“From her house in Amsterdam, she has taken to creating dance films, all three to five minutes in length, with performers around the world. Dancers from Tulsa Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and more have already taken part, with others scheduled in the coming months.” – Pointe Magazine
Fifty Years After His Messy Suicide, Yukio Mishima’s Fiction Is Coming Back To The Fore
“[His] carefully cultivated image — a vigorous martial artist, his commitment to bushido, the code of the samurai and his fixation with masculinity, beauty and glory — has remained more notable than a lot of his writing. He even went to great pains to craft an image for an American audience with English-language interviews in the 1960s. However, the contemporary resurgence of Mishima translations is starting to get readers back to the actual work. Which, incidentally, is very good indeed.” – Metropolis (Japan)
Understanding The Charismatic Leader
David Bell argues that charismatic leaders were a key product of the age of Revolution, which created the ideal political and cultural conditions for a new kind of civic heroism to emerge. It flourished initially in response to the development of print technologies, and the radical Enlightenment’s belief that governments should be founded not on the divine right of kings, but on the principles of secularism and popular sovereignty. It then proliferated with the overthrow of monarchies and the founding of republics, the escalation of warfare on a titanic scale, as well as the cultivation of romantic sensibilities, which encouraged citizens to embrace powerful emotions about their leaders – feelings of admiration, devotion and even love. – Times Literary Supplement
Well, England Didn’t Re-Start Indoor Performances On August 1 After All
“Indoor English venues were scheduled to open on 1 August with social distancing measures in place for audiences and performers – emulating the pilot run performed at The London Palladium last week.” But, with the novel coronavirus raging on, at noon on July 31, Boris Johnson told the nation, “Our assessment is that we should squeeze the brake pedal.” (The sensible Scots are waiting until October to reopen their theatres and concert halls.) – WhatsOnStage
Smart: This Theatre Signed Up For Pandemic Insurance Before The Pandemic
About three-and-a-half years ago, Tim Jennings, the executive director and CEO of the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, decided to undertake some risk analysis alongside his CFO. He looked at potential problem areas, and at concerns that might arise throughout the course of an ordinary season of theatre, and came to a shrewd conclusion: The festival should take out an insurance policy against the threat of a pandemic. – National Post (Canada)
It Took 80 Years For This Piece By Composer Ulysses Kay To Have Its World Premiere
Why? Perhaps this: “While Ulysses Kay shared stages with the greats of his day, his daughter said over time his compositions haven’t been performed as widely and are often programmed for cultural anniversaries or events including Black History Month.” – WBUR
Obie Award Winner Vinie Burrows Has Been Working In Theatre For More Than Seven Decades
Burrows is an actor, playwright, producer, and activist who started her career as a kid on a radio show. In 1968, she was favorably written about in The New York Times, and she says, “It put me in another tax bracket. I remember being in Algiers at a festival. Why was someone in Algiers talking about me? He knew me because he had read the Times article about me. The Times review can put you in another tax bracket, even today.” – American Theatre
James Murdoch Has Resigned From The News Corporation’s Board
Rupert Murdoch’s son James, who has championed environmental causes and helped force out Bill O’Reilly at Fox after the host’s past with sexual harassment came into the open, “abruptly resigned from the board of his father’s publishing company Friday, signaling an acceleration in family tensions over the tenor and politics of its far-flung media empire. “- Los Angeles Times
The Literary Museums That Made It This Far Are Slowly Reopening
Shakespeare’s birthplace just reopened, and Jane Austen’s house is about to reopen – and some of the changes advantage the visitors coming now. “The cottage where Austen revised, wrote and had published all six of her novels will be offering a far more intimate experience to visitors than before: numbers will be significantly limited, with visitors given time slots.” – The Guardian (UK)
Why Is Netflix’s ‘Most Watched’ List Such A Wasteland?
