They’re becoming maker spaces, loaning tools and musical instruments, and playing support roles. “These two disciplines, librarians and social work, come together so beautifully—we can look at these issues from two different angles.” – NonProfit Quarterly
Blog
They’re Both Native Americans And Native New Yorkers, And For 50-Odd Years They’ve Been Performing Native Dance In The City
The Thunderbird American Indian Dancers were formed in downtown Brooklyn in 1963 by a group of mostly Mohawk neighbors who were the first generation in their families born off the reservation. Now the group preserves and performs indigenous dances from across North America. Reporter Siobhan Burke talks with the Thunderbirds’ director, 82-year-old Louis Mofsie. — The New York Times
Study: Song Lyrics Have Become Angrier, More Pessimistic and Unhappy
“The results show a clear trend towards a more negative tone,” write Kathleen Napier and Lior Shamir of Lawrence Technological University in Michigan. “Anger, disgust, sadness, and conscientiousness have increased significantly, while joy, confidence, and openness expressed in pop-song lyrics has declined.” – Pacific Standard
BBC’s Latest Dance Competition Show Has A Race Problem
Not that the producers or panelists are to blame: The Greatest Dancer features plenty of minority contestants. But it’s the studio audience that decides who proceeds to the next round, and it seems they just will not vote for Asian competitors, no matter how enthusiastic the panelists are. Same for black female contestants. — The Guardian
A Virtual-Reality ‘Hamlet’
The metro Boston-based Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has partnered with Google’s AR/VR Lens project to create Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit, in which the viewer watches the action from the notional point of view of the ghost of Hamlet’s father. — American Theatre
Wattpad, Popular Online Platform For Fan Fiction And Original Stories, Will Start Publishing Books
Using what it calls Story DNA Machine Learning software, the company will mine the hundreds of millions of fiction works submitted by its 70 million-member community for material it believes will be commercially viable. (And yes, the writers will be paid.) — The New York Times
Americans For The Arts Expands Programs For Cultural Equity And Diversity In Arts Leadership
This year the organization will extend its 25-year-old Diversity in Arts Leadership program beyond New York City to New Jersey and Iowa, launch an Arts & Cultural Equity Fellows program in the Great Lakes region, create an Arts & Culture Leaders of Color Network, and begin a 3-day retreat called the Leaders of Color Forum. — Americans for the Arts
At 60, Can Aprile Millo Make A Comeback To Opera Stardom?
In the 1980s and ’90s, she was one of the Metropolitan Opera’s reigning sopranos, considered a latter-day exemplar of Golden-Age Verdi singing. “Then, at what should have been the height of her career, things petered out, … [and] over the past decade, she has barely sung in public at all.” But now she’s aiming to return to the Met stage. “It’s not about voice; the voice has been functioning,” she says. “But when you go through a lack of confidence, you’re not going to want to be anywhere.” — The New York Times
Opera Star David Daniels Arrested On Sexual Assault Charges
The 52-year-old countertenor and his husband were taken into custody for extradition to Texas, where a singer alleges that the couple drugged and raped him while Daniels was performing at Houston Grand Opera in 2010. — MLive (Michigan)
James Turrell Shuts Down Skyspace At MoMA PS1 Until Condo Construction Across Street Is Done
Scaffolding for the 5Pointz luxury apartment tower (built on the site of the now-destroyed street-art mecca) has moved into what Turrell intended as an unobstructed view of the sky in his Skyspace installation, titled Meeting, at the MoMA outpost in Queens. So the museum has agreed to his request to close the installation until the scaffolding is no longer visible. — Hyperallergic