“Taco Hemingway is a household name in Poland. One of the country’s biggest rappers, he has songs that get millions of views, and before the coronavirus hit, he filled arenas. … Over the summer, he released a track, ‘Polskie Tango’ (‘Polish Tango’), which many saw as a direct criticism of Poland’s right-wing government and [its] culture of fear. … He soon found himself under attack on social media and becoming a target for conservative journalists.” – The New York Times
Blog
Want A Different Broadway? Fund A Different Broadway
These theatremakers are proposing a new way of thinking about funding and producing on Broadway, with the goal of creating more access points for BIPOC individuals interested in commercial producing. – American Theatre
Online Theater Gets More Interactive
“Several months into the pandemic, performers, designers and writers are using technology … with more ingenuity. They’re skillfully adapting some of the devices honed in live performance over the years — namely, techniques to break the fourth wall and lure spectators into the show. And in the process, theater is reclaiming for these trying times its rightful status as the most intimate of art forms.” – The Washington Post
The Play That Understood The Trump Era
Though researched and written during Barack Obama’s presidency, Sweat, which opened at New York City’s Public Theater days before the 2016 election, became a definitive work of Donald Trump’s. In a 2017 profile of Lynn Nottage, the New Yorker called the play “the first theatrical landmark of the Trump era.” – BBC
The Art Of The Horror-Movie Scream
“Bloodcurdling from an A-lister is uncommon: Often, the screams we hear in movies and TV are created by doubles and voice actors, in Burbank studios, with specialists standing by to ghoul them up. It’s physically taxing and emotionally draining. And bizarro as a job.” (includes sound clips) – The New York Times
Even Before Buñuel, Way Back In 1908, There Was Surrealist Spanish Film
“Segundo de Chomón, a pioneering Spanish director often compared to Georges Méliès, … made bizarre trick films that experimented with color and temporality, and would eventually influence the surrealist work of filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí, making him, in many ways, the father of Spanish cinema.” – JSTOR Daily
Book Industry Starts Taking Real Steps To Become More Diverse
“Publishing houses across the industry are making senior-level hires and structural changes to try to make their companies, and the books they acquire, more diverse — racially, ethnically and even geographically. While critics, including authors and publishing insiders, have accused publishers of paying lip service to these issues, the companies are increasingly making lasting changes to the way they do business, and in some cases they are already being driven by newly hired executives of color.” – The New York Times
As COVID Carries On, How Should Live Performance Inch Back? And How Should Arts Journalists Cover It?
“As some Bay Area artists and producers take tentative steps toward reopening, The Chronicle Datebook team is wrestling with new ethical questions: Is it responsible for an in-person event to take place? How do we cover that news in responsible ways? Senior Arts and Entertainment Editor Mariecar Mendoza got to discussing this with theater critic Lily Janiak, classical music critic Joshua Kosman and pop music critic Aidin Vaziri, exploring how they approach their jobs in the coronavirus era.” – San Francisco Chronicle
How L.A. Dance Project Made Its Drive-In Dance Performances Work
It took quite a lot of planning and (re-)thinking about everything from pricing and number of people per car to turning the parking lot into a performance space to setting up quarantine pods of dancers and choreographers. – Los Angeles Times
1,300-Year-Old Temple Drawings Discovered In Japan
“Researchers surveying a temple in Japan’s Shiga Prefecture … used infrared photography to identify soot-obscured paintings [of eight Buddhist saints] on two pillars in the Saimyoji temple in Kora, about 40 miles northeast of Kyoto.” – Smithsonian Magazine