Before Miles Davis went electric and Ornette Coleman bloomed, Brubeck was the surest name to start an argument. A cynical section of the jazz audience perceived his experimental nature as a search for a catchy idiom that might eventually bring him the triumph of a hit. And of course, this line of argument claimed a win when “Take Five” propelled the world onto the dance floor in 5/4 time. – Times Literary Supplement
Author: Douglas McLennan
How You Translate The Madcap Edinburgh Fringe Online
The festival’s cancellation has been a big blow to long-term fans — and to the 30,000 performers who travel to the Scottish city each August to show their work. To fill the gap, some artists have gone online to try to capture the anarchic, diverse and somewhat overwhelming experience of being at the Fringe. – The New York Times
Survival: Hibernate Or Adapt?
Amid this backdrop, what are the options available to arts venues, upon which so much of the industry relies, when they find traditional spaces not fit for purpose within social distancing guidelines? Will hibernation or adaptation be the best long-term survival strategy? – Toks Dada
A Wikipedia Battle Over Kamala Harris’ Entry
Once the news broke, many of the first edits to Harris’s Wikipedia page were the sort of structural maintenance done by veteran editors on the site: citing sources, attaching categories, improving captions, and adding a notice that Harris was “a person involved in a current event,” and as such, “information may change rapidly as the event progresses.” Someone clarified that, until she’s officially nominated at the Democratic convention next week, Harris is still only the “presumptive vice-presidential nominee.” Grammar was improved; typos were fixed. But then at 4:42 p.m., a user named Eee302 changed Harris’s first name from “Kamala” to “Cuntala.” – The Atlantic
Guitarist Julian Bream, 87
Interviewed in the Guardian aged 80, Bream, who retired in 2002, said he was no longer playing: “The thing I feel a little annoyed about is that I know I’m a better musician than I was at 70, but I can’t prove it.” – The Guardian
An Outdoor Dance Festival… And Some Hope
From this vantage point early in its run — and I’m pronouncing this with my fingers crossed that no virus outbreak occurs — the festival can be seen as a cultural marker in ways both subtle and magnificent. It’s a psychic harbinger, a sign that performing arts survive and that smart, creative planning can win — at least for the small audiences each night, who are screened on arrival and sit on socially distanced blankets or benches, or watch from their cars, and for the coronavirus-tested artists performing there. – Washington Post
The Future Of Dance – An Online Strategy
“Whether or not companies can figure out how to incorporate digital into their strategy is going to decide which will fold. Linking digital programming to data, marketing and operations is a long-term necessity. COVID has only made this more clear.” – Pointe
A Storied Hollywood Research Library – And It Needs A Home
Its roots go back to the Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, established in 1919 on a corner of Formosa Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. Renamed United Artists Studio in the 1920s, the Lot, as it came to be known, eventually became the site of Samuel Goldwyn Studios. In 1961, Lillian Michelson, wife of renowned storyboard artist Howard Michelson, became a volunteer there, and eight years later, she made the library her own. – Los Angeles Times
The Theatre Of Giving Convention Speeches When There’s No In-Person Audience
The impresarios of the Democratic and Republican national conventions are facing the same theatrical problem that playwrights, stand-up comics and concert singers have been grappling with since the pandemic darkened our stages: how to simulate the look, sound and feel of live performance. – Los Angeles Times
New VR Experience Takes You Inside Notre Dame Before And After The Fire
Rebuilding Notre-Dame begins by recounting the history of the gothic cathedral with close-ups of its gargoyles, bells and sacristy alongside the rector Patrick Chauvet talking about his sense of vocation. This footage was made three months prior to the fire for a Targo documentary on Chauvet. The ensuing scenes include drone images of the cathedral’s blazing fire, of crowds of shocked onlookers and of firemen struggling to extinguish the flames, followed by interviews with Chauvet, General Jean-Louis Georgelin, who is charge of the cathedral’s reconstruction, and Paris’s mayor Anne Hidalgo. – The Art Newspaper