ArtsJournal2 – Page 417 – ArtsJournal Wayback

‘Fearless’ French Filmmaker Claire Denis Has Inspired Young American Directors

Barry Jenkins, director of the Best Picture Oscar-winning Moonlight, is a fan. And her actors appreciate that she deeply understands her medium. “Alex Descas, one of the actors with whom Denis has worked longest, and who credits her with writing complicated, realistic roles for black actors at a time when few others did, described her artistic mode succinctly: ‘Film is not theatre,’ he told me.”

College Admissions Are In An Existential Crisis

Two numbers colleges used to rely on – SAT scores and GPAs – just aren’t that reliable anymore, admissions people say. So how to judge student applications? The answer is not good: “Admissions officers at about half of the institutions surveyed said an applicant’s ‘ability to pay’ was of at least ‘some importance’ in application decisions.”

The New York Times Has A Poetry Editor, And It’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Rita Dove

The position of poetry editor was created in 2014, and each poet who gets it has a one-year tenure in the position. But why pair poetry with journalism? Dove: “I always thought this was essentially the way in which poets worked. We were the modern-day griots. You tell the story, but you tell the story that’s under the story. You bring to light human reactions to grander events, in the hope that people will recognize themselves in it.”

The Composer Of The ‘Brokeback Mountain’ Opera Doesn’t Want To Be Just Another Token

Charles Wuorinen is working hard on commissions, and the opera has its U.S. premiere in New York at the end of the month. But he’s not happy with how the United States is dealing with high culture in general. When he was young, he says, “it was considered essential for a civilized person to have some connection with literature or music. Now that’s completely gone.”

Broadway Has Changed For Women, But Not Nearly Enough

Whew, theatre world, what are you DOING? “The just-concluded 2017–18 Broadway season saw a meager 17 percent of its offstage talent composed of women.”

Did Anything Techy And Cool Happen At The Martha Graham Dance Company’s Google Residency?

Well, techy things definitely occurred. But were they also cool – or, more to the point, useful for the dance company? “Some projects were more successful than others, but all were well worth watching: Dancers moved silkily inside 3D environments that were then projected onto screens for mixed-reality experiences. Graham’s ‘Lamentation,’ from 1930, was reimagined using archival imagery of the solo projected onto a moving dancer. And a Graham dance was captured in 3D, transforming Anne Souder, in a motion-capture suit, into an avatar.”

Apparently, Kids’ Brains Are Like Goldilocks (And Reading To Them Is ‘Just Right’)

If a child gets only the audio of a book, as when parents as one of their AIs to read the child a story, the kid might not get engaged – the info is “too cold”. But if the child is looking at a graphic novel, the information may be “too hot.” The best info is an illustrated book, and even better if a caring adult is reading that book to the kid.

Auction Buyers Are Now Paying Top Dollar For Art By African Americans

The auction world is behind, though: It’s “belatedly reflecting re-evaluations that have been going on for some time in the museum world. Driven by seismic shifts in cultural politics, scholars and curators have challenged the fixity of the West’s artistic canon, rehabilitating neglected talent from a range of communities and cultures.”

The ‘Golden Booker’ May Be A Stunt, Says One Of Its Judges, But It’s A Worthy (And Perhaps Surprising) One

The Golden Booker is an award for one of the Booker winners from the past 50 years, and the shortlist has now been revealed. It includes both popular books – The English Patient and Wolf Hall – and a few surprises as well. Critic and writer Robert McCrum says, “It’s a vindication of 50 years’ debate about the nature of so-called literary fiction. Prizes offer an odd kind of lit crit, but I’d say that almost all the novels the judges had to read, reread and consider have stood the test of time.”

Author: ArtsJournal2