So after a stretch in university administration, I am back full-time in the classroom this fall. One of my classes is in Cultural Planning and Community Development – i.e. “place-based” cultural policy. So, this is what I’ve put together.
What Did Shakespeare Mean When He Had Coriolanus Criticize The Vox Populi So Many Times?
“With the Trump campaign and Brexit getting credit for drawing on populist angst, Coriolanus deserves a second look.The play can help us reconsider what populism is and the ways a ‘populist’ movement can be fostered by, yet not necessarily conducive to, democracy.”
What’s It Like To Be A Dancer?
“Every dancer knows, soon enough, that standing still is remarkably more tiring, and painful, than moving. The blood pools in your feet and lower legs, which swell and throb. And when you are in the corps de ballet and learning new choreography, you spend much more time standing in the back of a studio than you do dancing. The cursed burden of being an understudy.”
Ballet Class On A Basketball Court In A Rio Favela
“On a hilltop overlooking the sprawling Complexo de Alemão favela, girls fill an old basketball court in Rio de Janeiro. Wearing pink leotards, pink tights and pink shoes, they stand with their hands on their hips as they learn proper passé technique. The girls practice ballet on a basketball court because in their favela, considered one of the most dangerous in the city, there is no other place for them to go.”
When LA Glitz Met Europe’s Most Rigorous Intellectual Composers
“Here, Californian naiveté and blatant commercialism butted heads with European rigor and elitism. This was a collision of worlds which never fully resolved or came to an agreeable integration, reflecting some of the fundamental fragmentation of Los Angeles. In this way, the peculiar contours of LA culture have made an indelible mark upon new music as a whole.”
Has Our Culture Become Trapped By Nostalgia For Something That Never Existed?
“Longing for the past is generally referred to as nostalgia – a gentle, tender feeling that might make these stories seem like nothing more than harmless sentimentality. But it is crucial to distinguish between wistful memories of grandma’s kitchen and belief in a prior state of cultural perfection.”
Huge 1,700-Year-Old Mosaic Found In Good Condition In Cyprus
“The 36-foot-long, 13-feet-wide work cements scenes from one public stadium in colorful stone, featuring four chariots each pulled by springing horses of various hues and commandeered by assertive drivers.”
Oops! We Went All-Out To Become The UK City Of Culture, But We Have Nowhere To Put The Tourists
“Nearly a million visitors are expected to attend events in Hull as part of the landmark culture festival, which includes theatre, dance, music and other arts performances. However, the city centre’s hotels only have about 1,000 beds – so residents are being encouraged to rent out their spare rooms to tourists.”
Sure TV Is More Diverse. But Here’s What Still Needs Doing
“Progress isn’t solely a matter of narrowing the color gap on TV but of widening the types of stories that reach us.”
A Dance Lab For Broadway Choreographers
How do you ask dancers who are working for free to really push themselves and show up day after day? Broadway dancers are at the top of their field. Who at the top of their field works for free?
Tennessee Museum’s Leadership Problem – A Founder Reluctant To Leave
“For better or worse, the Tennessee State Museum would not be where it is without Lois Riggins-Ezzell. She has run the museum since 1981, when it was an afterthought to both the state and the budget, with just six employees, in the basement of James K. Polk building. She has grown the staff and the collections and archives, and she has led the decades-long push for a building of the museum’s own.”
The Dismantling Of The Corcoran, Two Years In
“Critics say that little of the Corcoran has been sustained. Most of the collection remains homeless, and repairs to the iconic Ernest Flagg building on 17th Street have only just begun. Just a third of the faculty who taught at the Corcoran are now employed by GWU, and student enrollment in the Corcoran program is down. Because the deal contains no timeline and little outside oversight, critics say the public can only watch its decline.”
Georgia Attracts Record $2 Billion In Movie Production
“It’s absolutely the highest it’s ever been. It’s double what we did practically the first 25 years of the film office… in one year!”.
Marina Abramovic Gets Roasted On Social Media For Writing About Indigenous Australians
An excerpt from an early proof of her upcoming memoir, Walk Through Walls – a passage with a very uncomfortable description of Abramović’s first visit to the outback in 1979 and her first impressions of Australian aboriginals – has been getting a hard time online – complete with hashtag #TheRacistIsPresent.
Women-Centered Hollywood Hits Were Once The Norm
“Ghostbusters and Ocean’s Eight don’t mark a turning point for Hollywood so much as a return: From the 1920s to the ’50s, women drove box-office revenue – in drama, comedy, and ensemble films.”
Chautauqua Symphony Musicians Vote To Strike
“Musicians of the Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra last month overwhelmingly approved a strike authorization for the first time in the symphony’s 87-year history. That raises the possibility that a strike could be approved between Dec. 31, when the contract expires, and the start of the 2017 season in June.”
Chamber Opera On The Buenos Aires Subway
In Opera Periferica’s adaptation of Pergolesi’s La serva padrona, “Serpina, the ‘servant turned mistress,’ launches her plan to seduce her master, the aging millionaire bachelor Uberto, first on one end of the H Line – which runs north and south through the capital connecting the richest area with the poorest – and then on the other.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.16.16
Bots and ticket prices and supply and demand
I can see Mr. Miranda wanting something done about bots – he wants ticket prices sold at a lower rate than obtains in the secondary market. But. … read more
AJBlog: For What It’s Worth Published 2016-08-16
A Master, A Mysterious Girl and An Unsolved Question
When I traveled to Berlin earlier this summer, I spent about four and half hours at the Gemaldegalerie (not enough time) – a full hour of which was spent looking at Portrait of a Young Girl (1470) by Petrus Christus. … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-16
Chrome Yellow: the Colour of the 2016 Edinburgh Festival
Last year’s was the first Edinburgh Festival I’ve missed for twenty-something years, and I was very pleased to return this year, if only briefly, to attend half a dozen performances at the International Festival … read more
AJBlog: Plain English Published 2016-08-16
Fifth Anniversary Highlights: Considering Whiteness
One of the most pressing issues facing the future of the nonprofit arts industry is the role of race and culture in our work. … read more
AJBlog: Engaging Matters Published 2016-08-16
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Swed: How Did America Misjudge A Talent Like Riccardo Chailly?
Mark Swed: “These pages have chronicled L.A.’s history of women in classical music for more than a century. We’re on top of that. But our history with Chailly is another matter. We were too quick to write him off.”
NBC’s Lagging Olympic Ratings Illustrates Seismic Shift In TV Audience
“The average audience of 27.8 million viewers through the first 10 nights is down 17% from the 2012 Games in London. With more competition airing live in prime time, NBC counted on the Rio Games’ ratings to be as good or better than London, the most-watched Olympics held outside of the U.S.”
How Did This Messy, Illogical, Inconsistent Language Get To Be English?
English is as much of an international language as we have today. But its spelling and syntax and just about everything else about it is inconsistent and capricious. So how did English get to be English?
Minnesota Ballet Salvages What It Can After Lightning Strike
“The good news is that $60,000 worth of Minnesota Ballet costumes haven’t been damaged as much as expected. The bad news is that the ballet remains out of a practice studio for the time being and needs a place to more closely examine its hundreds of costumes that were trapped under rubble for three weeks after Duluth’s July 21 windstorm.”