The authors call the social withdraw they captured in data a “natural human response” triggered by a change in environment, but they acknowledge their findings contradict an established theory about collective intelligence. When forced to share space, humans behave much like swarms of insects. This has appeared to be true in a range of contexts, the authors note, citing studies involving the US Congress, college dormitories, co-working spaces, and corporate buildings.
Month: July 2018
Why “Hamilton” Is The Opera Of Our Time
The irony is that what “Hamilton” represents now is exactly what opera used to be: a thrilling, contemporary, immersive stage presentation that’s a union of story, text, music, image and movement, and that gets under the skin and into the blood of a wide audience that feels it speaks profoundly to them. There’s something addictive about “Hamilton,” and that’s partly a result of spending three hours fully concentrated on sound and spectacle, straining to get every word, alongside hundreds of other people doing exactly the same thing. You don’t get that from a recording. Nor, often, do you get it in an opera house
How Bottom-Up Programming Is Changing A Dutch Capital Of Culture
The bottom-up programming means that events are spread across non-traditional sites throughout Friesland – which lacks an extensive network of conventional venues – using a model that seeks out and seeds local producers and companies who then source alternative ways of funding. Of course it wouldn’t be an ECoC without the punctuation of the big international shows, but even these are carefully geared to the local spirit of ‘iepen mienskip’ or open community.
Egypt’s Complicated Relationship With Belly Dancing
In recent decades, belly dance has inspired conflicting impulses among Egyptians, who see it either as high art, racy entertainment or an excuse for moral grandstanding… But if Cairo is the global capital of belly dance, then why do its hottest new stars come from everywhere but Egypt?
A Collection Of Unpublished, Stolen W.B. Yeats Letters Was Found At Princeton
Archival research has its moments: Yeats scholar John Kelly “was browsing the catalogue of Princeton University Library, where he had pored over Yeats’s holdings some years earlier, when he spotted a file of 17 letters to the poet’s publisher he had not seen before. He discovered from the librarian it had been stolen in the 1970s, disappearing without trace until it turned up recently, delivered anonymously in a brown package.”
If You Want To Sell Your Stuff, You Need To Hire (Literal) Babies
Maybe arts organizations need to grab hold of the “influencer baby” trend on Instagram. (Yes, this does sound eerily like something out of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad.) “Influencer marketing has exploded. And more recently, one area has proven to be particularly lucrative: sponsored content that involves kids, or spawn con.”
The Composer Premiering A Classical-Pop WWI Commemoration Piece At The BBC Proms
Anna Meredith: “It’s five short pieces about the first world war using a big-ass orchestra, young musicians, a choir and the spectacular, eye-boggling visuals of 59 Productions. It’s not soldier’s stories but the mechanics of how they communicated: codes, redaction, field postcards.”
How To Get A (Probable) Hit On The Cartoon Network
Have some luck, get a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art, and work your butt off for at least three years. Summer Camp Island creator and showrunner Julia Pott: “I feel like I’m just the person who created the world, and all of my favorite jokes and moments have come from other people.”
Brit And Aussie Authors Are Still Unhappy With The Idea Of Letting Americans Into The Booker Race
Peter Carey, two-time Booker winner, doesn’t think that the U.S. should be part of the conversation or the competition: “I am sure that American prizes don’t give a stuff about Australians or New Zealanders or Canadians, or any of those voices. An English prize does because there is still a family connection, a cultural connection that really does mean something.”
How – And Why? – Are Plays And Musicals About The Subjugation Of Women On Broadway Right Now?
My Fair Lady and Carousel were both revived with careful and lush attention to their music, but they were nominated for few Tonys, and both lost Best Musical Revival to the comparatively little-known Once on This Island. “The beautiful orchestra readings alone make a trip to each revival essential for anyone who can afford a ticket — it’s hard to imagine Carousel, in particular, sounding so good again.