Dance classes, “clubbing” from home, and other dance-related videos (and Instagram Stories, Zooms, etc.) are keeping loneliness at bay as nearly everyone has orders to shelter in place. Some are very much like in-person life: “Attendees often dress up for a night out, even if their corner of the party is located in their living rooms. A bouncer will eject party-goers who don’t follow the rules. Attendees can even make a donation via PayPal, an approximation of a cover charge that organizers use to pay the DJs and drag artists who perform each night.” – Globe and Mail (Canada)
Author: ArtsJournal2
Arlene Schnitzer, Gallery Pioneer And Massive Funder To The Arts In The Pacific Northwest, Has Died At 91
The influence of Schnitzer – whose name is on the Oregon Symphony’s hall – on the Portland and Pacific Northwest arts scene can hardly be overstated. “Schnitzer was a towering cultural figure in Portland and the Pacific Northwest, giving many millions of dollars over several decades to the Portland Art Museum, other cultural organizations, health and medical organizations including Oregon Health and Science University, and Jewish causes. With her husband, fellow philanthropist Harold Schnitzer, who died in 2011, she helped shape Portland’s cultural scene: Between 1993 and Harold’s death they donated more than $80 million to various causes. Their naming gift helped transform downtown Portland’s run-down Paramount Theatre into what became the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, home of the Oregon Symphony, much of the White Bird dance series, and other performances.” – Oregon ArtsWatch
Agatha Christie Is (Still) The Best-Selling Novelist Of All Time
Sure, Shakespeare and the Bible outsell Agatha Christie, but otherwise, she’s the tops. “Agatha Christie’s novels have sold more than one billion copies in the English language and another billion internationally.” Thirty percent of USians who like to read started their mystery reading with an Agatha Christie book. And then there’s Mousetrap. – Literary Hub
Hollywood’s Costumers Are Still Sewing, But Now It’s Face Masks For Survival
Tens of thousands of Hollywood and theatre workers are out of work right now. But they’ve found a rallying cause: “With no end in sight to the crisis, costumers — whose job is to create and fit costumes for actors on sets — are plying their sewing and design skills to help address the very real shortages of face masks and other protective clothing among medical workers.” – Los Angeles Times
Suellen Rocca, Fiercely Original Artist And Member Of Chicago’s Hairy Who, Has Died At 76
Rocca and five others, former classmates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “came together under the sway of influences as disparate as Dubuffet, Native American art, hand-painted store signs, the Sears catalog and the natural-history displays at the Field Museum to create a rambunctious form of painting and sculpture that tacked hard against prevailing orthodoxies.” – The New York Times
Zoom Seemed Too Good To Be True
And, turns out, it was. This is why New York just banned it as a tool for teachers: “Zoom contains a number of critical privacy and security flaws, as educators have been learning the hard way. Anyone with a Zoom meeting link can ‘Zoombom’ attendees and broadcast inappropriate content, including pornography, depending on settings established by the meeting creator. In some cases, intruders have been able to hijack Zoom users’ webcams. In addition, Zoom’s iOS app has been sharing data with third parties including Facebook, in a potential violation of children’s privacy regulations.” – Fast Company
The Drum Dance Group That Isn’t Letting A Little Thing Like Social Distance Get In The Way
The group is called Huqqullaaqatigiit, and the drum dancers have been getting together every week for more than a decade to preserve language, music, and the words of elders in the community. Last week, they decided to try it all over Facebook Live. – CBC
Julia Alvarez Says That We Should Rely On Literature To Get Through This
Alvarez, the author of In the Time of the Butterflies and the new Afterlife, isn’t trying to be facetious or to downplay the importance of health care workers or grocery clerks. But, quoting Robert Frost, she adds, “I use [literature] in the broad sense. I don’t mean just written stories. I mean oral stories. I mean music. I mean dance. All these things people are seeking solace in. Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.” – NPR
Chinese Film Industry Restarts, If Slowly
Given strict health controls by the production teams, including quarantines for the entire film crew, “studios have reopened in Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao and Xi’an, and TV series such as Legend of Fei and Like a Flowing River have resumed production. High-profile film shoots, including Zhang Yimou’s Impasse, are also reported to have begun filming again.” – The Guardian (UK)
MoMA Has Canceled All Educator Contracts, Saying It May Not Need Educators For Years
The email was grim, and employees who had done all of the prep work for April tours aren’t being paid for that work. On the other side of things for educators – though not for 76 other staff members who were laid off – “MoMA’s email to educators came only days before New York City’s Whitney Museum sent its own freelance education staff a hopeful message: it hopes to launch a new online teaching initiative that could keep them employed.” – Hyperallergic