“On Friday, October 11th, 2019, the Sphinx Virtuosi string orchestra concluded their annual United States tour at Carnegie Hall with a program entitled ‘For Justice and Peace.’ Six hours later, Atatiana Jefferson was murdered by Fort Worth Texas police without warning inside her home while playing video games with her 8-year-old nephew. The concert had included commentary on gun violence to black bodies, an elegy for a murdered black man whose case shifted UK criminal justice, two musical reminders of the 400th anniversary of slavery’s start in the United States, and some Bartok and Schubert in their local police and national military contexts.” – I Care If You Listen
Who Belongs on Chicago Stages? Everyone
“Mark Larson’s new book Ensemble: An Oral History of Chicago Theater (Agate Midway), tells the stories of the town’s theatre in the words of its makers, from Steppenwolf to Second City to Goodman to Lookingglass. In Chapter 26, ‘We Are Here and We Are Part of Chicago’s Story,’ Larson talks to artists from under-represented groups, including people of color and trans/non-binary people, about the challenges they’ve faced, and the opportunities they’ve forged, to make work on Windy City stages.” – American Theatre
How this Native pottery master was molded by his family’s legacy
“Potter Nathan Youngblood says it can take a lifetime to learn his craft.
Youngblood, whose pottery balances traditional forms with innovative technique, learned by watching his grandmother Margaret Tafoya, who is known as ‘the matriarch of Santa Clara potters.’ She taught him to make and burnish pots, telling him to ‘take a little time, especially with the polishing, and you will be rewarded.'”(video) – PBS NewsHour
A City Divided: How Chicago’s theatre scene reflects its legacy of racism — and what can be done to fight it
“Chicago, for all of its demographic diversity, isn’t immune to the racism and (not so blissful) ignorance that plagues American theatres more generally. Many artists see the theatrical experience as a sacred one, comparing it to a church-like experience promising transformation. This is quite apt for the Chicago theatrosphere, where storefront mythologies often take root in church basements. But churches have their tensions, and its congregants have their sins of omission.” – American Theatre
The Megahit TV Serial That Jump-Started India’s Hindu Nationalist Movement
A 78-episode adaptation of the Hindu epic Ramayana, broadcast every Sunday morning for 18 months in 1987-88 on what was then India’s only TV channel, was seen by up to 100 million people. Life in much of the country would come to a standstill while it was on, and many viewers treated watching it as an actual religious ritual. (Some even put garlands of flowers on the TV set.) It was the first religious program the national network aired (previous governments had held the subject taboo), and reporter Rahul Verma explains why its broadcast is seen to have ignited the now-powerful forces of Hindu chauvinism. – BBC
How India’s Only Professional Symphony Orchestra Has Kept Itself Going For 13 Years
Founding music director Marat Bisangaliev says that launching the Symphony Orchestra of India back in 2006 was a serious challenge: with the country’s own art music traditions dominant, the few fully trained Western classical musicians from India had all gone abroad. “We zeroed in on a bunch of talented adults who were self-taught and put them through an intensive crash course designed specially to elevate their standard … They had to become worthy of a place in a symphony orchestra, and the move paid off.” And with no existing conservatory to train future orchestral musicians, the SOI has since founded its own. – The National (Abu Dhabi)
The Hero Of This ‘Hamilton’ Is The One Who Wrangles 200 Women In And Out Of 16 Bathroom Stalls At Intermission
Head usher Tanya Heath at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia begins working her miracle with a talk like this: “May I have your attention, please. We are at minute five out of a 20-minute intermission, which means I have 15 minutes to get you into this bathroom. I’ve formed a serpentine line. And it works. It only takes about six minutes from that door to get you in this bathroom. All I need you to do is trust me and trust your sisters.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Sentenced To Art: NYC Diverts Misdemeanor Cases To Art Classes
Seventy-four percent of prosecuted cases in New York are for misdemeanors, according to a 2017 report from NYC Criminal Justice Agency. Instead of clogging up the courts Project Reset tries to change behaviors and hope that will be more effective in reducing recidivism. – CityLab
Artists Meet With Instagram Over Nudity Policies
“Artists that are working with the nude, who censor their own works on Instagram in order to meet their community standards, can be deleted with no recourse because of a lack of a proper appeals system. The deletion of an artist’s account is like throwing someone’s address book and portfolio into a fire.” – Hyperallergic
The Early American Temples To Democracy Were Only Possible Because Of… Slave Labor
The uplifting symbolic content of civic buildings such as the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond or the University of Virginia in Charlottesville came at the expense of human freedom, as slave labor was responsible for both. How could Jefferson countenance the use of slaves in the construction of a democratic architecture? The obvious answer: money. Much could be saved with enslaved labor, and more could be made by owners who rented slaves out. – Metropolis
Saudi Arabia To Build Its First Museum Of Modern Art
Not to be left behind in such matters by Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and Oman, the Kingdom announced that the Saudi Museum of Modern Art — to be “designed according to a modern creative concept influenced by the traditional local architectural style” — will be built near a historic site on the outskirts of Riyadh. No other details, such as an architect, the nature of the collection, or an opening date, were given. – Forbes
Patti LuPone Will Have You Know She’s Been Bullied
From the kindergarten kid who threw a snowball with a rock in it at her, to her father (the school principal), to Hal Prince humiliating her in front of the entire company of Evita, to John Houseman, who “literally strangled me.” But, she says in a Q&A, “I’ve been made tough by this business in order to survive, in order to continue to perform, which is what I was born to do.” (Oh, and Andrew Lloyd Webber “is the definition of sad sack.”) – The New York Times Magazine
Is There Really Such A Thing As Video Game Addiction? Yes.
