“Biopics! Coming-of-age tales! Socially conscious historical dramas! You might even call them ‘Oscar bait’ – but should you? Below, Vulture editors Mark Harris and Kyle Buchanan debate the utility of the term.”
How The Miami Tribe Is Bringing Its Language Back From The Dead
“The last native speaker of Myaamia died in the 1960s. The language had been spoken by the Myaamia people, Native Americans who originally lived in what is now Indiana. Also known as the Miami, they were forcibly relocated twice in the 19th century, and ended up scattered throughout the Midwest and beyond … By the 1980s, linguists and tribe members alike thought the language was gone. But then Daryl Baldwin came along.”
Paris Museum In Hot Water Over Exhibit On Segregation In US
“The Musée du Quai Branly Jaques Chirac in Paris has come under fire for literature published for children alongside their exhibition, ‘The Color Line: African American Artists and Segregation.’ The booklet appears to play down the European role in slavery, and claim some slaves had enjoyable lives. Following public outcry, the museum destroyed the inaccurate pamphlets.”
Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center Buys Another Theater
“The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is buying the Merriam Theater from the University of the Arts for $11 million, leaders from the two arts groups say. … With this purchase, the Kimmel bolsters its control of major arts venues between Pine and Locust Streets totaling well over 8,000 seats.”
An Uber For Classical Music?
“Professional musicians and those studying in conservatories can upload samples to a Groupmuse profile, which an internal team approves. Next, the Groupmuse team pairs performers with hosts who volunteer to host strangers and musicians in their home: a soloist for 10 people, a quartet for a house that can fit 50 listeners. Around 20 Groupmuse shows happen across the country every week, mostly in Boston, New York, Seattle and the Bay Area. Groupmuse suggests each attendee pays $10 for the show; musicians go home with an average of $160.”
We Don’t Seem Bothered By Movie Violence. But Why Do We Think It’s Entertaining?
“The colossal body counts of action blockbusters are incapable of rousing our concern. The vivisections of the torture porn genre we can endure with nary a wince or grimace. We’re unmoved by bloody fisticuffs, unruffled by cities levelled en masse, forever unperturbed by peeled-eyeball gorings. Violence, in the movies at least, has a tough go of actually bothering us. So what about it does?”
Oops! London Theatre Wanted To Auction Off “Work Experiences” In The Theatre. Storm Of Protest Ensues
The theatre had intended to auction off experiences in the theatre – opportunities to work there – to the highest bidders. The theatre’s executives said they had set up the auction in good faith, but added: “Since some prizes have been misconstrued, we take responsibility for the misunderstanding.”
Arts Council Of Ireland Gets Eight Percent Funding Boost (But Arts Funding Is Still Down)
“The Arts Council of Ireland has received a €5 million (£4.5 million) increase in the 2016/17 budget – equivalent to an 8% increase that will see its total funding rise next year to €65.1 million. In total, the arts budget for 2016/17 is €158.3 million (£142.7 million), although this is down 16% on the previous year. However, the decrease was attributed to one-off capital funding allocated in the previous budget for projects marking the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.”
Has Chicago Become The Center Of Theatrical Innovation?
“Between now and the end of the year more than 30 plays will make their world premiere in Chicago, which makes 2016 particularly robust for a city that’s never taken its theater scene lightly but is increasingly taking risks with material the coasts won’t touch.”
How The Spaces Of Los Angeles Made A Poet
“To have been born and raised in such a place is a stain on the psyche and a strange blessing, an embrace of soft air all your life, laced with whiplash Santa Ana winds sweeping off the wastes of the Mojave and electrifying an atmosphere already charged with the energies of untethered development and entrepreneurial ambition. Buildings are constructed and routinely erased, yet they remain implanted in the native’s mind like seeds of some vaguely remembered myth.”
Speaking Of Gentrification, Art Galleries Are Coming For Harlem
“But what if we thought about defending Harlem against these same forces using strategies of addition and not only ones of attrition? What if the rule rather than the exception were to form institutions that can support and enable artists who are rooted in Harlem, who have durable connections to its soil?”
She Walked Away From A Modern Dance Career, And Now She’s Getting Major Choreography Commissions
“Ms. Lang, 41 years old, graduated from the Juilliard School in 1997 with a job in hand, dancing for acclaimed contemporary choreographer Twyla Tharp . But soon the reality of being a professional dancer—repeating the same dances on tour, without time to develop new work—ended the dream. ‘I toured the world,’ she said. ‘And I just didn’t like being a dancer.'”
