“Wang Zhi … says he can make a tidy 2m yuan ($290,000) a year from his cross-dressing routines. … He regularly appears on nationally televised variety shows. Officials often invite him to entertain people in poor areas.” And why does Xi Jinping’s increasingly conservative government tolerate this? Wang Zhi and his fellows do drag Beijing opera-style. – The Economist
Sculptor Marisa Merz, Key Figure In Arte Povera Movement, Dead At 93
“Merz was the lone woman among a loose coterie of men who came to be grouped in late-1960s Italy under the banner of Arte Povera — ‘poor art’ — a term [denoting use of] humble, raw materials. … Recent exhibitions have made it clear that she was the most versatile and inventive member of the group.” – ARTnews
‘Radical Hospitality’ — Why Seattle’s Intiman Theatre Has Made All Its Tickets Free
“The initiative, artistic director Jen Zeyl explained, is about more than the standard theater problem of getting ‘butts in seats.’ (Though, of course, there’s that.) It’s about getting the butts one wants in seats — not just the people who can afford to take the $25+ crap shoot known as a theater ticket, but the people who can’t: the woman at the corner store, high-school sophomore, the guy asking for spare change on the sidewalk.” – The Seattle Times
In The Moment: The Essential Challenge For Dance
There is no full way to capture the presence of dance except through dance itself. This tension—between dance and the representation of dance—is always at the heart of dance; dancers feel it, too, and so do the people who watch dance and the people who write about it. – New York Review of Books
Former Yale Law School Dean: Universities Need To Treasure Their Elitism, Not Hide It
Anthony Kronman: “Our most elite universities are today running away from their elitism, denying it, doing their best to conceal or suppress it. In running away from it, they not only disown values and traditions that are an important part of their identity, but they also disserve the great democratic country in which they sit. These elite schools are national treasures. Their elitism is what makes them such. It’s not a problem, it’s an asset, a value, something to be cherished and cared for.” – Chronicle of Higher Education
The Algonquin Round Table Crew Was Famously Witty. But They Made Little Lasting Impact
“The Algonquin Hotel became a city landmark in 1987, in large part because of the vicious circle’s outsize fame. This is a fine way of acknowledging a tourist destination, but it shouldn’t be mistaken as an endorsement of the group’s larger intellectual significance — because in the end, there isn’t much of one.” – The New York Times
What Role Do The Arts Have To Play In Dealing With Climate Change?
In the past few years, as the climate crisis has become a political emergency, artists have discovered a crucial role for themselves, making an issue that sometimes seems abstract instead feel emotional and urgent. – The Guardian
A Rich New Vein Of Stories From/About Millennials
On paper they are the most educated, diverse and materially privileged generation in history but, in the western world at least, millennials are also the first to face dimmer prospects than their elders. – The Guardian
A Chinese American Teenage Dancer Says ‘Haters Will Always Be There Hating’
But the 16-year-old says she wants to focus on what she’s passionate about – and she wants ballet to change, “to be a welcoming place for everyone and step away from traditions that can be harmful to people who might look different.” – The Oregonian
Hong Kong Actor Simon Yam Was Stabbed On Stage In China
Yam, who was in the city of Zhongshan, was attacked during an appearance by a man who rushed him and slashed the actor’s stomach and hand. Yam had surgery for what his management team says are “minor wounds.” – South China Morning Post
Music Festivals Are Starting To Be ‘Gamified’
At multi-day music fests, just like at Disneyworld, cashless wristbands prepare the way for ‘gamifying’ listeners’ experiences. And sure, it’s for pop music now, but could this also be the future for BBC Proms and other classical music multi-day festivals? – BBC
What’s Up With Our Fascination With Women Who Kill?
It’s a longstanding thing – consider the ways that Clytemnestra became “an archetypal domestic murder plot” after the play premiered in 458 BCE. “Killing Eve is just the latest example of popular culture’s preoccupation with attractive young women who conceal a dark psychopathy: Villanelle is the embodiment of the classic female killer, who both seduces and repels.” – The Guardian (UK)
In Hollywood, An Agency Threatened To ‘Blow Up The Deal’ For ‘The Good Doctor’
Writers and agencies are locked in a battle over who should reap the benefits from packaging fees – “the longstanding industry practice of talent agencies taking fees for putting together a lineup of their clients — actors, writers and directors — for a show, rather than receiving the customary 10% commission on each client’s fee.” And for the show The Good Doctor, talent agency William Morris Endeavor “threatened to blow up the deal” unless a packaging fee was included. – Los Angeles Times
The Fire At Notre Dame Has Revived A Need For Skilled Stonecarvers
There are two ways to do become a stonecarver in France – travel around to different work sites, apprenticing, or get a degree (the latter is less “mythic” and somewhat more friendly to women). No matter what President Macron says about restoring Notre Dame in five years, they know they’ll be needed for decades to come. – NPR
How Did The Mueller Report Become A Live-Theatre Sensation?
Well, there’s this: “Mueller report read-a-thons have become acts of civil disobedience, a way for artists to register their discontent by leveraging their most valuable currency: celebrity.” – Los Angeles Times
The Worlds Of Mark Morris
“Morris plays delicious games with Satie’s variegated material.” – Deborah Jowitt
Eight Artists Withdraw From Whitney Biennial, Citing Board Member Whose Company Makes Tear Gas
One of the artists wrote to Hyperallergic, “As a mother to a 2-year-old daughter, it terrifies me that my work is currently part of a platform that is now strongly associated with Kanders’ teargas-producing company Safariland. … I have recently taken her to several demonstrations and that further heightened my awareness of the situation. I do not want her to grow up in a world where free and peaceful expression is countered with means that have left people injured and dead.” – Hyperallergic
Netflix And SAG-AFTRA Sign A New Deal
The deal, which includes harassment protection and a ban on private, in-room auditions, also “recognizes performance capture as covered work and includes coverage of dubbing, which applies to all of Netflix’s foreign-language live-action and animated motion pictures dubbed into English.” – Variety
César Pelli, Who Designed Some Of The World’s Tallest Buildings, Has Died At 92
Pelli, born in Argentina, was the former dean of Yale’s architecture school. He designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and architecture critic Paul Goldberger called him “an architect of great dignity and lively creativity who did as much as anyone in the last generation to evolve the form of the skyscraper.” – The Guardian (UK)