“The basic reason is that for all its magnificence as an art form, opera is no longer seen as an art of our time. The operas presented by Opera Australia especially were mostly written in the 18th and 19th centuries.”
With A Revamped National Gallery, Singapore Hopes To Make Itself The Nerve Center Of Southeast Asian Art
“More than 600 million people live in the 10 Asian nations roughly south of China and east of India, in what Eugene Tan, the director of the National Gallery, described as ‘one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world.’ Yet much of its art has been overlooked by the West, and many significant works have been confined to private collections, partly a legacy of colonialism.”
The Purpose Of An Essay – How You Persuade
“I’m torn between making broad sweeping statements and getting at a truth that’s practical and mundane, truth in the trenches, sort of, which is much closer to how I experience the actual act of writing an essay.”
The Murdered Writers Of Bangladesh
“For Bangladeshi authors and bloggers, religious fanaticism is putting their security and freedom of speech at stake, in a level of repression only comparable to dictatorial regimes of the past. K Anis Ahmed explains what it means to be a writer in Bangladesh’s harrowing ‘new normal.'”
Drawing As A Tool For Justice (No, Not Courtroom Sketches)
“For a long time I felt like going to protests was the same as — you know, when people go to church but they don’t really believe in God? But they think, oh, better just hedge my bets. I don’t necessarily think this is going to do any good, but I really ought to do it anyway. It’s the right thing to do.”
Do Happier People Live Longer? The Study Says…
“There have been numerous studies in recent years suggesting that happier people may live longer and that happiness could even help protect against some health problems, like heart disease. According to a massive new study published in The Lancet, happiness has no such power.”
What Happened After Patricia Arquette Made Her Speech At The Oscars About Gender Pay Disparity
“A woman came up to me the day after I won an Oscar to thank me for my speech. She told me that her boss called her in to his office that Monday morning and gave her a raise. There was no reason she was getting paid less, and she deserved the raise. She started crying, and I started crying.”
A Revitalized ‘South Park’ Is Nailing Our Era Of Outrage
“This season is sketching something like a grand – if messy – unified theory of anger, inequality and disillusionment in 2015 America. … South Park, Colo., [has been] taken over by a new school principal … and his crew of like-minded, jacked-up frat bros, who believe that being p.c. ‘means you love nothing more than beer, working out and the feeling that you get when you rhetorically defend a marginalized community from systems of oppression!'”
Teens Are Getting Famous On A Video Social Network You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
“YouNow says it records 150,000 broadcasts a day and 100 million user logins a month. According to its own internal stats, … 74 percent of its users are under 24 and 56 percent of them are female.” With 510,000 followers, YouNow star Zach Clayton “can launch a broadcast with no warning and coax tens of thousands of people to check in on him within the space of an hour.”
Vast Collection of Second Empire Art to Be Sold by Christopher Forbes
“The collection was begun by Mr. Forbes’s father, Malcolm Forbes, and put together over 40 years. ‘This is the biggest and most important Second Empire collection in the world,’ [the auctioneer] said. Major works from the collection have circulated in the United States as an itinerant exhibition over the past dozen years.”
Darcey Bussell: The Billy Elliot Effect Has Resulted In A Boom Of Male Dancers
“I was told by the director of the Royal Ballet School that they are getting more applications for boys than they are for girls – it’s amazing!”