A Time-Lapse Video That’s Worth Every One Of The 52,000 Books Involved
The video shows “what happened just before the staff at the New York Public Library reopened their 100-year-old Rose Main Reading Room after a makeover in the fall. 52,000 books had to be put back onto their shelves, one-by-one. That’s a lot of books.”
The Scholar Of Horror Who Has Created An Entire Class On Beyonce’s Lemonade
“I’ve taught kooky classes before. I’m the weird one in the department. So, I’ve taught Horror Text & Theory, Black Women in Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror, Speculative Black Women, Bad Black Mothers – so a class about Beyoncé was almost normal at this point. My department is pretty supportive about my course choices.”
When This Singer Visited A Refugee Camp And Spoke Out, Britain Got Surprisingly Hostile
“The 31-year-old singer, who has described herself as ‘an argumentative little shit’, has been both loved and hated by the press and public for a decade now, as is the fate of pop stars with opinions. Nothing she’s experienced has had the effect of muting her voice. She remains bracingly fearless – an incorrigible fly in the ointment.”
Changing Up Late-Night On A New Channel
“‘Desus & Mero’ is loose, cheerful and profane. ‘Late night as a structure of programming does not matter,’ Mero said. ‘It shouldn’t feel like ‘Yo, here’s the news.’ It should feel like you’re looking on the internet with your friends. ‘Yo, you saw this video? That’s wild!’'”
When Librarians’ Freedom Of Speech Gets Silenced, What Do The Rest Of Us Have?
“Parsons added, ‘This is private property.’ It is revealing that a policeman should have imagined, even in a heated moment, that a public library was private property.”
The Art Of Asking Cubans To Imagine Running For President
“‘Let’s use the 2018 election to change the culture of fear,’ Ms. Bruguera said in the one-and-a-half-minute video, adding, ‘To make a Cuba that is run by us all, not by a few.'”
‘Symphony From The New World’ Is The Best Of All Time, No Contest
“The first movement, the Adagio — Allegro molto, is fine. It’s actually extremely good, but if a first movement is good, you’re only acknowledging it on a subconscious level. It keeps you invested. It pulls you into the rest of piece without making a show of it.”
A Play That Cuts Close To Home For One-Woman Powerhouse Anna Deavere Smith
“The protean actress and playwright has spent her career interviewing and then embodying people of different races and divergent points of view — ‘chasing that which is not me,’ as she put it in a recent interview. But her new play, ‘Notes From the Field,’ a prolonged meditation on education and criminal justice, is different.”
The New York Phil Musicians Who Kept A New Music Ensemble Alive
“Its fate took on added importance amid questions over how committed the Philharmonic would remain to new music after the departure of Mr. Gilbert, who has raised its profile during his tenure.”
Artists In LA Rise Up Against Influx Of New Galleries In Their Neighborhood
“Activists from a loose coalition called the Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement are demanding that the galleries leave… Artists who didn’t grow up in Boyle Heights, they look at Boyle Heights as a blank canvas. They don’t realize they are painting over another work of art.”
Here Are The Dominos In The $250 Million Old Master Fakes Scandal
“This calls into question the long-held belief that art history experts can identify the hand of a master simply by looking at a work, and could have major implications for the Old Master market moving forward.”
Sales Of Bob Dylan’s Books Soar And Sell Out
“Dylan’s memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, jumped from No. 15,690 on Amazon’s best-seller list on Wednesday night to No. 278 in the wake of the Nobel news, and it is now out of stock. Meanwhile, a bound compilation of Dylan’s lyrics, The Lyrics: 1961-2012, hopped from No. 73,543 to No. 209 in the same time frame. (Dylan’s music also saw the effect, with Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits and Blonde on Blonde making it to Amazon’s top 25 for CDs and vinyl by Thursday night.)”
New York Armory’s New Director Defines The Immersive Arts Experience
In an age when it has become common to consume entertainment on hand-held devices, Pierre Audi said, the appeal of multisensory immersion in a cultural event is growing: “Nowadays we are attracted to it because we are naturally — and it’s healthy — becoming uncomfortable with the ritual of going to a concert, business as usual.”