One professional musician who has long been passionate about connecting with communities is shocked by an insight about most performing arts marketing — and that shock isn’t really surprising. – Doug Borwick
Author: Matthew Westphal
Music from Paradise
It is remarkably little known that the non-Western genre that has most influenced Western composers is not African or Chinese or Indian – it’s Indonesian. – Joe Horowitz
Meet The Woman In Charge Of Dance Theatre Of Harlem
“On this episode of Women in Charge, Allison Benedikt talks to Virginia Johnson, artistic director and founding member of Dance Theatre of Harlem. They talk about how she shifted from principal dancer to founding member to artistic director. Johnson also shares stories about what it meant to grow up as a black ballerina and what progress is being made in the dance culture now.” (podcast) – Slate
Women Dominate Man Booker International Prize Shortlist
Of the six authors and six translators up for this year’s £50,000 award, only one author (Juan Gabriel Vásquez of Colombia) is male. Arguably the most prominent name on the list is Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk (who took the same award last year for Flights) with Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. – The Guardian
The Political Fairy Tales Of Edouard Laboulaye
“Laboulaye’s creative work has been eclipsed by his political career” — a judge during France’s Second Empire, he was committed to women’s rights and the end of slavery — “but in his day he was recognized as a writer of fiction, too, and especially known for his fairy tales … [in which] rulers are more often than not oppressors, and women and outcasts and peasants usually win out.” – The New York Review of Books
The Aretha Franklin Doc ‘Amazing Grace’ Is To Documentaries What Terry Gilliam’s Don Quixote Movie Is To Features
Which is to say that, like Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, it was eagerly anticipated, took decades to get done, got stopped immediately before a premiere screening by a lawsuit, and generally ill-starred if not cursed. Reporter Natalie Rinn tells the tale. – The New York Times
Not A Revolution, Exactly: James Baldwin Talks To Robert Penn Warren About The Nature Of The Civil Rights Movement
“It is a very peculiar revolution because, in order to succeed at all, it has to have as its aim the reestablishment of the Union. And a great, radical shift in American mores, in the American way of life. … The hope has to be to create a new nation under intolerable circumstances and in very little time and against the resistance of most of the country.” – Literary Hub
Who, Us? Of Course We’re All Black, Hungarian ‘Porgy And Bess’ Cast Members Tell Gershwin Estate
“The Hungarian State Opera has asked the nearly all-white cast … to sign a statement declaring that ‘African-American origin and identity is an inseparable part of my identity’ and made being in Porgy and Bess ‘a special joy.'” – Yahoo! (AP)
Designing An Arena Specially For Video-Game Tournaments
The Fusion Arena, a $50 million, 65,000-square-foot venue dedicated to esports, is set to open in 2021 in Philadelphia’s sports district. Primarily, “[it] will host home games for the Philadelphia Fusion, the professional nine-person team in the 20-team Overwatch League, … but the arena will also host occasional outside events.” – CityLab
Quiz Bowl — Like College Football, But For ‘Jeopardy!’
Ken Jennings, Jeopardy! all-star and an alum of Brigham Young University’s quiz bowl team (and a fine writer), gives a look inside what’s become quite a youth subculture: “Quiz bowl: molding the Jeopardy! gladiators of tomorrow, one little brainiac at a time.” – Slate