“What has happened, then, during this time without physical training spaces for artists? In the long months that have passed since isolation began, we have had to overcome the creative blocks related to the lack of spaces—theatres, practice rooms, street stages—and have been engaging in discussions about the new challenges, such as the control of our bodies produced by the confinement and public health policies, the rethinking of the staging of our works, and the reformulation of creative projects with the technological resources that we have.” – HowlRound
Another Year Of Declines For UK Libraries
Annual figures from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (Cipfa) show that the number of books borrowed from libraries in the year to March 2020 – before the pandemic closed branches – fell by almost 9m year on year, to 166m. Public funding also fell by almost £20m, to £725m. In 2010, it had topped £1bn. – The Guardian
The Great Library That Was Completely Destroyed Twice In 26 Years
By the early 20th century, the Catholic University of Leuven/Louvain in Belgium had one of Europe’s great libraries, with 300,000 volumes in total, including rare manuscripts from medieval Europe and the Near East as well as early printed volumes. What’s more, it was open to the general public. Then, in 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm’s army marched through and burned the place down, an action which drew worldwide condemnation. An international effort after World War I rebuilt the collection — and then, in 1940, Hitler’s army blew the place up. Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford, recounts the sad history. – Literary Hub
How They Measure Happiness (And Why)
Within the U.S., a commonly cited data source is the General Social Survey (GSS). This has been measuring general well-being levels every one or two years going back to 1972, and since then, has always shown that the percentage of people who say they are “very happy” hovers between roughly 30 and 35 percent, while the percentage of those who are “not too happy” sits around 10 to 15 percent. – The Atlantic
Shocker: Warner Studios Says It Will Release All Its 2021 Movies At Once Streaming And In Theatres
In a surprising break from industry standards, Warner Bros.’ entire 2021 slate — a list of films that includes “The Matrix 4,” Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune” remake, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation of “In the Heights,” Sopranos prequel “The Many Saints of Newark,” and “The Suicide Squad” — will debut both on HBO Max and in theaters on their respective release dates. – Variety
NASDAQ Proposes Rule To Diversify Boards. Will It Accomplish Diversity?
The experience of some high-profile tech companies calls into question whether a diverse board leads to a more diverse workforce. Straight white men are a minority on the boards at Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, and Google parent Alphabet. None of the four would have to make changes to comply with Nasdaq’s rule. But none has shown big progress in diversifying its workforce. – Wired
Publishers Back Replacing BookExpo
Among the criticisms of the old BookExpo was that it was too expensive and had lost its way in trying to be all things to all people. – Publishers Weekly
Netflix Debuts A New Series Focused On Dance
Five A-list choreographers were hired to reflect the show’s varied moods and styles: Guillaume Côté, Juliano Nunes, Garrett Smith, Tiler Peck, and Robert Binet. In typical entertainment-world fashion, they had relatively few rehearsals with the cast. – Dance Spirit
Why, And How, Francis Ford Coppola Has Reworked ‘The Godfather, Part III’
“Unlike the near universal acclaim the first two movies enjoy, Part III is remembered as the Fredo of its family — the one that doesn’t really measure up. … For a new theatrical and home-video release this month, Coppola has rechristened the film as Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. … The director has changed its beginning and ending and made alterations throughout to excavate and clarify the narrative that he always believed it contained about mortality and redemption.” – The New York Times
Reconsidering The Diversity Of Classical Music
“Classical music is diversifying not just on account of contemporary composers, but thanks to increased awareness of figures who were famous in their day but have since been forgotten, covered up or sidelined. The history of classical music is much more complex and diverse than the impression given by the canon as we know it now.” – The Guardian
New York’s Jazz Standard Club Closes
It is the first major jazz club in the city to close permanently due to the coronavirus pandemic. – NPR
Mysterious ‘Con Queen Of Hollywood’ (Who’s A Man) Arrested In England
Hargobind Tahilramani, a 41-year-old Indonesian man now in custody in Manchester, is believed to be the perpetrator of a years-long scam in which he impersonated major Hollywood executives such as Amy Pascal, Sherry Lansing, Kathleen Kennedy, and Wendi Deng Murdoch and swindled hopeful actors, stunt performers, makeup artists and others out of thousands of dollars each. – The Hollywood Reporter
The ‘Digital Magna Carta’: Section 230, The Law That Made Social Media And E-Commerce Possible
“Much of the modern internet exists thanks to a short section of a 1996 US law dedicated to moderating online porn.” That’s Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996: it protects websites with user-generated content — and that’s everything from Twitter and YouTube to Amazon and Wikipedia — from legal liability for that content. (It’s the creator that gets prosecuted or sued.) But Section 230 has been under attack from several sides, and the lawmakers that back them, for years — and the latest of those assaults is tied up with, yes, Donald Trump’s attempts to undo the outcome of the 2020 election. – Quartz
Plans For ‘The Black Version Of Lincoln Center’ On Chicago’s South Side
“[Actor Harry Lennix] intends to build both a two-theater complex to house (among others) the Congo Square Theatre Company and a new, nationally focused museum dedicated to Black contributions to the performing arts. Everything from dance to film to music to theater.” – Yahoo! (Chicago Tribune)
Florence’s Soccer Stadium Is A Modernist Masterpiece But Badly Outdated. Preservationists And The Team Are At War.
The Artemio Franchi stadium, designed by Pier Luigi Nervi in 1930, is regularly featured in architecture textbooks and is even on a page in Italy’s passport. But the seats are uncomfortable, some of them are exposed to rain, and there’s no place for revenue-generating shops or eateries. The team’s owner, with the fans on his side, wants to tear it down and build a new one; preservationists are aghast; the culture ministry in Rome will be the referee. – The New York Times
How Hollywood Studios Are Reinventing (Again) For The Streaming Age
“Amid the backdrop of the pandemic and the ongoing, years-long digestion of several mega-mergers, from Disney-Fox to ViacomCBS to AT&T’s WarnerMedia, pretty much every legacy entertainment house in town is in the process of maneuvering a massive ship-turning effort to better point their armadas in the direction of streaming.” – Variety
Camilla Wicks: Towering talent found, lost, and found again
The clear, slipped voice at the other end of the phone was neither astonished nor impressed to learn that her recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto was a collector’s item whose original LP was then selling for $125. “It’s not that good,” she said, sounding mildly exasperated. Oh, but it is. – David Patrick Stearns
The Rediscovery (At Last) Of Ethel Smyth
“In 1934, all of musical England gathered to celebrate the 75th birthday of one the country’s most famous composers – Dame Ethel Smyth. During a festival spanning several months, audiences crowded into the Queen’s Hall, London, to hear her symphonic cantata The Prison, or settled in at home to listen to the BBC broadcasts of her work. At the festival’s final concert in the Royal Albert Hall, the composer sat beside Queen Mary to watch Sir Thomas Beecham conduct her Mass.” Yet within a couple of decades she was all but forgotten — until just the past few years. – The Guardian
Biden’s Cabinet Needs A ‘Dr. Fauci For The Arts’
Peter Marks: “Now, more than ever, we need a secretary of arts and culture. As President-elect Joe Biden rolls out his circle of close advisers, the notion is gaining momentum among leaders and advocates of nonprofit groups and for-profit companies: that someone should be named to coordinate arts funding, unite assorted agencies and underline the value of arts and entertainment to the nation’s financial, social and psychological well-being.” – The Washington Post