Author: Douglas McLennan

Festivals Worldwide Are Thinking Green

Every industry takes a toll and holds its own responsibility when it comes to environmental impact, and as life goes on, action to minimise this is necessary. Festivals, promoters and event organisers around the world have been cottoning on to the gravity of our current climate crisis, and their efforts to blend music, the pursuit of pleasure and matters of sustainability are being reflected in the public consciousness. – MixMag

What Happened To The Great Cultural Critics?

What has become of the commanding figure of the critic in the last 20 years? Where are the successors to Sontag and Steiner, and to Empson and Richards, FR Leavis, Raymond Williams and Frank Kermode? …They wrote books such as Culture and Society (Raymond Williams, 1958), The Death of Tragedy (Steiner, 1961) and Culture and Imperialism (Said, 1993). They moved literary criticism from poetry and the novel to subjects such as illness and photography, orientalism and the Holocaust. Yes, they were lively speakers, often provocative, but they were also accessible. – New Statesman

National Dance Institute Has A Plan To Be More “National”

Jacques d’Amboise started the nonprofit organization while he was a principal dancer at New York City Ballet to expose children to what he feels is the transformational power of dance. Today 6,500 children in New York City participate in N.D.I. school programs each year. The N.D.I. Collaborative teaching program will offer on-site intensive training and professional workshops to teaching artists, dancers and classroom teachers at the institute’s Harlem headquarters. It will also provide consulting services to other dance education organizations. – The New York Times

London Review of Books Isn’t Just Surviving, It’s Thriving. Here’s How

As newspapers and magazines experience diminishing revenue, plunging circulation and attacks from both terrorists and government leaders, the L.R.B. has not merely survived but also flourished, and its circulation has risen consistently since 1985, to its current 78,000 — substantial in a country where the glossy men’s magazine Esquire reaches 57,000 — by doing the things readers are said not to be interested in anymore. – The New York Times

Bookstores Are Awesome. Should They Charge Admission?

Why not monetize the intangibles? The Strand, and stores like it, could charge an admission fee. Something token, like a dollar. For a buck, you’re granted access to everything the store has to offer. You can browse to your heart’s delight. There’s no pressure to make a purchase. And, if you do buy something, perhaps the item costs close to what it would cost online, because all of those dollars would have allowed the store to lower its prices. – The New Yorker

Jerry Saltz And Justin Davidson Debate The New MoMA

“The great news is that along with the rest of us, Diller Scofidio + Renfro were finally beaten down by the reality of just how messed-up and cramped the billion-dollar Taniguchi building was. They fixed some of the problems and tacked on a few fun extras, and added about five Gagosians’ worth of space. But it still amazes me that the suits who make the museum’s real-estate deals sold MoMA short again.” – New York Magazine

It’s Theatre! No, It’s Film! (Actually, It’s Both)

“Fascinated by the relationship between theater and cinema, Christiane Jatahy has made a show that’s both. “One is the utopia of the other,” she tells us, though anyone who has ever despaired at badly shot video in the theater might wonder if screen and stage are actually enemies. But Jatahy has managed a strange and difficult trick. By precisely setting live film and live performance against each other, she makes them into a mise en abyme— a mirror that reflects another mirror, leading the eye into infinity.” – New York Magazine