Micro-agressions And Me In The Theatre
“Our collective institutions—artistic staff, marketing departments, etc.—are placating the older white audiences, and are afraid to challenge them, or even educate them. We take their donor money and put them on boards, and we brush their microaggressions off as our old grandma or grandpa who might be a little racist and elitist but are otherwise harmless.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 12.09.15
You Gotta Know Why
Communities, funders and the environment all shift over time. Arts and culture organizations can get stuck in patterns of doing and being. How might we change so that we remain relevant when our communities change? … read more
AJBlog: Field Notes Published 2015-12-09
Skorton Meets the Press: Outreach, Public Input, “Trade Secrets”
In his cautious comments yesterday during an hour-long appearance at the National Press Club, Washington, David Skorton, the Smithsonian Institution’s new secretary, seemed to be guided by his expressed belief that “the first thing in nonprofit leadership is to do no harm. … read more
AJBlog: CultureGrrl Published 2015-12-09
Intimations of the Unseen Haunt the Seen
It’s very dark down here. This is not how we’re used to entering New York Live Arts’ black-box theater: down the stairs, walking along a narrow corridor at the edge of the performing area. There are a couple of people with flashlights, but they don’t fully light the way. Is this a birth canal of sorts? And into what? … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2015-12-09
Weekend Listening Tip: Taylor And Clements & A Video
Four young veterans of Seattle’s busy jazz scene will be featured in Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwestbroadcast on Sunday afternoon. Wilke recorded the new group headed by saxophonist Mark Taylor and pianist Dawn Clement at the recent Earshot Jazz Festival. … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2015-12-09
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Opera Philly To The Rescue! Production From Defunct Gotham Chamber Opera Will Go Ahead In Harlem
“When Gotham Chamber Opera closed this fall, it looked like one of the casualties would be the New York premiere of Charlie Parker’s Yardbird, the ambitious new work it had co-commissioned with Opera Philadelphia …But thanks to fast work by Opera Philadelphia and the Apollo, which teamed up to save the production, New Yorkers will get to hear [the piece] after all.”
Cleveland Orchestra Gets Very Glad Tidings: More Audience, More Revenue, Bigger Endowment
“In fiscal 2015, its push to remain viable and relevant paid off in the forms of higher attendance, endowment growth, and record-setting levels of philanthropy. … The surplus came despite the release of thousands of free and steeply discounted tickets. … No longer are youthful crowds just a ‘Fridays@7’ or Family series phenomenon.”
In Theatre, Necessity Really Can Be The Mother Of Invention
Lyn Gardner: “Complicite’s early shows evolved as much from a lack of resources as they did from a particular aesthetic, and it’s been the same with plenty of other companies, from Improbable and Kneehigh to Little Bulb and Action Hero. That’s not an argument for artists starving in garrets or being unable to access subsidy and investment … But it is a reminder that need can be a spur to creativity and make artists think about different ways of making theatre.”
And What Was This Year’s Drama At La Scala’s Opening Night?
“It looked like the first night of La Scala’s production of Giuseppe Verdi’s Joan of Arc had gone off without a hitch.” But no. On a backstage audio recording later broadcast on national radio, “‘I’m here, congratulations maestro, really congratulations,’ Leiser can be heard saying in English. After a pause, he then screams ‘asshole’.”
Director Of Royal Opera In London To Step Down
“Kasper Holten, the Royal Opera’s director of opera since 2011, has announced he will leave Covent Garden in 2017 in order to be closer to family in Denmark. … The departure appears to be entirely amicable.”
West End’s ‘Charlie And The Chocolate Factory’ Coming To Broadway Without Its Director
Sam Mendes – best known in the US as a film director (American Beauty and the James Bond films Spectre and Skyfall) – said, “I knew I couldn’t marry the time commitment to make a Broadway production with the development of my next projects.”
Ballet Hispanico Eliminates Its Executive Director
The 45-year-old company “announced Wednesday that Eduardo Vilaro, its artistic director since 2009, would become its chief executive officer as well. … [He] has experience running both the artistic and managerial sides of a company: he served in both roles for the Luna Negra Dance Theater in Chicago, which he founded in 1999.”
Margaret Atwood Takes Up Writing Superhero Comics
From her announcement: “Due to some spilled genetic Super-Splicer, our hero got tangled up with both a cat and an owl; hence his fur and feathers, and his identity problems. … Angel Catbird is a humorous, action-driven, pulp-inspired story. And the only other thing I can tell you at this early date is to expect a lot of cat puns.”
Make Others Trust You By Spilling Coffee All Over Yourself
“Highly competent people can make themselves appear more approachable by committing a pratfall. A small blunder makes them seem a little vulnerable, and this vulnerability makes them seem approachable and warm. The effectiveness of this strategy debunks the common assumption that trust is something that can only be built slowly over time. By making yourself vulnerable, it’s possible to build trust in less time than it takes to mop up a spilled latte.”
Royal Ballet Principal Bryony Brind, 55
“[She] made world headlines in 1982 when, aged just 22, she was picked out of the Royal Ballet’s junior ranks by Rudolf Nureyev to become his partner at Covent Garden. … But in the pressure of public glare her career faded in less than a decade. She then acquired a new celebrity when she stepped out (platonically) with Prince Michael of Kent and became the romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland’s daughter-in-law.”