As of this year, the World Health Organization thinks so, and the American Psychiatric Association has included “internet gaming disorder” in the DSM. More than a few people are skeptical, including some researchers (one says “this whole thing is an epistemic dumpster fire”). “[Yet] a substantial body of evidence now demonstrates that although video-game addiction is by no means an epidemic, it is a real phenomenon afflicting a small percentage of gamers.” – The New York Times Magazine
World’s Only Museum Of LGBTQ Art Removes ‘Gay And Lesbian’ From Its Name
As it begins a $7 million capital campaign to fund a new Learning Center for Arts and Intersectionality that will host workshops and after-school programs, upgrades its archives and library (which are seeing increased use by researchers), and launches an endowment, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, located in lower Manhattan, has renamed itself the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. – ARTnews
Has The Drag Ballroom Scene Outgrown The Criterion That Once Defined It?
The performance-competitions that were made famous by the documentary Paris Is Burning, introduced the world to voguing, and arguably inspired RuPaul’s Drag Race have generally judged their participants and winners on “realness” — the ability to pass as the real thing for whatever the category. Ballroom veteran Sydney Baloue makes a case that, while it was needed as the ballroom scene was born and grew, the concept of “realness” may no longer be necessary and might actually be damaging. – The New York Times
How The Language Of Emojis Evolves
Emoji sink or swim on less democratic tides. They aren’t quite words, of course, though they’re certainly word-adjacent. (Three out of four Americans regularly deploy emoji in text messages, and at least six billion emoji are sent across the major social media platforms each day.) – The New Republic
How Does Chicago Keep Its Busy Storefront Theatre Scene Going? Hard Work, Low Pay, Grit, And Community
“Whether traditional black boxes or nontraditional spaces, often in residential neighborhoods, Chicago storefront theatre prides itself on more intimacy, as well as edgier material, than an audience member can find in a Broadway touring production or the city’s larger venues. Storefront theatre differs from community theatre, not in its meager starting budget but in its aspiration that those involved strive to be professional working artists. Even if they don’t make a living doing what they love, they are making a life (and some money) in it.” – American Theatre
Why America’s Professional Theatres Are Broken
“The effect of this legacy for mixed metaphors and a lack of public funding of the arts is a numbing of artistic innovation and an enlivening of artistic repetition. Companies often opt for what seems like more saleable programming—reliable commodities, you might say—to eke out new works initiatives. But commodification is a distraction from doing the real work that our mission statements claim we do.” – Howlround
Orlando’s Soon-To-Open Performing Arts Center Is Finally Settling Rent Dispute With The Groups It’s Being Built For
“The Orlando Ballet signed a contract with the [Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts] on Tuesday morning after protracted negotiations that saw accusations of unreasonable demands amid high-profile social-media and mass-mailing campaigns to sway public opinion. Opera Orlando and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra are still in discussions, an arts-center spokeswoman said, but ‘we anticipate signing agreements with them soon.'” – Orlando Sentinel
Why 120-Frames-Per-Second Ruins The Cinema Experience
“Our suspension of disbelief — the very thing that we need for the art form to work — dissipates. The smoothness and clarity of the image doesn’t make us feel like we’re sitting in a room with the characters from Gemini Man, it makes us feel like we’re suddenly sitting on the set with the actors from Gemini Man, watching them struggle through their lines.” What’s more, explains Bilge Ebiri, Ang Lee, who loves 120 fps tech so much, “is possibly the major director least suited to trying to make high frame rates work.” – Vulture
One Of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms Is At The Center Of A $14 Million Lawsuit
“The lawsuit [filed in Miami-Dade County] concerns a group of works that Miami dealer Inigo Philbrick and his gallery are allegedly withholding from Fine Art Partners (FAP), a Germany-based financial services company specialized in the art market.” That set of artworks includes pieces by Donald Judd, Christopher Wool, and Wade Guyton, as well as Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins. – ARTnews
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between The World And Me’ Is Now A Play, And It’s About To Tour The U.S
One of the first things that Kamilah Forbes did when she became executive producer at the Apollo Theater in Harlem was contact Coates, an old friend from college, and ask to adapt his award-winning memoir. “Book reading can be so solitary; we read our books by ourselves, and unless you’re part of a book club, do you really engage within the topics or in the actual writing or primarily the topic that the book discusses?” Forbes said. “The question was about how can we use theatre as this collective form of communication to have the broader conversation with the book.” – American Theatre
Less Than A Decade Ago, The Detroit Symphony Seemed Doomed. Now, It’s Thriving
On top of a declining audience and debt, the orchestra had to weather a huge loss of endowment value during the Great Recession, a very bitter 2010-11 strike, and the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Now the DSO is expecting its seventh consecutive balanced budget, lower ticket prices and concerts in Detroit neighborhoods have led to a spurt of audience growth that includes students, and the orchestra made its first overseas tour in 16 years, wowing audiences in China and Japan. And much of the credit for all this good news goes to CEO Anne Parsons. – The Detroit News
Seems France Thinks ‘Salvator Mundi’ Might Still Arrive For Part Of The Louvre’s Big Leonardo 500 Show
Just last week, the French government amended the document indemnifying all loans of artwork for the exhibition to cover Salvator Mundi if it arrives anytime before the end of this year. What’s more, documents show that France was negotiating for the loan of the painting up to the last week of September. – The Art Newspaper
In One Week After Winning The Booker Prize, Bernardine Evaristo Doubled Her Lifetime Book Sales
Seems having to share the award with Margaret Atwood wasn’t so bad after all. “New sales figures from Nielsen BookScan show that, in the five days following its win last Monday, Girl, Woman, Other sold 5,980 copies, a stratospheric 1,340% boost in sales week on week.” – The Guardian