How do you get from there to making real art, great art? There’s no special way; everyone has their own path. Yet, over the years, I’ve found myself giving the same bits of advice. Most of them were simply gleaned from looking at art, then looking some more. Others from listening to artists talk about their work and their struggles. (Everyone’s a narcissist.) I’ve even stolen a couple from my wife.
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What’s ‘Receptive Multilingualism’? It’s Something Found All Over The World
Americans are most likely to encounter it among the (guilty-feeling) children of immigrants or near the borders with Mexico or Quebec — it’s when someone can understand a language but not speak it. It occurs in many polyglot cities as well as along linguistic borders; it can also be observed on islands with multiple native ethnic groups. On one island, off the north coast of Australia, whose 500 people speak a total of nine languages, receptive multilingualism is basically mandatory, grounded in deep social conventions.
V&A Museum Will Now Let You Go Inside Its Trajan’s Column
“Once you step inside the cast of Trajan’s Column, it’s Victorian engineering meets ancient Rome,” says Angus Patterson, the V&A’s senior curator of metalwork. The museum purchased the plaster cast—one of a set made from a metal electrotype of a mould commissioned by Napoleon—in 1864. The cast, which fits together like a giant jigsaw puzzle, was built around a brick core. Wooden beams, acting as stabilisers, crisscross the column’s interior, and holes for the wood scaffolding that was erected inside the column during its construction can still be seen. Long used for storage, the column’s interior now contains benches, so visitors can contemplate this Victorian feat of engineering, as well as interpretative texts related to the cast and the ancient Roman monument.
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Adds New Artistic Partner, Richard Egarr
Egarr, a British harpsichordist and conductor, has been artistic director of the much-recorded period-instrument ensemble the Academy of Ancient Music since 2006. He begins his term as one of the SPCO’s rotating artistic partners next season.
What One Theatre Learned About Engaging Audiences
Our big takeaway from the project was finding a common point of interest and building engagement with groups around that. If we started with people who were too far removed from the work, we failed. We had to be realistic about the learning journey audiences were on, given that we were only performing in venues for one or two nights, with an eight to ten week lead-in. We thought creatively about the elements of the production that the groups we hoped to engage might connect with. That could be anything from the politics, to the music or props, to the feel of the show (more like a gig or cabaret).
Remaining Rape Charge Against Ex-Ballet San Antonio Dancer Dismissed
Earlier this month, a jury found Hugo Ihosvany Rodriguez not guilty of the alleged rape of a fellow Ballet San Antonio dancer in March of 2017. He was still being held for trial on a separate charge involving another woman later the following July. Last week, that case was quietly dismissed due to a missing witness.
The DC Museum And Its Exploration Of Gentrification
Last month, at a day-long symposium sponsored by the museum, the rise of Chocolate City was contrasted with the city’s more recent gentrification. In 2011, the percentage of Black residents in Washington fell below 50 percent for the first time in over half a century. Howard Gillette, professor of history emeritus at Rutgers University, observed that in many respects the District of Columbia has become “ground zero for gentrification and social justice issues that are going on nationally.”
Our System For Dealing With Artworks Looted By The Nazis Has Failed: Noah Charney
“On December 3, 1998, 44 world governments and 13 international NGOs came together in Washington D.C. to develop a guide for dealing with Nazi-looted art. … On November 26-18, a conference in Berlin marking the 20th anniversary of these goals” — known as “the Washington Principles” — “will assess the success of these objectives. But it seems like there are some tough conversations to be had.”
Prison Inmates Talk About How Performing In Plays Helps Their Rehabilitation
“It built all my confidence up, I felt alive again. I felt like there was a future.” Reporter Bruce Munro talks with current and former prisoners in Scotland (including one who’s gone on to study at the Royal Conservatoire) about the changes that prison theatre programs helped them make in their lives.
How An Archaeologist Identified A 6,000-Year-Old Musical Instrument
“Marilyn Martorano first laid eyes on the long, baguette-shaped rocks almost four decades ago, as a volunteer at what is now Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in southern Colorado. The clearly hand-shaped stones, which had been discovered in the area, were housed in the on-site museum when Martorano first saw them. They were a strange set of artifacts for which no one had yet determined a use.” Thirty years later, a video someone sent her made her realize that the rocks made up a percussion instrument now called a lithophone.