“Tech companies have created a “fail-fast” system; a culture in which there is no room for what could be genuinely called failure, but only a series of experiments which lead inevitably and inexorably to the conclusion of success. I find it all exhausting. Failure once allowed you to stop trying – that was, famously, the one good thing it has going for it. Having agonised over a doomed project for years, at least you might have the cathartic relief of finally and permanently throwing it away. You were allowed self-pity. You were allowed, crucially, silence.” – New Statesman
“Toy Story” Is 25 Years Old
Toy Story might have been the first fully digital production, but its exhibition depended upon recording those digital images onto analogue film strips. This was a technology that had been in use, largely unchanged, since moving pictures first appeared a century earlier. – The Conversation
Black Theatre Needs More Than Just Different Playwrights
The form must also meet the content, say critics and scholars. They discuss “an under-theorized element of the discussion on Black theatre: its form. Oftentimes, Black theatre is relegated to conversations that focus solely on its content, obscuring the ways that Black artists have revolutionized the way theatre is written, devised and performed.” Artists like Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Tarell Alvin McCraney show the possibilities and the joy. – HowlRound
In-Person Theatre During Covid-19: Quarantine, Ventilate, And Be Ready To Quit
A recent New Jersey show demonstrates that, if the perfect factors come together, Equity theatre can happen – though it will be more rare in the winter, certainly. “The whole time we were working on it, I would wake up feeling like Icarus and wondering if my wings were going to melt. But it was worth all the hurdles.” – American Theatre
Apple TV Relents And Allows “Charlie Brown Christmas” To Air On TV
On Wednesday, Apple bowed to the backlash, announcing it had teamed up with PBS for ad-free broadcasts of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (on Nov. 22) and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (on Dec. 13). – PBS
Baryshnibot: Ballerina Physicist Invents Ideal Dance Partner For Quarantine
A few weeks after the lockdown started back in March, Merritt Moore — who danced with ballet companies in Oslo, London and Boston before getting a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford — hit on the idea of using a robot as a partner for dance training while in isolation. So she ordered an industrial model and started programming it to do 15-second ballets with her for TikTok and Instagram. The pair has since racked up about 15 million views. (And yes, the machine’s name, which was crowdsourced, is Baryshnibot. The runner-up choice was Roboto Bolle.) – Pointe Magazine
Character Dance Used To Be An Integral Part Of Ballet, And Just As Popular. What Happened To It?
“Most full-length classical ballets feature several character dances — troupes of dancing peasants, parades of visiting princesses. Today, those dances are often seen as ‘filler,’ interludes to give the principals a breather between classical variations. But back in the 19th century, … character dances had deep cultural significance. … (Picture a Paris opera house full of cheering crowds, demanding multiple encores after their favorite star performs a knockout mazurka.) How did something that used to be so popular, and once provided critical context, fade from prominence?” Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone gives an overview of the history. – Dance Spirit
Director Of Cantor Museum At Stanford Ousted Over Management Style
“Susan Dackerman, director of Cantor Arts Center, has resigned under pressure after a lengthy investigation revealed a toxic work culture with heavy staff turnover and low morale at the Stanford University museum.” – San Francisco Chronicle
Academy of Ancient Music, Leading Baroque Orchestra, Names New Director
Under its founder, the late Christopher Hogwood, the AAM made many pathbreaking recordings, including the first period-instrument releases of the complete Mozart symphonies, Bach’s Magnificat, and four Handel oratorios, including Messiah; with Hogwood and his successor, Richard Egarr, the orchestra has built up a discography of more than 200 titles. Taking the reins from Egarr in the fall of 2021 will be harpsichordist/conductor Laurence Cummings, currently director of the International Handel Festival Göttingen in Germany and the London Handel Festival as well as the period orchestra in Porto, Portugal. – Pizzicato
What Do You Need To Know To Have An Aesthetic Experience?
