“Stambeli, a uniquely Tunisian hybrid of musical genre, healing practice, and religious ceremony, [is] deeply rooted in the history of a specific community: the descendants of slaves brought to the region from sub-Saharan Africa during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It also has close links to Sufism.” But the changes in the country since the Arab Spring (notably the Saudi-funded spread of Salafism) are combining with older ethnic prejudices to put a lot of pressure on stambeli‘s remaining practitioners.
Margaret Atwood Goes To Comic-Con
“One line member tells Atwood she doesn’t know who she is, hasn’t read any of her books, and wants to know which she should start with. The author shoots her that stare. ‘So you want me to say who I am. Well, I’m secretly Glinda the Good Witch in disguise, and the best novel that I wrote is called the Iliad,’ Atwood says, deadpan. ‘What?’ the woman asks.”
‘Game Shows’: In Chicago, They’re Turning Actual Games Into Theater
“Blame it on Midwestern bingo culture. Or maybe it’s a long tradition of immersive, unpretentious theatergoing involving cold beer and ornery nuns. Whatever. Whether card, video or board, Chicago is a thriving hub for theater based on or inspired by games. In many cases, shows are games.”
Court Battle Over Interview Tapes At Center Of ‘Serial’, Season Two
“The Justice Department is urging a federal judge to shut down a bid by filmmaker Mark Boal to block military prosecutors from subpoenaing unaired outtakes of 25 hours of interviews Boal conducted with Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who is facing a court-martial on charges he deserted a U.S. base in Afghanistan. Boal’s talks with Bergdahl became the staple of the second season of the celebrated podcast Serial.”
The Olympics As Religious Ritual, Then And Now
“At the end of the fourth Christian century, an east-Roman emperor who followed the new faith abolished the pan-Hellenic contest as part of his general drive to stamp out paganism. … Pierre de Coubertin, the blue-blooded Frenchman who revived the classical games, did not hide the fact that he was competing with monotheism, and trying to reverse what he saw as a great historical wrong.” What’s more, “both the modern contests and their ancient Greek predecessors share many of the features of a giant sacramental feast.”
‘I Just Wanted Restraint’ – Yes, Pedro Almodóvar Actually Said That About His Latest Movie
What’s more, it makes sense as a way to treat his source material – which is by one of the last writers you’d expect Pedro Almodóvar to adapt.
Leaders Of Alberta’s Two Largest Theatres Depart Signals Major Shift
“The departures come as Alberta’s oil-reliant economy is suffering – and all that that implies for arts organizations: corporate funding, individual donations and subscription and ticket sales. The loss of the two veterans at a time of financial unrest may add to a feeling of instability, but what’s waiting in the wings could instead be exciting.”
Estonia Takes A Start-Up Approach To Kickstart Its Music Scene
“Estonia has a long history of music-making and state support for classical music, but we didn’t have a tradition of musical entrepreneurship. With the Tallinn Music Week, we wanted to kick-start an artistic entrepreneurship culture. We felt that the success of Estonian music was going to be dependent on artists acting like self-sufficient companies.”
A History Of American Violins – In 250 Instruments
“The fact that there will be all of them in the Library of Congress — they’ll all still be together, they’ll all be available for study. It’s the only memorial that hundreds of American violin-makers are going to have.”
Detroit Artists Are Having A National Moment. So Who Gets To Tell Detroit’s Story?
“The show also raises questions about the popular narratives surrounding Detroit art, the often narrow perceptions about what exactly defines art from Detroit and how the conversation is starting to change — or needs to change.”
The Kids’ Jazz Band In The Favelas Of Rio de Janairo [VIDEO]
“My dream is that we have a music tradition here in our favela that mixes the Brazilian traditions with New Orleans jazz traditions in wind instruments, and we create something new in live music.”
The Novelist Who Doesn’t Care How Badly Her Characters Behave
“With Olive Kitteridge, I remember at one point, I thought, uh-oh, this is really going out there – and I remember very consciously telling myself, don’t be careful. Do not be careful. You’ve got to let her be who she is.”
