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New York’s Hot New Dance Studio Is A Corridor In Penn Station

“Officially called the West End Concourse, the corridor has a lot going for it: It’s easily accessible, the floors are spacious and smooth, and there are public restrooms, a rarity in New York City. It’s a ready-made stage for all sorts of group and partnered dance. … The biggest draw? It’s free.” - The New York Times

The Naval Academy Was Supposed To Host A Lecture On Idea Censorship And Reading Fearlessly

Then the Academy, apparently not fearless, censored the lecture. "I did not want to cause them trouble. I did, however, feel it was essential to make the point that the pursuit of wisdom is impossible without engaging with (and challenging) uncomfortable ideas.” - The New York Times

How Trump And His People Want To Capture The History Of The United States

“The president has gone beyond rhetoric, moving to challenge or seize control of history-related federal cultural institutions including the Smithsonian, the National Park Service and the National Endowment for the Humanities.” - The New York Times

More Cuts Hobble The Kennedy Center In A Variety Of Departments

Marketing, campus planning, and the entire social media team - gone as of Friday. “Kennedy Center staff members ... spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. Most former employees had to sign non-disparagement agreements.” - Washington Post (MSN)

Ambient Music? An Online Archive Of Soundscapes From The Environment

“The Sonic Heritage project is a collection of 270 sounds from 68 countries, including from famous UNESCO-designated sites such as Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal, … a monarch butterfly sanctuary, … wind turbines, rare whales and the Amazonian dawn chorus.” Also, sea lions who sound like drunk frat boys. - The Guardian

How Marshmallow Peeps Are Born

A visit to the headquarters of Just Born Quality Confections in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where some two billion Peeps are made each year (along with Hot Tamales, Mike and Ike, and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews). - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Have A Look Around The Grand Egyptian Museum, Now Open At Long Last

“There is perhaps no institution on earth whose opening has been as wildly anticipated, or as mind-bogglingly delayed. ... Its construction has been such a fiasco — mired by funding lapses, logistical hurdles, a pandemic, nearby wars, revolutions (yes, plural) — that it begs comparison to that of the pyramids.” - The New York Times

It’s About Time We Acknowledged That Andrew Wyeth Was A Genuinely Great Artist

“The slow collapse of the postwar avant-garde’s underlying tenets (no figuration! no storytelling! no obvious skill!) has allowed many to admit that Wyeth was onto something specific and powerful …, (and) I find it tends to overwhelm most reservations. What he was onto, in short, was mortality.” - The Washington Post (MSN)

Producer Jeffrey Seller Recounts The Gestation And Birth Of “Rent”

“In this excerpt, adapted from Seller’s memoir, Theater Kid (out on May 6 from Simon & Schuster), the producer lays out the musical’s long road from dispiriting workshop to its simultaneously triumphant and tragic first preview performance.” - Vulture

Mario Vargas Llosa, Last Of The Latin American ‘Golden Generation’ Of Writers, Has Died At 89

“Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, gained renown as a young writer with slangy, blistering visions of the corruption, moral compromises and cruelty festering in Peru.” - The New York Times

Looks Like The White House Has Replaced Obama’s Official Portrait With Portrait Of Trump Raising His Fist

A spokesperson wrote that the Obama portrait was simply moved. “Last month, the Trump administration and the Kremlin confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin gifted a portrait to the president. It is unclear whether the portrait now hanging in the White House was a gift from Putin.” - Hyperallergic

Ireland’s Trailblazing Artists Were Treated So Badly That One Retreated To A Convent

"The Irish Times used the phrase 'freak pictures’ in a review, and Russell again had a field day, referring to their work as ‘artistic malaria.’ It all weighed heavily on them both.” - The Guardian (UK)

The BBC Did What With A Pedophile’s Art?

They reinstalled Eric Gill’s statue, is what they did. Now it’s behind a “protective screen” (to protect the sculpture, that is), but, uh, "visitors can now scan a QR code near the building to understand the dark background of the sculpture’s creator.” - The Guardian (UK)

“Monty Python And The Holy Grail” At 50: Michael Palin And Terry Gilliam Look Back

Palin: "I say to people, 'Led Zeppelin gave us £50,000 – and look where they are now.'" Gilliam: "Thank God for rock'n'roll is all I can say." - BBC

The List Keepers: Recording And Memorializing How AIDS Ravaged New York Theater

“More than 40 years after the start of the epidemic, the full numerical scope of the toll AIDS took on the world of theater in New York remains difficult to assess. It’s not just inaccurate death notices that are the enemy of historical precision; it’s the passage of decades.” - New York Magazine (MSN)

Trump, The Smithsonian, And Dueling Conceptions Of American History

Philip Kennicott on the administration’s attitude toward the Smithsonian's African-American and Indian Museums: “Simply put, Trump would like the actual practice of history — a complex process of research, interpretation and ongoing revision — to resemble the more limited, and often distorted, sense of history offered by statues, monuments and memorials.” - The Washington Post (Yahoo!)

“Revivification”: A Reconstituted “Mini-Brain” Of The Late Alvin Lucier Is Creating Music

A team of artists and neuroscientists took white blood cells donated by the composer (who cooperated with the project), reprogrammed them to be stem cells, grew cerebral organoids (clusters of neurons that mimic the human brain) and used customized technology to render the organoids’ neural signals into music. - The Guardian

Frank Rich’s Brief History Of Broadway As Business

“The historic fantasy of the Great White Way as a glamorous montage of gleaming marquees, sparky backstage romances, and elegant audiences reveling in black tie was a Hollywood concoction, arguably false from the start.” - New York Magazine (MSN)

Pasadena Playhouse Makes A Stunning Announcement

But this surprise is of the good, even great sort: The theatre “has paid $9.5 million to buy back the campus it lost in bankruptcy in 1970 — a remarkable feat for a theater organization, and a building, brought back from the brink.” - Los Angeles Times (MSN)

Kevin Young, Head Of The Smithsonian’s National Museum Of African American History And Culture, Leaves His Post

“His departure comes as President Trump has targeted the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, in an executive order,” though the museum’s official statement was that he wanted to focus more on his writing. - The New York Times
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