“We chose the deliberately flexible element of a ‘sequence’ because it felt the most focused: It is often in one inspired moment, more so than a single frame or entire work, that we are able to see the form progress. … This list is not intended to be comprehensive. One hundred is a crushingly compact number of slots with which to encapsulate the totality of a medium. That isn’t to say we didn’t try.” – Vulture
Blog
Report: Arts Engagement In UK Same As It Was 15 Years Ago
This despite campaigns to increase engagement. Older people are least likely to engage, say the data. – Arts Professional
Death Of Young Bollywood Actor Has Completely Obsessed India
“News outlets have focused on every twist in a tale” — the apparent suicide of 34-year-old Sushant Singh Rajput, and the blame and abuse that have been hurled at his girlfriend — “that … has puzzled and infuriated social critics. With hard proof lacking, they say, the investigation and coverage appear to be fueled by institutional misogyny, a taboo against discussion of mental health issues and an increasingly partisan news media.” – The New York Times
Adam Smith On The Perils Of Sympathizing
Sympathy, Smith believed, was inseparable from imagination and from reasoning. We can’t access what other people feel. Instead, we imagine what other people must be feeling, or rather what we believe that we would feel if we were in their position. – Psyche
Yes, Reading Is Important, But It’s Not A Moral Good In Itself
Katherine Gaudet on trying to make children into lifelong readers: “I teach humanities courses to undergraduates; I facilitate reading groups at public libraries; I have seen over and over how engagement with literature leads to understanding, empathy, and exploration. What I don’t believe in anymore is the moral undertone of reading promotion: that people who read for pleasure are more good and more deserving than those who don’t.” – Literary Hub
How Online Theatre And Its Audience Are Changing Each Other
“Our great crisis, the coronavirus, forces us to watch plays alone, in the crannies of our homes, instead of drawing us into proximity with strangers. Our current government, unlike that led by Franklin Roosevelt, doesn’t see a connection between economic privation, social estrangement, and the kind of nourishment that can come only through an encounter with art — and has no sense of responsibility to encourage the flourishing of art and public life. And so, in a very real way, each of us is on her own. The work of playwriting, acting, and theatrical production today might be to reintroduce us to one another, one at a time.” – The New Yorker
Playing In The First Post-COVID Rehearsal Of A Socially-Distanced Orchestra
“As live music begins to make a cautious comeback, Matthew Bain, a freelance violinist with the London Philharmonic and Philharmonia amongst other ensembles, shares his experience of returning to orchestral playing.” – The Strad
Using Limestone Remnants Of Ancient Greek Sculptures To Make New Reproductions: Okay Or Not Okay?
2,600 years ago, the world’s largest Doric temple to Zeus stood in southwestern Sicily, and its façades incorporated 38 towering statues of Atlas, seeming to hold up the roof the way the Titan held up the sky. All but one of those statues have long since fallen to pieces, but the monument’s director wants to use pieces of the ruins to reproduce eight of the ancient Atlas figures and incorporate them into a contemporary sculpture. Archaeologists are appalled. – The New York Times
Boston Symphony Gives Andris Nelsons Evergreen Contract
“The Boston Symphony Orchestra and music director Andris Nelsons have agreed to a three-year contract extension, … ensuring he will lead the symphony through the 2024-25 season and possibly beyond: An evergreen clause allows his commitment to stretch well beyond the new term. … Nelsons has signed a similar contract extension with the BSO’s sister orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig.” – The Boston Globe
Paris Opera Ballet Finally Starts Reconsidering Blackface And Other Racial Issues
Following a manifesto signed by nearly one-fourth of its employees, the world’s oldest ballet company, and perhaps its most tradition-bound, has invited a pair of outside experts to write a report and make recommendations about matters onstage (eliminating blackface, dying tights to match dancers’ skin tones, reworking the traditional ballets blancs that use only white tutus) and off. – France 24 (AFP)