“In exchange for free tickets to [the Cirque show] O and an upgrade to one of the VIP suites, [60 volunteers] agreed to be poked and prodded, and have their brain activity observed during a performance. Twice each night for five nights, Lab of Misfits techs” – yes, that’s the name of the neuroscience research firm – “wired six of us up with the headgear, and … they gave us iPads that prompted us throughout the show to answer questions about just how much awe and wonder we were feeling at that exact moment.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Barnes Foundation Offers Tours Guided By — Anyone But Tour Guides
In a summer series called “Barnes Jawn(t)s” (referencing Philadelphia’s strange all-purpose noun), the museum is turning docent duties over to a bicycle transport advocate, an Indian classical dancer, a queer Latinx social worker, and a black female comic-book maven.
How Helen Keller Watched Martha Graham’s Company Dance
“Graham, always on the lookout for ways in which people use their bodies to make meaning of the air around them, observes that Keller ‘could not see the dance but was able to allow its vibrations to leave the floor and enter her body.’ … She has taught herself to pay attention using the vibrations around her and is still able to see and hear by following the directions of sound waves created by voices, bodies, and instruments.”
‘Hamilton’ Director Thomas Kail On How The Musical Has Gotten Young People Excited About American History
“We have students presenting their own material, and you’ll see a poem about Phillis Wheatley by a 17-year-old student, and you’ll see a song from Abigail Adams’s perspective. Neither of them are characters in our story, but for some reason they spark for those students. And that’s my hope, that this is just an ignition for something much larger. As a mediocre history major and the brother of a sixth-grade teacher, nothing would make me happier.”
Is UNESCO World Heritage Status A Kiss Of Death For Sites In Developing Countries?
Looking at Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Luang Prabang in Laos, and the Vietnamese town of Hoi An (whose historic buildings and streetscape miraculously survived the 20th-century wars), art and cultural management professor Jo Caust argues that the mass tourism that comes with the coveted World Heritage designation can turn such places into theme parks and suggests some steps that should be taken to mitigate that danger.
Did Michel Houellebecq Predict The ‘Incel Rebellion’? (Yeah, Basically)
“For the last 25 years, in novel after novel, Houellebecq has advanced a similar critique of contemporary sexual mores. And while Houellebecq has always been a polarizing figure — admired for his provocations, disdained for his crudeness — he has turned out to be a writer of unusual prescience. … Houellebecq, whose work is saturated with brutality, resentment and sentimentality, understood what it meant to be an incel long before the term became common.”
Why Isn’t Art Criticism More, Well, Critical? That’s Not Really The Problem
Melissa Gronlund: “Critics, this thinking runs, need to hold artists’ feet to the fire. Now, I would love for a more ambitious art world to emerge, but I’m not sure more stringent criticism is the means towards it. If anything, the answer is art education: better educated people make better art and provide better critiques. And, sadly for myself, I don’t think criticism still wields that much power. … Everyone knows artists do better to curry favour among biennale organisers than among those of us who tromp along to the openings, notebooks in hand.”
Producers Of Hit Podcast ‘S-Town’ Sued By Estate Of Main Subject
“According to plaintiff Craig Cargile, who filed on Thursday in Bibb County, Alabama, on behalf of [John B.] McLemore’s estate, [senior producer and host Brian] Reed, Serial Productions, This American Life, Chicago Public Media, and others allegedly used ‘McLemore’s indicia of identity in a commercial manner’ and seeks damages. Echoing concerns of some listeners, Cargile says McLemore never consented, nor would he have, to the podcast revealing or speculating on certain ‘mysteries’ of his private life.”
In A Rio Favela, Ballet Classes As ‘Anesthetic’ And Aspirational Tool
An Afro-Brazilian phys-ed teacher keeps her free program running through funding cuts, building closures, negotiations with drug gangs, and the ever-present threat of violence, all to give her students discipline and a taste of things beyond the slums.
Laid-Off Educators Sue UK’s National Gallery To Be Compensated As Employees, Not Freelancers
A group of 27 lecturers, art historians, and artists who provided services for the museum’s education department (until they were made redundant last October) “say that they were paid through the National Gallery payroll, taxed at source and wore staff passes. ‘We were required to attend staff training and team meetings and received formal reviews of our work,’ they write.”