Whew: “If HBO’s Game of Thrones was the last great piece of TV monoculture, then the pandemic has popularized a series of forgettable productions that each offers a fleeting, miniature facsimile of communal attention. Absent the usual summer blockbusters, and with few prestige shows rolling out new episodes, the landscape of American entertainment is barren enough for C- shows and movies to rack up the viewership of B+ productions, if not the associated enthusiasm.” – The Atlantic
It Is Wacky To Think That Writing For Adults Is Better Or More Important Than Writing For Kids
Author Robin Stevens on writing for kids: “What book changed your life? What stories made you think about the world? I couldn’t tell you much about what was in most books I read last month but I can tell you every character in Howl’s Moving Castle. Eva Ibbotson’s morality has become mine, Diana Wynne Jones has influenced how I write, the way Terry Pratchett talks about society helped me think about all those things.”- The Guardian (UK)
When The American Museum Of Natural History Reopens, It Will No Longer Be Pay As You Wish
The planned reopening date is September 9, but of course not if infections start to crest again in New York. And, of course, “when it reopens, it will limit capacity to 25% and reduce its operating days to five instead of seven.” Then there’s the little matter of paying what the museum wishes, not what you wish. – Hyperallergic
Canada’s Prominent Black Filmmakers Call Out Racism And Inequity In The Film Industry
“These systemic barriers – no one seemed to notice, no one seemed to care, and so we felt like we had to say something,” says Jennifer Holness, who adds that even as the most senior Black filmmaker in the country, it’s hard to get any funding for projects. – CBC
The Shutdown Kills A Young Cabaret Theatre Near Indianapolis
Though the theatre tried hard to attract smaller, socially distanced crowds as it reopened in June, no one was ready to return to an indoor space, and tickets didn’t sell. The now common refrain for small arts venues: “Founder Chris Tompkins said that paying the lease and other bills for upkeep was impossible with no income.” – Indianapolis Star
Booker Nominee Arrested For Supporting Another Arrested Writer In Zimbabwe
Tsitsi Dangarembga, an activist and award-winning writer who was just chosen for the Booker longlist, has been arrested in Zimbabwe while she was protesting the arrest and imprisonment of investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono. “Dangarembga, 61, and another protester were bundled into a police lorry while carrying placards. The government has warned that participation in Friday’s demonstration is regarded as insurrection.” – BBC
The Many Side – Now Main – Hustles Of Broadway Workers
Plush toymaking, giving dancing lessons (via Zoom, of course), selling skincare products … stagehands, costume designers, actors, and everyone associated with Broadway are trying to figure it out, piece it together. But many are considering leaving the city, and the arts, forever. – Time
Coronavirus Prevention Measure: Intermission
In China, some areas of the country can require movie theatres to give an intermission in the middle of movies that are more than two hours long. Hurray for bathroom breaks? “There is not yet official clarity as to how long the break should be and whether facilities must be disinfected again during that time frame.” – Variety
Greek Theatre On The Rocks
Even before the pandemic, Greece’s theaters were in trouble. Years of austerity saw government spending on the arts slashed, with subsidies for the largest theaters cut in half, or withdrawn altogether for some smaller venues. As a deep recession hammered the economy, tens of thousands of businesses closed down, leaving little prospect of support from the private sector. Dozens of theaters closed; others survived only by cast members covering the costs of performances themselves. – The New York Times
Director Alan Parker, 76
He was nominated for the best-director Oscar for the 1978 film “Midnight Express” and again 10 years later for “Mississippi Burning.” – The New York Times
Salzburg Festival Will Happen This Year, And Here’s How They’ll Do It
“A sprawling, 44-day anniversary program has been mostly postponed until next year. It has been replaced with a reduced, 30-day schedule, through Aug. 30, of concerts, plays and two (instead of seven) staged operas.” Artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser says “we have measures for cultural institutions — which are 200 percent necessary — that respect the health of the people working and the audience.” And those measures, it turns out, were designed partly by a baritone-otolaryngologist. – The New York Times