Zenetta Drew, executive director of Dallas Black Dance Theater: “The arts were dying as far as how you reach new audiences, how you create new revenue streams and how you reach underserved communities. Being forced to deal with COVID has changed all that.” And she doesn’t think audiences seeing dance for free online will keep them from coming to the theater later. Why? Look at football on TV. – SMU Data Arts
Blog
40 Black Playwrights Talk About The Confounding Racism They Face In American Theater
Theatermakers from Lynn Nottage and Robert O’Hara to Jocelyn Bioh, Radha Blank and Dominique Morrisseau “share their own experiences with insidious racism — sometimes subtle, other times blatantly cruel even amid the Black Lives Matter statements issuing forth industrywide.” – Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Will Give Shutdown-Affected Artists ‘Universal Basic Income’
“The policy, billed as the Basic Income Pilot for Artists, outlines details including directing almost $6 million in funding to arts organizations, artists, art teachers, and cultural workers, in addition to a Universal Basic Income program. Under the basic income, 130 artists will be selected to receive the [$1,000] monthly stipend for at least six months, beginning in early 2021.” – Artnet
Philadelphia Orchestra Musicians Accept Further Pay Cuts
“The deal, approved this week by the orchestra’s members, ties pay in part to the fortunes of the organization. Compensation for musicians will be reduced to 75% of normal pay retroactively to Sept. 12 and through the middle of March. Then, between March 15 and Sept. 12, 2021, pay could be lowered or slightly increased depending on the condition of the orchestra’s COVID-battered finances.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Baltimore Museum Of Art Stakeholders Ask State Of Maryland To Stop Sale Of Artworks
“Former trustees, committee members, donors and docents of the Baltimore Museum of Art have asked Maryland officials to halt the institution’s plans to sell paintings by Andy Warhol, Clyfford Still and Brice Marden, and to investigate what they describe as irregularities and conflicts of interest surrounding the sales.” – The Washington Post
Arts Groups Say UK Gov’t Requires Them To Advertise Bailout Program In Order To Get Funds
A formal complaint filed with Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority charges that Boris Johnson’s government is insisting that all organizations receiving rescue money from the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund promote the Fund on their social media accounts. – The Independent (UK)
Mahmoud Yassin, Star Of Egyptian Cinema’s Golden Age, Dead At 79
“[He] had over 150 films to his name, with diverse roles ranging from romantic to serious, and from emotionally disturbed to upbeat and patriotic. His films included several based on stories by renowned Egyptian novelists, such as Nobel Prize laureate Naguib Mahfouz and Ihsan Abdel Quddous.” – AP
The Serious Calculations Behind Allowing Performances Right Now
“Serious,” of course, is a cheater word that adds latitude to any discussion. At what point does a risk cease to be manageable and become serious? Many Canadians, pummeled by tendentious headlines and frightened by news anchors who have mastered the art of sounding ominous, have come to believe that there is no such thing as a COVID risk that fails to meet this threshold. The statistics bear looking at. – Scena Musicale
This Year’s Most Unusual Tony Nominations
This year’s awards may go down in history as the taken-with-a-grain-of-salt Tonys. The pandemic that shut down Broadway on March 12 meant that some of the most interesting shows of the season could not be considered. – Washington Post
Do Cells Have Cognition?
The witty philosopher Sidney Morgenbesser once asked B F Skinner: ‘You think we shouldn’t anthropomorphise people?’– and we’re saying that biologists should chill out and see the virtues of anthropomorphising all sorts of living things. After all, isn’t biology really a kind of reverse engineering of all the parts and processes of living things? Ever since the cybernetics advances of the 1940s and ’50s, engineers have had a robust, practical science of mechanisms with purpose and goal-directedness – without mysticism. We suggest that biologists catch up. – Aeon