Jennifer Diaz, 34, “has made history, becoming the first female head carpenter of Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The local’s 3,351 members work in spaces from the Met to Carnegie Hall, at Radio City Music Hall and Madison Square Garden, and in every Broadway theater – including the Walter Kerr, which is where she was one morning in September, overseeing the load-in for the musical Falsettos.”
Reading ‘Don Quixote’ With Fugitives From Pinochet’s Coup
Ariel Dorfman: “Of the myriad times since adolescence that I have returned to the story of Don Quixote de la Mancha, there is one I choose to remember – that I cannot help but remember – as we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes. That reading, in October 1973, took place among a distraught group of captive men and women who, like me, had sought asylum in the Argentine Embassy in Santiago, Chile, after the coup that overthrew the democratic government of Salvador Allende.”
Everyone Has Dumped On Brutalist Architecture. So Now It’s Popular Again
“Despite two generations of abuse (and perhaps a little because of it), an enthusiasm for Brutalist buildings beyond the febrile, narrow precincts of architecture criticism has begun to take hold. Preservationists clamor for their survival, historians laud their ethical origins and an independent public has found beauty in their rawness.”
Klaus Kertess, Art Dealer Who Launched Major Careers, Dead At 76
“Barely a quarter-century old, Kertess opened Bykert [Gallery] in September of 1966, with the financial backing of his former Yale classmate Jeff Byers … Over the next nine years, Bykert would show a formidable roster of artists associated with Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and Process Art, including Brice Marden, David Novros, Barry Le Va, Alan Saret, Chuck Close, Bill Bollinger, and Dorothea Rockburne, among many others.”
Richard III = Donald Trump? Brush Up Your Shakespeare
“[Richard’s] success in obtaining the crown depended on a fatal conjunction of diverse but equally self-destructive responses from those around him. The play locates these responses in particular characters … but it also manages to suggest that these characters sketch a whole country’s collective failure.” Stephen Greenblatt, general editor of The Norton Shakespeare, lays out the parallels – not so much between the monarch and the mogul as between Richard’s England and Trump’s America.
Prominent Publisher: We’re In Danger Of Becoming Irrelevant
“For me it is a real problem when we don’t reflect the society we live in. It’s not good for books, or culture, or commercially. We are going to become irrelevant. We know we have a real issue, and we have been slow. We have to address it.”
Researchers Discover That Music And Dance Change Our Brains In Markedly Different Ways
“The pathways that were most affected were bundles of fibers that link the sensory and motor regions of the brain and the fibers of the corpus callosum that run between the hemispheres. In the dancers, these sets of connections were broader (more diffuse); in musicians, these same connections were stronger, but less diffuse, and showed more coherent fiber bundles.”
Scottish Survey: All Time High In Engagement With Culture
Overall, the report says 95 percent consume culture. “The figures cover both attendance at cultural events, the most popular of which is watching a film in the cinema, and cultural participation, the most popular of which is reading for pleasure. When trips to the cinema are excluded, the proportion of the population who attended a cultural event in 2015 stands at 75%. This figure has risen from 70% in 2012. When reading for pleasure is excluded, 52% participated in a cultural activity in 2015, up from 48% in 2012.”
The Man Who Was The Voice Of Met Opera Broadcasts For 29 Seasons Has Died At Age 96
Beginning in 1975, Peter Allen “delivered a kind of recitative, telling listeners what would happen as a given opera unfolded, and even what was happening before that, from the moment the lights went down to the moment the Met’s great gold curtain went up.”
Doing Queer Theatre In Lebanon – But Keeping Very Quiet About It
“It was both liberating and frustrating for us to create this space where we could finally express ourselves in our city, but that had to be zoned off from the public in order to protect the safety of the actors. Many of them were not out at work or in their families.”
The Striking Pittsburgh Musicians Say (Of Course) It’s About Quality
“The musicians, who have been on strike since Sept. 30, argue that management’s last proposal would do irreversible damage to the quality of the 120-year-old ensemble.”
The Not-So-Slavish Devotion Of A Pupil To His Greatest Dance Master
“As precise as Kawaguchi is at duplicating Ohno’s twisted body moves and ascetic style, his primary purpose is something other than the creation of an exact copy — because he knows that’s impossible.”
Everyone Is Angry About The Unmasking Of Elena Ferrante, But For Wildly Different Reasons
“In the United States and Britain, the investigation into Ms. Ferrante’s true identity has been viewed by a vocal contingent through the lens of gender. Critics have accused the journalist who conducted it and the publications where his findings appeared of sexism. But in continental Europe, the criticisms have focused on invasion of privacy issues.”
