With coronavirus cases surging again in much of the U.S. and not really slowing in the UK, and with the release of the summer’s two big tentpole titles, Tenet and Mulan, postponed, AMC and Cineworld/Regal have pushed back their previously announced reopening dates to the very end of July. – Variety
Author: Matthew Westphal
Cirque Du Soleil Files For Bankruptcy Protection, Lays Off 3,500 Employees
The global circus giant was struggling with an estimated $900 million in debt (much of it incurred by acquiring other companies) even before the pandemic hit and ended all ticket income. In exchange for restructuring and reducing that debt, three of the existing owners have agreed to recapitalize Cirque with $300 million, and the government of Quebec will provide a backup guarantee in order to keep the company’s worldwide headquarters in Montreal. – CBC
Museums And Art Galleries In England Can Open On July 4, But Most Of Them Won’t
The National Gallery and Royal Academy will accept visitors the following week, but the Tate won’t open its four locations until July 27; others are waiting until August or September, and many won’t yet commit to a specific date at all. Most venues are limiting admissions numbers and require booking tickets in advance; masks are “recommended.” – BBC
Bolsonaro Names A Soap Opera Star (The Second In A Row) Brazil’s Culture Secretary
“Mário Frias … is the fifth person to hold the role in the 17 months since president Jair Bolsonaro was elected and, like most of his predecessors, Frias has no political experience. … Last month, [Frias] participated in an anti-fascist protest in São Paulo and said that demonstrators were taking part in ‘organised crimes’ and should be considered terrorists.” – The Art Newspaper
Poets, Playwrights, Novelists, And A Swashbuckling Conquistador Nun: The Women Writers Of The Siglo De Oro
The polymath Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was only one of numerous women in Spain and its New World colonies who became accomplished authors during the 16th and 17th centuries (and who should be better known today). Many of them were, in fact, nuns, and one of them really did run away from the convent, dress and pass as a man, and had some hair-raising adventures in New Spain. – Public Radio International
How The Virus Turned This Ballet Master Into A Real-Life Phantom Of The Opera
Curtis Foley, who danced with the Royal Winnipeg ballet and Les Ballets Grandiva, was, until this year, a ballet master at the Polish National Ballet He had just arrived to coach the ballet company at the opera house in the Czech city of Ostrava when the COVID lockdown struck — and he’s ended up spending four months, much of that time alone, living inside the theater. – Dance Magazine
Photographer Li Zhengsheng, Who Captured The Cultural Revolution On Film, Dead At 79
“At great personal risk [he] documented the dark side of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, producing powerful black-and-white images that remain a rare visual testament to the brutality of that tumultuous period, many of them not developed or seen for years.” – The New York Times
Fully Half Of The Dramas On US Broadcast TV Are About Cops
“Perhaps one reason why America’s national reckoning on police brutality took so long to arrive is because TV is conditioning its citizens to view cops as reliable heroes. Of the 69 scripted television dramas that aired on the big four US broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, Fox, and ABC) in the last year-and-a-half, 35 were about law enforcement.” (And that’s not counting comedies like Brooklyn Nine-Nine, reality shows like Cops, or syndicated reruns.) “Numerous academic studies over many years have showed that viewing cop shows can leaded to warped views of the criminal justice system and policing.” – Quartz
Uffizi Gallery Becomes High Art’s Top TikTok Jester
Until just a few years ago, the august Florence museum “acted like the internet didn’t exist”: it didn’t even launch a website until 2015 and only got itself a Facebook page after the COVID lockdown started this past spring. At the end of April, in an effort to reach young people, the Uffizi opened a TikTok account and started posting inventively humorous videos incorporating art in its collection — for instance, Botticelli’s Medusa turning a coronavirus to stone. – The New York Times
‘The Black Experience in the Concert Hall’
“Classical musicians of African descent have existed on the margins of obscurity for centuries — in the classroom, the concert hall, the record industry, and on the radio,” says Terrance McKnight, evening host at New York classical radio station WQXR. In this radio special for Juneteenth, he talks to Wynton Marsalis, Martina Arroyo (one of the great operatic sopranos of the 1960s and ’70s), composers Alvin Singleton and Leslie Dunner, Nashville Symphony principal oboist Titus Underwood, and other guests as well as listeners about working as an African-American in the classical music industry. (audio) – WQXR (New York City)