“A record held by Michael Jackson’s Thriller for more than 30 years is no more. The Eagles’ Greatest Hits 1971-1975, a perennial seller since its initial release in Feb. 1976, has surpassed 38 million copies sold, according to the latest certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).”
Author: Matthew Westphal
France Introduces Culture-Pass App – With €500 Credit For 18-Year-Olds
A few hundred young people are currently using the app in a beta-test that will extend to 10,000 participants this fall, with a nationwide rollout planned for next spring. “With its key aim being to ‘encourage cultural discovery and diversification’, the project … has prompted debate about what constitutes culture, and whether some kinds should be promoted over others.” (The culture minister has declared that there would be “no cultural snobbism.”)
Cuban Gov’t Introduces Sweeping New Law Censoring Cultural Activities
Decree 349, as the law is known, requires all performances and other artistic activity to have a government contract which forbids a wide range of content, including any “that violates the legal provisions that regulate the normal development of our society in cultural matters.” Violations can result in shutdowns, fines, and confiscations.
Chunky Move, Melbourne’s Leading Contemporary Dance Company, Loses Its Artistic Director
Anouk van Dijk, the Dutch choreographer who succeeded founding artistic director Gideon Obarzanek in 2011, will formally depart at the end of this calendar year.
More UK Theatres Commit To Giving All Actors Who Audition A Yes-Or-No Response
Last week, in response to a social media campaign tagged #YesOrNo, Britain’s National Theatre promised to contact all actors who auditioned but weren’t cast to give them a definitive answer. Now the Royal Shakespeare Company, London’s Almeida and Royal Court, and several major regional playhouses have joined in making the same commitment, as have a number of prominent casting directors.
Brazil’s First-Ever Queer Art Show, Shut Down Last Year, Reopens To Huge Crowds
The exhibition, titled “Queermuseu” in Portuguese, opened last year in a bank-sponsored cultural center Porto Alegre; it was shut down by the bank after religious conservatives loudly accused it of promoting blasphemy, bestiality and pedophilia. This past weekend, following what became the largest crowdfunding campaign in Brazil’s history, the show opened at an art school in Rio, where thousands lined up to see it.
Max Richter and Classical Minimalism
Scott attends a performance of Richter’s Sleep in Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles.
Monday Recommendation: The TJO At 20
Toronto Jazz Orchestra, 20, (TJO)
There’s something drifting down from Canada besides smoke from wildfires.
A Rock Critic Has His First Experience With Near-Total Silence
In the final entry of his 18-year column “Resonant Frequency,” Mark Richardson writes about the joys of a life lived with music blasting through headphones (and for him, those joys are very real), and his middle-age exploration of silence, culminating in a visit to an anechoic chamber.
Time For Asian-Americans To Forgive ‘The Joy Luck Club’?
“If you want to see a community turn against an artwork that depicts them, make it the only one. If that artwork is by a woman, about women, and openly feminist, half the job’s already done. … [The Joy Luck Club‘s] greatest achievement — becoming the most prominent example of Asian-American representation on screen for a quarter century — is also what has relegated it to being a relic and, for many Asians, an embarrassment.” Well, argues Inkoo Kang, it’s time to get over all that.