“He’s just completed a residency at the Belhaven University Dance Department in Jackson, Mississippi, and teaches ballet around the state, where he resides in a small town outside Hattiesburg.” (Yes, he drives himself.) The Today show pays Danton a visit. – NBC News
Author: Matthew Westphal
Why Did American Classical Music “Stay White”?
Dvořák predicted that a ‘great and noble school’ of American classical music would arise from ‘Negro melodies.’ But the black musical motherlode migrated to popular genres; American classical music stayed white. The reasons are both obvious and not. – Joe Horowitz
How Conservators Keep Art Made With Day-Glo Pigments Glowing
A reporter visits Los Angeles County Museum of Art, conservator Kamila Korbela as she works on restoring Frank Stella’s enormous Bampur. The challenge: the hue that’s fading fastest is one of Day-Glo Color Corp.’s most chemically complex: Saturn Yellow. – Los Angeles Times
How Urban Dictionary Went From Treasure Trove To Cesspit
Aaron Peckham started the site back in 1999 at least partly as a joke, but it quickly became a genuinely valuable reference, with users constantly submitting and updating definitions for slang expressions and explanations of memes. What happened? – Wired
This Off-Broadway Play Was So Fraught, It Hired Post-Show Counselors For The Audience. Now It’s Headed To Broadway — Can Broadway Handle It?
Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play “often funny and pervasively unsettling, examines that lingering wound [of American slavery] through the frustrated sex lives, and taboo sexual fantasies, of three contemporary interracial couples. … An internet-based backlash, seemingly fueled by people who had not seen the play, was threatening enough to require stepped-up security” for its Off-Broadway run. “Many of the participants still can’t quite believe this play, on Broadway, is happening.” – The New York Times
African-American Is New Chief Conductor Of BBC National Orchestra Of Wales
Ryan Bancroft, a 29-year-old native of Long Beach who studied at CalArts, discovered classical music through a one-minute clip of Beethoven pre-loaded on his family’s first computer, and he cites as a chief influence Ghanaian dancing. – The Telegraph (UK)
Conductor Anthony Parnther Knows The Effect Seeing A Black Person On The Podium Can Have
“I’ve seen it many times when I’m conducting, and I see young children of various colors sitting in the front three or four rows,” says the new music director of the San Bernardino Symphony in California and the conductor of the historically Black orchestra Southeast Symphony in Los Angeles. “You can just tell, it’s like: ‘Wow, that’s not what I was expecting to see come around the corner.'” – Los Angeles Times
Do We Have No Choice But To Stan? How Fan Culture Is Swallowing Democracy
“We are witnessing a great convergence between politics and culture, citizenship and commerce, ideology and aesthetics. Civic participation has been converted seamlessly into consumer practice. … Elizabeth Warren is cast as a Harry Potter character and Kamala Harris is sliced into a reaction GIF. … It is democracy reimagined as fandom, and it is now a dominant mode of experiencing politics.” An essay in nine parts. – The New York Times
Film Festivals Cost Their Host Cities A Lot — Are They Worth It?
From Cannes to Shanghai to Park City to Toronto, these events bring in visitors, create jobs, build a city’s brand, and nurture culture. On the other hand, they can drive up prices, strain the environment (Venice), and attract interference from the authorities. On yet another hand, they can put a spotlight on important issues and provide a lifeline for minorities (as with the queer film fest in Jakarta). – The Guardian
Is It Now A Strike And Not A Lockout? Baltimore Symphony Musicians Reject Both Contract Offer And Play-And-Talk Offer
Management had Meyerhoff Symphony Hall open and ready for rehearsal for this weekend’s scheduled season opening, but the musicians say they won’t play without a contract — and they’ve now rejected both management’s proposed one-year contract for a 40-week season (with only a slight decrease in pay from the previous 52-week contract) and an offer to extend the expired contract through Dec. 31 and keep negotiating. – The Baltimore Sun