“While aesthetic experiences are universal, most people would probably agree that some of us are more aesthetically sensitive than others. But what does that really mean? In casual conversation, we’ll make claims such as This car is beautiful, and we’re prone to thinking that there is something inherent to the car that makes it aesthetically pleasing. From there, a logical deduction is that aesthetic sensitivity describes the ability to detect and appreciate beauty wherever it exists. However, I believe that the ‘beauty’ is not in the car itself, but in the perceptual processes that end with a pleasant or unpleasant visual aesthetic experience.” – Psyche
1000-Year-Old Viking Burial Site Discovered
“The Gjellestad site is the home of the Jell Mound—one of the largest Iron Age burial grounds in Scandinavia. A landowner first discovered it in 2017 when requesting permission to build drainage ditches across the field near the mound, with experts confirming the find in autumn 2018.” – The Art Newspaper
Beirut’s Cultural Community Struggles To Rebuild After Last Summer’s Explosion
“With no support from the government, a collapsed economy that has made financial hardship a normal part of life, and a spike in coronavirus cases that has overloaded hospitals, the Lebanese have been left to fend for themselves, rebuilding and reconstructing their beloved city with grit and determination.” – Artnet
The Opera That Changed Everything: Mark Swed On ‘Einstein On The Beach’
“Almost nothing about what composer Philip Glass and director Robert Wilson put onstage was opera. Einstein has no narrative. Einstein has no Einstein, even though a great many onstage are dressed in the iconic image of frizzy-haired scientist. Einstein on the Beach has no beach. … Everything about [the piece] seemed new and revelatory in 1976. … When the Metropolitan Opera presented the touring production that fall after an ecstatic European tour, in which every seat at every performance was sold out, the company hadn’t performed a new American work in decades. Here was a new beginning for opera in America.” – Los Angeles Times
Groundbreaking: “Wonder Woman” Will Be Released Online And In Theatres Simultaneously
The decision to forgo a traditional theatrical release is surprising because “Wonder Woman 1984” was expected to be one of the biggest films of 2020 and had the potential to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales. The $200 million-budgeted movie was originally supposed to hit theaters this past summer. However, it was delayed time and time again amid the coronavirus crisis. – Variety
Neighborhood Dance Studios Struggle To Survive Pandemic
From the small operations that give youngsters their first lessons (especially in lower-income areas) to big establishments like the Broadway Dance Center in Manhattan, dance studios, and the skilled pros who run and teach in them, still have to pay the rent and other expenses even as income has plummeted since COVID-19 struck last spring. Here’s how a few of them are trying to avoid closure and keep dance available to their neighborhoods. – The New York Times
For The Second Time, D.C. Director Is Ousted From A Theatre Company He Founded
“Complaints by staff members and months of internal conflict have led to the ouster of Mosaic Theater Company Artistic Director Ari Roth. … The end to Roth’s tenure at the company he set up in the final days of 2014 is a bitter close to what had seemed a successful revitalization of his career as a theater leader in Washington. Just before creating Mosaic, in December 2014, Roth was fired as artistic director of Theater J, the company he ran for 18 years as part of the DC Jewish Community Center.” – The Washington Post
Art Dealers Are Making Buyers Commit Not To Flip The Art. Are Such Contracts Enforceable?
“Contractual terms preventing buyers from reselling works at auction for a fixed period of time — which have become increasingly popular as dealers seek to stamp out speculation that can damage young artists’ prospects — as well as agreements granting galleries the right of first refusal on resales may violate consumer rights, according to Martin Wilson, chief general counsel at [auction house] Phillips. … Fellow lawyers in the UK and US largely agree.” – Artnet
Unknown Da Vinci Sketch Of Jesus Discovered, And Scholar Says It Proves ‘Salvator Mundi’ Is Not By Leonardo
“[This] is the true face of Salvator Mundi,” said Annalisa Di Maria of the UNESCO Center in Florence. “[It] recalls everything in the drawings of Leonardo: it is his language, and speaks loud and clear.” Di Maria argues that this sketch is the study for the real Salvator Mundi by Leonardo; the painting under that title which was sold three years ago for the highest price in history ($450 million), and whose authorship is still debated, looks very different. – Artnet
2020 National Book Awards Winners Are Most Diverse Crop Ever
“Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, a satirical, cinematic novel written in the form of a screenplay, has won the National Book Award for fiction. Tamara Payne and her father the late Les Payne’s Malcolm X biography, The Dead Are Arising, was cited for nonfiction and Kacen Callender’s King and the Dragonflies for young people’s literature. The poetry prize went to Don Mee Choi’s DMZ Colony and the winner for best translated work was Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station, translated from Japanese by Morgan Giles.” – AP
Produce Theatre? In A Pandemic? In Finland? Of Course – It’s “Essential”
“I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Art has played a major role in bringing this once poor and isolated country into the international arena, and the government subsidizes culture in a big way. That’s why artists continue to be employed — and why, even though socially distanced performances will never cover their costs, companies in Finland are putting them on, secure in the knowledge they have a financial cushion.” – The New York Times
Report: Thousands Of American Museums Could Close For Good
The average museum has lost $850,000 to date, though the figure is much higher for large institutions. The Museum of Fine Art, Boston expected a $14 million loss through July alone, and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has projected a $150 million shortfall. – Artnet
Sydney Production Of ‘Hedwig And The Angry Inch’ Called Off After Trans People Protest Casting Of Queer Cis Male
The musical, which was to be one of the centerpieces of the Sydney Festival in January, was postponed and withdrawn from the festival by the producer after a trans non-binary actor launched a social media campaign saying the casting of Hugh Sheridan in the title role “is offensive and damaging to the trans community.” (John Cameron Mitchell, who created and co-wrote the show and originated the part, has said that Hedwig is not a trans character and can be played by anyone.) – The Guardian
James Conlon To Fill In At Baltimore Symphony After Marin Alsop’s Departure
Conlon — music director of Los Angeles Opera since 2006 and previously music director or principal conductor of the Paris Opera, the Cincinnati May Festival, the Ravinia Festival, the RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and the city of Cologne in Germany — will become the Baltimore Symphony’s Artistic Adviser in September of 2021, when Alsop ends her 14-year tenure as music director. Conlon will not be a candidate for the permanent music director post. – Baltimore Business Journal
Yikes, What A Time To Be Taking Over The Paris Opera
“There should have been no better time to start than this, the company’s 350th anniversary, which was to have culminated this fall with a splashy new production of Wagner’s epic Ring cycle. Instead, [Alexander] Neef … walked straight into an annus horribilis.” – The New York Times