The Man Whose Signature Made Woodstock Possible
“Enter Elliot Tiber, one of the unlikeliest heroes of the 1960s counterculture. A former yeshiva student from Brooklyn who did not even smoke marijuana, he spent his weekends helping his parents operate the shabby, money-losing El Monaco Motel in nearby Bethel. During the week, he worked as an interior decorator in Manhattan and frequented the city’s gay bars, a routine that had recently plunged him into the Stonewall uprising.”
The Science Of Making Art From Animal Guts
“It’s easy to preserve skin, but when it comes to an organ it’s a very different matter: they decompose no matter what you do.”
Career Goal: Choreographing The Olympics’ Opening Ceremony
“Ms. Colker is a passionate mixer of forms. (In addition to dance, she has a background as a competitive volleyball player.) Her company, Companhia Dança Deborah Colker, combines death-defying feats on giant hamster wheels, vogueing, hip-hop, acrobatics and anything else that suits her eclectic sensibility. And she loves props: walls, vases, ropes, wheels. This was all evident in the show.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs For 08.07.16
An Exhibition Not to Be Missed, And One I’m Glad Is Over
In New York, I visited several special exhibitions this past week. Let me mention two here. The first, Founding Figures: Copper Sculpture from Ancient Mesopotamia, ca. 3300–2000 B.C., is at the Morgan Library and Museum until … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear ArtsPublished 2016-08-07
Legends and Visionaries
New York Theatre Ballet performs a new work and a classic at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. New York Theatre Ballet in Song Before Spring by Zhong-Jing Fang and Steven Melendez. Clockwise from R: Melendez, … read more
AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2016-08-06
Clark Lark: What Will I Miss on My Busman’s Holiday? (Sotheby’s edition)
Anyone within driving distance of Williamstown, MA, who has read Lance Esplund’s voluptuous review in theWall Street Journal of the Clark Art Institute’s Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes From the Prado must be exclaiming, … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2016-08-06
Ystad Festival
The Ystad Sweden Jazz Festival is in its fourth day. It is so jam-packed and tightly scheduled that this is my first opportunity to begin reporting on it. The early posts will be a series … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-08-06
Total Obscenity of the American Dream
Heathcote Williams’s verse polemic delivered by Alan Cox. “Donald J. Trump and Hillary Clinton — A Foaming Sleazeball from Hell versus An Iron Lady, Hands Dripping with Blood” Click to listen. … read more
AJBlog: Straight|UpPublished 2016-08-05
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Five Essential Stories From Last Week’s ArtsJournal Haul, Context Edition
This Week: The ways in which we experience art are about to change in big ways… Auction houses are becoming shadow banks for the super-wealthy with money to stash… The Met Museum’s super-successful year (at least at the admissions booth)… Predictably, Harry Potter slays sales records… Do we have a problem with the ways we develop artists’ careers?
This Art Museum Was Supposed To Open In Early 2016, But It Sure Didn’t
“The historic building remains in a bare-bones state, its parking lot devoid of construction vehicles, as stakeholders await a revised design plan for what the Ringling College of Art and Design, which absorbed the SMOA organization a decade ago, is calling its ‘South Campus Complex.'”
Architectural Acupuncture: How A Modernist Made Room For 7.5 Million Visitors At The Palace Of Versailles
“By creating a 3,000-square-foot basement for a gift shop, coat check and bathrooms beneath the Pavillon and the adjacent Princes’ Courtyard, he created a new loop through the chateau. Visitors could enter the palace through the Pavillon, proceed on the circuit and finish in the basement, where a grand staircase would take them back up to the Courtyard.”
Why Are So Many American Authors Writing About Characters Outside America?
Charles McGrath suggests that it’s “a novelistic weariness with America and Americans, a sense that our native ground is not too thin, as Henry James would have it, but too played out.” Siddhartha Deb thinks perhaps they shouldn’t bother: “Can a novel set abroad be anything other than the Grand Tour novel or its successor, the imperial novel?”
Norman Foster’s Plan For Drones To Connect Africa
“The pilot droneport program will launch later this year in Rwanda, the mountainous, landlocked East African country nicknamed “Land of a Thousand Hills.” Three droneports, to be completed by 2020, will allow the drone network to send supplies to 44 percent of the country.”