Top AJBlogs From The Weekend 10.09.16
This Week In Understanding Audience: What Does The Audience “Own”? and Do We Tell Audiences Too Much?
This Week: Do you own the culture you just bought?… How did TV become the medium for complexity?… Should we keep audiences in the dark about what they’ll see?… Measuring the effectiveness of arts policy … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts AudiencePublished 2016-10-09
On diversifying audiences
This week The New Yorker had some shocking news: Andy Borowitz is only their second least funny humorist. In his “Shouts and Murmurs” piece “The Pences Visit Manhattan“, Douglas McGrath takes the blue ribbon. He …read more
AJBlog: For What it’s WorthPublished 2016-10-09
Recent Listening: Izabella Effenberg
Izabella Effenberg, Cuèntame (Unit Records) This is the debut album of the Polish vibraphonist and composer Izabella Effenberg, who lives in Germany. The CD brings together an imposing septet of European musicians in a chamber … read more
AJBlog: RiffTidesPublished 2016-10-08
Too late, too late!
“The gentlemanliness of our statesmen is no secondary excellence. It was said by Burke of a great nobleman of the last century that ‘His virtues were his means’; that he accomplished by a gentle and …read more
AJBlog: About Last NightPublished 2016-10-07
Ethereal & Other-Worldly: Transported by Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim
The mesmerizing Agnes Martin survey, organized by the Tate Modern and now gracing the Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda (to Jan. 11), enraptured me from the start: In the pocket gallery just off the first ramp is … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrlPublished 2016-10-07
This Weekend’s AJBlogs Highlights 10.09.16
This Week In Understanding Audience: What Does The Audience “Own”? and Do We Tell Audiences Too Much?This Week: Do you own the culture you just bought?… How did TV become the medium for complexity?… Should we keep audiences in the dark about what they’ll see?… Measuring the effectiveness of arts policy … read more
AJBlog: AJ Arts Audience Published 2016-10-09
On diversifying audiences This week The New Yorker had some shocking news: Andy Borowitz is only their second least funny humorist. In his “Shouts and Murmurs” piece “The Pences Visit Manhattan“, Douglas McGrath takes the blue ribbon. He …read more
AJBlog: For What it’s Worth Published 2016-10-09
Recent Listening: Izabella Effenberg Izabella Effenberg, Cuèntame (Unit Records) This is the debut album of the Polish vibraphonist and composer Izabella Effenberg, who lives in Germany. The CD brings together an imposing septet of European musicians in a chamber … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2016-10-08
Too late, too late! “The gentlemanliness of our statesmen is no secondary excellence. It was said by Burke of a great nobleman of the last century that ‘His virtues were his means’; that he accomplished by a gentle and … read more
AJBlog: About Last Night Published 2016-10-07
Ethereal & Other-Worldly: Transported by Agnes Martin at the Guggenheim The mesmerizing Agnes Martin survey, organized by the Tate Modern and now gracing the Guggenheim Museum’s rotunda (to Jan. 11), enraptured me from the start: In the pocket gallery just off the first ramp is …read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2016-10-07
This Week In Understanding Audience: What Does The Audience “Own”? and Do We Tell Audiences Too Much?
This Week: Do you own the culture you just bought?… How did TV become the medium for complexity?… Should we keep audiences in the dark about what they’ll see?… Measuring the effectiveness of arts policy is really hard… Technology is changing the ways we experience the world.
Five AJ Highlights From This Week: A Golden Age For Music? An Arts Olympics?
This Week: The movie industry is undergoing a top-to-bottom revolution… Claim: teaching humanities fights racism… Outing the identity of Elena Ferrante sparks debate on privacy… Now be the best-ever time for music… Do we really need an Olympics for the arts?
Inside An Author’s Brain
“Why am I so distracted? Why do I always want to be alone and write? Why, when my daughter says ‘Will you play a game with me?’ and I say ‘Yes, later,’ do I never play a game with her? Why aren’t I a better version of myself?”
Escaping Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’ Through Opera
Annilese Miskimmon: “Opera and theatre were, and still are, a safe place for open-minded, creative people from both communities, a defence against all the sectarian problems. Art united while religion and politics divided.”
How The Frieze Art Fair Ate London
“The sprawling scale of the event, centered on a five-day fair here, in Regent’s Park, that opens to the public Wednesday, reflects how dramatically London, and its commercial relationship with art, has changed.”
Why Ang Lee Wants To Shoot His Films At Such A High Frame Rate (And Why Audiences Might Not Go Along)
When he made Life of Pi in 3D, the Oscar-winning director was frustrated by the limitations of the standard rate of 24 frames per second. So, for his latest, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, Lee went all-out: 120 frames per second and 4K resolution.