Dan Vo leads groups on #QueerMuseum tours of Cambridge museums and the V&A, pointing out things like an Antarctic explorer’s scandalized notes on male-on-male penguin sex and a “gender-fluid” statue of Lucifer. Alice Procter’s “Uncomfortable Art” tours through the likes of the British Museum point out the ways colonialism pervades the collections. — The New York Times
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‘Crown Jewels’ Of Pre-Colonial South African Art To Get New Museum In Pretoria
“One of Africa’s pre-colonial treasures, the Mapungubwe gold collection, discovered in the 1930s near what is now the South Africa-Zimbabwe border, will take pride of place in … the new 280m rand ($19.7m) Javett Art Centre.” — The Art Newspaper
English Villagers Lose Hundreds Of Thousands Of Pounds As Their Church’s Bible-Themed Musical Collapses In Debt
An evangelical parish called The International Church in the Midlands village of Mansfield Woodhouse encouraged its members to donate thousands (it would be “giving to God”) to develop a show about Adam and Eve, titled Heaven on Earth, that would tour to stadiums around the UK. The project has now gone bust, with debts of £2.6 million. — BBC
Choreographer-Filmmaker Jo Andres Dead At 64
She became known in the 1980s for projecting slides and film images into the bodies of her dancers, who performed more often in rock clubs than in theaters; in the 1990s, she made short experimental films and cyanotypes. (Okay, yes, she was also married to Steve Buscemi.) — The New York Times
Comedian Excluded From Performing At Montreal Club Because His Hair Style Is “Cultural Appropriation”
Even if the person wearing dreadlocks is not racist himself, the group says, the chosen hairstyle “conveys racism.” It calls cultural appropriation “a form of passive oppression, a privilege to be deconstructed and in particular a manifestation of ordinary racism.” – Toronto Star (CP)
Why Carol Channing Was Unforgettable
Charles McNulty: One of a kind, Channing was a like a cross between Marilyn Monroe and Gracie Allen, with a personality voice that could make a tune completely her own. When she sang, pixie dust shot into the air. She was an Al Hirschfeld cartoon sprung into swooning life. – Los Angeles Times
Why We Need Theatre That Hurts, That’s Unpleasant, That’s Uncomfortable
“I don’t fault my friend for fleeing the theatre. This is art that hurts, though, to me, the pain seems entirely appropriate, even welcome. It’s not art of the cloying variety; it doesn’t depict pain that is pity-seeking, or that aims to emotionally hijack an audience on a ride through some dreary personal catharsis.” – The New Yorker
The Disney Princess Body Proportion Issue
“Disney princesses have extremely small waist-to-hip ratios that are nearly impossible to achieve naturally,” write anthropologist Toe Aung of Pennsylvania State University and independent researcher Leah Williams. They argue that such characters “might heighten or reinforce our preference for lower waist-to-hip ratios, and the perception that physically attractive individuals with lower waist-to-hip ratios possess morally favorable qualities.” – Pacific Standard
Orange County Has Changed Politically. Its Stages Don’t Seem To Have Kept Up Demographically
“While our political transformation was reflected emphatically at the ballot box in 2016 and even more so in 2018, the effects of O.C.’s increasing diversity haven’t been felt everywhere. The local theater scene, for example, reflects only part of the new demographic reality.” – Voice of Orange County
The End Of Authors? Hardly!
“The dictionary meanings of words are only potentially meaningful until they are actually employed in a context defined by the relation between author and audience. So how did it happen that professors of literature came to renounce authors and their intentions in favor of a way of thinking — or at least a way of talking — that is without historical precedent, has scant philosophical support, and is to most ordinary readers not only counterintuitive but practically incomprehensible?” – Los Angeles Review of Books