“When the actress Mia Katigbak was a student at Barnard College in the 1970s, she was the only Asian-American studying theater and mostly got to play ‘maids and hookers,’ she said. One day the department head asked her to join a Molière comedy. She would play the harpsichord from behind a screen, Ms. Katigbak recalls his saying, ‘because there were no Asians in France at that time.'”
Author: ArtsJournal2
Richmond Symphony And Its (Literal) Big Tent
“‘The reason we’re excited about the big tent is because it allows us to go out into the community for audiences that may not traditionally go downtown for concerts,’ Dodson said. ‘We wanted to make this as much of a community project as possible.'”
The Self Of A Memoir Is Just As Fictional As Any Character In A Novel
Jill Talbot: “I worry I already live in a perpetual state of detachment from the world, from experiences, from people — I see the essay in everything. So when I begin to think about how to shape an experience via formal experimentation or point of view or metaphor, the experience dissolves and the essay emerges.”
Happy Pride, And Here’s Some History Of Censorship Of LGBTQ Art
“The artist’s digital print was included in the 2001 show ‘CyberArte: Tradition Meets Technology’ at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, but religious activists fervently called for its removal. The print, which visually referenced queer Chicana culture, was also censored in exhibitions in Cork, Ireland, and Oakland.”
What We Can Learn From The Greeks About Violence Onstage
“The violence in Greek tragedies is a form of therapy and education for the audiences both then and now, Doerries argues, a communal response to suffering. The violence in many of the contemporary American plays I’ve been seeing, by contrast, is intended as a form of entertainment, a thrill ride.”
You Can Debate The Meaning Of Life With Google’s New Chatbot
“It reads like a scene from a classic sci-fi flick. But it’s not. It really is a human talking to a machine—a machine built by Google. And there may be good reason it sounds like a movie. Part of the trick is that this machine learned to converse by analyzing an enormous collection of old movie dialogue.”
Why A Massive Trade Partnership Could Endanger Culture In Europe
“European artists are concerned that a model like the one that exists in the US — with artists catering to the market, taking second jobs, and relying on grants from private foundations — could become the standard across all TTIP countries, while the inverse transmission of cultural funding models — with the US adopting a more European system and increasing the level of public funding to the arts — seems utterly improbable.”
The Japanese Photographer Who Spent Decades Taking Pictures Of The Navajo Code Talkers
“‘My father said the war ended early so he could come home,’ Mr. Kawano recalled. ‘That’s why I was born and I came to America, taking pictures of the former enemy.'”
Nina Simone’s Moment Has Come (Again)
“Simone is striking posthumous gold as the inspiration for three films and a star-studded tribute album, and she was name-dropped in John Legend’s Oscar acceptance speech for best song. This flurry comes on the heels of a decade-long resurgence: two biographies, a poetry collection, several plays, and the sampling of her signature haunting contralto by hip-hop performers including Jay Z, the Roots and, most relentlessly, Kanye West. Fifty years after her prominence, Nina Simone is now reaching her peak.”
Bookstores Will Not Go The Way Of Video Stores (Really!)
“Why is everyone so quick to write bookstores’ obituary? What is this cultural obsession with obsoletism? Perhaps it’s just in our bones—that technology always wins.”