ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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This Couple Helps COVID-Clobbered Arts Workers Transition Into Tech

"About a week after Broadway shut down, Scott and Catherine Ricafort McCreary launched a support group for artists interested in making a career switch. 'We thought: If your job is gone, there's never a better time to learn what we did." The group? Artists Who Code. - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

COVID Has Cost Us A Generation Of Theatermakers

"The collective pause spurred an unprecedented reflection on what they weren't getting from their prepandemic jobs and what precarious elements they had tolerated. ... Some are leaving the door open to return to theater someday. Others say they'll never go back. Here are 10 of their stories." - Yahoo! (Los Angeles Times)

What Spotify Paid Musicians Last Year

The streaming giant said 52,600 artists earned more than $10,000 (£7,500) from Spotify in 2021. Of those, 130 were paid more than $5m (£3.8m) over the last 12 months. - BBC

The Internet’s Powerful Currency: Shame

What’s curious about the brutality that fuels Internet shaming frenzies is that in real life—that is, IRL, in the usual online parlance—most of us would hesitate to consign a normal nobody to nationwide notoriety and several years of unemployment. - The New Yorker

Forlorn MLA Conference Demonstrates The Decline Of The Humanities In America

In theory, the conference was still happening, but it wasn’t clear whether anyone would be in attendance, or what they’d be doing while there. Who, I wondered, risks death for the conference of a dying profession? - Washington Post

An Innovative And Important New Model For Touring Theatre?

It binds far-flung companies looking for new models for joint offerings. And it brings to theatergoers across the country a play with an inclusive theme and a plan for accessibility for Indigenous people and other diverse audiences. - Washington Post

For The Arts In Other Post-Soviet Republics, It Is Not Business As Usual

"Putin's distortion of history and second-guessing sovereign states is a direct threat to our country also," said one Latvian arts executive. "Aside from experiencing palpable fear of being the next target ..., the cultural scene is pretty much paralyzed at the moment. This all hits too close to home." - Artnet

Is “Moral Clarity” — Even About Ukraine — Anti-Democratic?

My Russian training prompted a question: How could a situation where everyone was morally bound to agree help overcome a collectivist mindset? Freedom and democracy, after all, depend on legitimate differences of opinion.  - First Things

We Need A Sign Language Literature

Most of the time, when we translate something, we think about the act of translation as changing the meaning that comes from one language and conveying it in another language. But the act of translation, particularly in writing, becomes complicated if there is technically no written equivalent of ASL. - LitHub

Scientists Watch A Memory Being Formed In A Living Brain

From earlier work, they had expected the brain to encode the memory by slightly tweaking its neural architecture. Instead, the researchers were surprised to find a major overhaul in the connections. - Wired

A Ukrainian Dancer Has Died Of Injuries Suffered From Russian Artillery Fire

"The 43-year-old principal dancer with the National Opera of Ukraine is the latest of several celebrities in the country that have been killed since the Russian invasion began last month." - Washington Post

End Of An Era: Humana Theatre Festival Calls It Quits

Several of the more than 400 plays presented at the festival have gone on to win wider accolades — “The Gin Game” by D.L. Coburn, “Dinner With Friends” by Donald Margulies and “Crimes of the Heart” by Beth Henley, all won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama — and the event is often regarded as a milestone in the careers of emerging playwrights. - The New York Times

There Are 200 Priceless Artworks From Moscow On View In Paris. Will They Make It Back To Russia?

The exhibition from the Morozov Collection — estimated to be worth $2 billion, with pieces by (among others) Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, and some of Russia's greatest artists — at the Fondation Louis Vuitton may be the most popular art show in French history.  And it's now in a difficult position. - Slate

Did Capitalism Strand Classical Music?

Capitalism first created the space in which such music could flourish, and then took it away, leaving behind a frozen, formalized tradition. - Jacobin

This Scientist Has Worked Out A Model Of Human History That Suggests Bad Times Ahead

Peter Turchin has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an “age of discord,” civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. - The Atlantic

Juilliard’s Board Chairman Tried To Fire Its President. He Failed.

Chair Bruce Kovner, a major donor, told Damian Woetzel, the former ballet star who now runs Juilliard, that an internal evaluation found his leadership lacking and he should resign by June 30. Other board members didn't know of this, and Woetzel rallied them to his side. - The New York Times

Trinity Church Wall Street Fires Music Director Julian Wachner

While the church was investigating Wachner — who built Trinity's vocal and instrumental ensembles into major forces in New York's concert life — regarding an alleged 2014 incident, it found that "that Julian has otherwise conducted himself in a manner that is inconsistent with our expectations." - The New York Times

A Man Forced His Way Into MoMA And Stabbed Two Employees

The suspect had had his membership revoked because of recent unruly incidents. He jumped over the counter and stabbed the employees, who at press time were in stable condition at Bellevue. - The New York Times

What Has Happened To NPR?

Overnight, the network’s entire orientation had changed. Every segment was about race, and when it wasn’t about race, it was about gender. The stories were no longer reports but morality plays, with predictable bad guys and good guys. Scepticism was banished. Divergent opinions were banished. - Unherd

The Cardiff Philharmonic Canceled A Tchaikowsky Performance. Its Reasoning Demonstrates A Moral Quandry

That list doesn’t make for a snappy headline, but it does demonstrate good sense — a quality that’s been in short supply as people and institutions rush to make gestures in support of Ukraine and in opposition to Vladimir Putin’s war. - Washington Post
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