Says one administrator who’s worked in the UK, US, and Australia, “When you talk about ‘funding models’, it’s important to realise that the States effectively doesn’t have one. Referring to what happens in the US as a funding model is like calling an earthquake a lifestyle choice.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Way Beyond Muzak: Background Music Is Now Very Big, Research-Backed Business
“The background music industry – also known as music design, music consultancy or something offered as part of a broader package of ‘experiential design’ or ‘sensory marketing’ – is constantly deciding what we hear as we go about our everyday business. The biggest player in the industry, Mood Media, was founded in 2004 and now supplies music to 560,000 locations across the world, from Sainsbury’s to KFC.”
The Belly Dancer As Philosopher
“Westerners often imagine the [“Oriental”] dancer as the femme fatale. But the dancer is not a femme fatale. She is a mother.” In an interview that cites a Lacanian psychoanalyst and an anthropologist, the dancer known as Malak, born and raised in Spain and now an established instructor in Cairo, talks about the power of belly dance and the relations (of several sorts) between dancer and viewer.
The Queer Coming-Of-Age Movie Has Arrived As A Genre
Spencer Kornhaber: “The first major-studio movie about adolescent gay romance, Greg Berlanti’s spring hit, Love, Simon, uses teen-comedy tropes to portray homosexuality as no big deal in a well-off, relatively woke slice of America. But other recent films, set in less tolerant places and eras, hint that integrating queerness into a schema that has been overwhelmingly straight isn’t so simple.”
Why The Classical Music World Wants To Commemorate The End Of World War I: Anne Midgette
“Classical music loves anniversaries — because, more than any other branch of the arts, it’s focused on looking at an increasingly distant past. Classical music comes into its own at times of commemoration and mourning: Even the mass audience tends to embrace classical music at a funeral. … Today, when classical music is eager to reassert its relevance to the world at large, this kind of historical presentation appeals to presenters. The question is whether these Armistice observances actually prove classical music’s relevance or simply serve to wrap history in a PBS soundtrack of nostalgia.”
This Pair Roams The Globe, Restaging Revivals Of ‘A Chorus Line’
“[Bob] Avian, credited as the musical’s co-choreographer [with the late Michael Bennett], and [Baayork] Lee, the original Connie Wong, travel the world to stage virtually every major production of A Chorus Line, passing on the steps to new casts and identifying dancers who might be able to do the same in the future.”
Pre-Dawn Silent Dance Parties: A New Path To Community Or Even Bliss?
“An early-morning substance-free ‘party’ held about once a month in 25 cities across the United States …, Daybreaker events are like the compression shorts of Millennial experiences: Sort of uncomfortable, but also uplifting.”
Historians Have Revered This Book For 30 Years. It’s Only Now Getting Published
“Over the years, it’s been passed around, first in photocopies and later as a PDF. … It’s made its way onto required-reading lists and been cited hundreds of times.” There has even been a scholarly conference devoted to it. Julius S. Scott completed The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution in 1987, and it’s only coming out in print this month. Reporter Tom Bartlett investigates why.
When Looted Antiquities Turn Up For Sale At Art Fairs, Who’s Responsible?
“What kind of responsibility should fair organizers have to protect the buyers? It would be discriminatory for a fair to restrict the inclusion of a dealer because of past issues and bad press, but at the same time, buyers will assume that fairs are curated to some extent, and that those selling there have been screened by the organizers … In fact, most fairs charge for galleries to exhibit and sell in them, and so there is a financial disincentive to be choosy about who shows.” Noah Charney considers possible solutions.
Does Philadelphia Really Need Another Building For Contemporary Art?
In its two years of existence so far, Philadelphia Contemporary has run a very successful program of exhibitions and performances without any single building or address. (Director Harry Philbrick works out of cafés.) Now the organization has announced not only that it’s getting itself a building, but that it has hired the architect of Houston’s new Menil Drawing Center. The problem? No site and no money. Inga Saffron is skeptical.