“I don’t think we need “new” art. The arts professionals that have been protesting in the streets and sending out declarations on social media are calling for institutional changes, not new aesthetic movements. They want to cut through the pieties that circulate in academia and arts institutions about art as a calling because they are struggling for survival in a milieu that pays lip service to high-minded values but is perversely unequal in its distribution of resources.” – Hyperallergic
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Thieves Are Stealing Nazi Artifacts From Dutch Museums
“Amid huge global demand for second world war memorabilia, museums in Ossendrecht, in north Brabant, and in Beek, Limburg, have been ransacked in recent days and months. In response, a series of Dutch institutions have removed their most valuable exhibits from display or implemented stricter security measures over fears that the thefts are being carried to order.” – The Guardian
Music Exec Is Buying Up Distressed Music Venues Across The Country To “Save” Them
Marc Geiger, the former global music chief of the giant talent agency WME, has quietly amassed a war chest to fortify empty clubs during the pandemic and help them grow once they reopen. One of the most charismatic figures behind the scenes of the music industry — a motormouth futurist who helped create Lollapalooza and was an early proponent of how the internet could help musicians — Geiger portrays his latest venture as a kind of personal crusade. – The New York Times
David Toole, Pioneering Disabled Dancer, Dead At 56
“A double amputee whose combination of physical power and bewitching delicacy created arresting imagery on stage and TV around the globe,” — most famously at the opening ceremony for London’s 2012 Paralympics — “[he commanded] remarkable control, buoyancy and adept physical displays, sometimes giving the impression that his body was in flight.” – The Guardian
Alex Ross Speaks About His Wagner Quest
“You actually never know who is going to turn out to have an interest in Wagner. I think a lot are working composers and musicians [who] end up engaging with him on an extremely practical level. It’s not necessarily a question of dealing with these huge Wagner questions, but just, “Is there something to be learned from him right now?” – Van
Utah Is Actually A Dance Hotbed. How’d That Happen?
“We’re relatively small, yet boast a top-tier ballet company, the nation’s first repertory dance company, the first school of ballet at an American University, the world’s largest ballroom dance program and multiple powerhouse studios.” How did that happen? “Utah has a unique history that nourished dance,” says one local insider, and that history very much includes the Mormon settlers. – Salt Lake Magazine
Ethics And “The Lesser Of Two Evils” Strategy
In deciding whether to compromise your ideals, or whether to take a stand, you might ask yourself: ‘Will this compromise undermine projects that I’ve committed to, through which I’m actively trying to make the world a better place?’ (In which case: stand by your principles.) ‘Or are my ideals and principles simply idle, such that a moral compromise wouldn’t affect any projects actively in train?’ (In which case: act so as to promote the lesser of two evils.) – Psyche
Amazon Says It, Not You, Owns The Videos You Buy On Amazon Prime
“When an Amazon Prime Video user buys content on the platform, what they’re really paying for is a limited license for ‘on-demand viewing over an indefinite period of time’ and they’re warned of that in the company’s terms of use. That’s the company’s argument for why a lawsuit over hypothetical future deletions of content should be dismissed.” – The Hollywood Reporter
The Inescapable Problem With Pop-Up Opera On A Truck
Michael Andor Brodeur: “For all the power and dramatic force opera can generate, it remains a sublimely vulnerable form, its fantasy created onstage and tenuously protected from the elements by the eggshell shield of the proscenium. Here, outside among the hum and honk of afternoon traffic, it doesn’t really stand a chance.” – The Washington Post
Hollywood Finally Starts Trying To Get Nonwhite Accents Right
“Over the past five months, major film and television studios have signaled renewed efforts to depict people of color thoughtfully and authentically. It isn’t really possible to verify the sincerity of these efforts, but the changing role of dialect coaches — and how they’re allowed to work — may offer a way to judge their success.” A reporter talks with three dialect coaches, one Black and two Latina, about the new demand for their work. – The New York Times