Theatermakers Show Us About How And Why We Create Theater
“Todd London reflects on why and how we gather, and looks at the canons-in-the-making of four African-American playwrights — Jackie Sibblies Drury, Aleshea Harris, Anna Deavere Smith, and Dael Orlandersmith — for how they serve as a map for this moment of revision.” – HowlRound
A Gallery Of Detroit’s Fabulous 20th Century Ruins
They’re grand spaces now in decay – which gives them altogether another kind of beauty. – The Guardian
Researchers: Fans Of Apocalyptic Movies Are More Resilient
The bleak scenarios thrown up by films such as Contagion, from panic buying and isolation to fear of others and fake claims of miracle cures, appeared to help viewers take the outbreak in their stride and work out how best to handle the crisis. – The Guardian
The Appeal Of Master Classes With The Greats
The classes mix entertainment and education, each one shot in a different location. You can learn basketball on the personal training court of NBA star Stephen Curry, or step into the kitchen of Massimo Bottura, the chef of the three-Michelin-star restaurant Osteria Francescana. “No two classes are remotely the same,” says Rogier, who keeps a wishlist of potential teachers. “Everyone has their own approach.” – The Guardian
I Was A Foot Soldier In The Dance Boom Of 1970s New York
Elizabeth Kendall remembers: “SoHo was dance spilling out into life. It was a grimy laboratory of the future. … In SoHo you could get a turnip soup with an asymmetrical bread chunk at an exotically rustic cafeteria named Food. You could climb leaning stairways to see free-form jazz men riffing in lofts. And you could meet other dancers on street corners and converse with them in the deadpan physical vernacular of [Yvonne] Rainer’s Trio A. Somebody would start those opening arm swings of the sloppy-tidy, faux-plebeian dance, and somebody else would cross the street and join in with the next move.” – The New York Times
Will The Art Gallery System As We Know It Survive?
There’s no reason why the art gallery as we know it, a 19th century invention, should last forever. But there’s also no sign of an alternative on the horizon. As with other small New York businesses that’ve been closed since mid-March, it’s not clear how many galleries will be able to hold out long enough to reopen. – The Nation
Why Theatres In England Are Opening Up When They Can’t Present Plays
They’re showing movies in their auditoriums (social distancing observed, of course), opening their cafes and bars, presenting art exhibits — anything that can offer a place to (safely) gather. As the artistic director of a theatre in Chester put it, “People are desperate for contact again, to get back into community spaces, where they feel safe and connected. [Putting on plays is] not our mission. We put on plays in service of our mission.” – The Guardian
Natural History Museum’s Removal Of Roosevelt Statue Is A Good First Step
At a moment when the world’s museums are being called out for ingrained and unexamined inequalities, the American Museum of Natural History is one of the few to take decisive action. Art institutions, by contrast, have largely engaged in hollow gestures. – The New Yorker
That Statue Of Teddy Roosevelt That’s Coming Down In New York? This Russian Collector Will Buy It
Andrei Filatov, a rail transport and investment magnate (who is also chairman of the Chess Federation of Russia), has offered to purchase the long-controversial statue in front of the American Museum of Natural History that depicts Theodore Roosevelt on horseback flanked by half-naked American Indian and African men on foot. He’d made a similar offer for a statue of Alexander Baranov, the Russian colonial governor of Alaska, in Sitka that activists want relocated. – The Art Newspaper
A Theater-Within-A-Theater, Modeled On Shakespeare’s Globe, Will Divide Socially Distanced Patrons With Partitions
The Wilma in Philadelphia plans to construct and install what it’s calling The Wilma Globe. “It would be built within the current Wilma Theater and would place audience members, individually or by small groups, into two tiers of stalls separated by wooden dividers and facing the stage. With a flexible configuration it could seat as many as 100 people or as few as 35.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
What Ballet Companies Are Losing As They Cancel This Year’s ‘Nutcracker’s Is More Than Just Money
Sarah Kaufman: “Artistically, The Nutcracker is a big playing field where dancers can achieve breakthroughs, because over the unusually long run of performances, they are typically cast in many different roles … [and get] chances to experiment and become comfortable in a range of characters and styles. It’s a prized platform for showing off strengths and catching the director’s eye. So while missing a cherished holiday ritual is surely a letdown for audiences …, it’s an incomparable hardship for the dancers.” – The Washington Post
Violinist Ida Haendel Dead At 96
“[She] enthralled audiences around the world with a combination of classical rigour and romantic warmth – the mix of ‘ice and fire … simply mind-blowing’ that one reviewer found in a recording of the Sibelius concerto.” – The Guardian
France Offers Tax Credit For New Subscriptions To Newspapers And Newsmagazines
“Deputies voted to allow a one-off deduction of up to €50 (£45) to households subscribing for the first time, and for at least 12 months, to a newspaper, magazine or online news service ‘providing news of a general or political character’.” – The Guardian
“Hamilton” The Movie Is A Sensation
For the uninitiated, it remains the cultural event of a troubled season. Disney Plus has reputedly suspended all discounts and free trials ahead of Hamilton’s debut on the streaming service. Expect complete internet breakage. – Irish Times
Why Proof And Data Don’t Convince People
I work with civic data and teach about the power of data collection, so I want to believe that data (in the form of video footage depicting police brutality against Black people) can effect social change. But it is precisely because of my attachment to the power of data collection that I’m unconvinced video footage can solely, or even primarily, lead to meaningful change. – FiveThirtyEight
“Live” But Not Too Lively: Auction Torpor (not Fever) at Sotheby’s Evening Sales
Sotheby’s “LIVE GLOBAL AUCTION EVENT” was, per yesterday’s post-sale press release, “an unprecedented live-streamed event, with banks of telephone-bidding colleagues beamed in from around the world.” This complicated set-up worked well enough, but at the expense of “auction fever,” the contagion that can spread when bidding happens the old-fashioned way: concentrated in one salesroom packed with live attendees. – Lee Rosenbaum
Rudolfo Anaya, Founding Father Of Chicano Literature, Dead At 82
“Literary critics say [that Bless Me, Ultima,] Anaya’s World War II-era novel about a young Mexican-American boy’s relationship with an older curandera, or healer, influenced a generation of Latino writers because of its imagery and cultural references that were rare at the time of its 1972 publication.” – AP