“Waltz says that the Staatsballett dancers’ initial resistance to her leadership was rooted in miscommunication and fear. ‘After we met them and answered, like, 50 questions, there was a big change and an opening up,’ she says. ‘Now it’s a different atmosphere, there’s a strong engagement in the company. There’s a lot of new dancers and they’re all willing to transform and be active in this practice.'”
Blog
Venice’s Museums Reopen After Worst Flooding In A Decade
“Museums are reopening today after a dangerously high tide struck Venice’s picturesque canals on Sunday and Monday, leaving three quarters of the lagoon city underwater and water levels rising by more than five feet. Venice is built to sustain the rising waters that come in the fall and winter, a phenomena known as ‘acqua alta,’ but the recent surge was the worst in at least a decade.”
Last Hong Kong Bookshop Selling Books Banned In China Closes
“Human rights activists and publishers have raised grave concerns over the closure of the People’s Bookstore, a tiny shop in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay district, known to be the last source of literary contraband in the city … The closure follows the disappearance and detention of five city booksellers in 2015, who were linked to the Mighty Current publishing house that produced critical books about China’s leadership.”
Richard Gill, Australia’s Favorite Classical Music Educator And Conductor, Dead At 76
“Whether in concert halls or tertiary institutions, or as a guest on the popular television program Spicks and Specks, Gill was committed to the belief that music mattered to all Australians.” In addition to his tireless public education work, he co-founded and directed a major conservatory in Perth, an opera company in Melbourne, and Australia’s first period-instrument orchestra to specialize in Romantic and late-Classical works.
Breaking: Ex-Met Museum Director Tom Campbell To Be CEO Of Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
At a meeting of the FAMSF trustees Tuesday, the board is expected to appoint Thomas P. Campbell as director. In that role, Campbell will assume responsibility for leading two of the Bay Area’s most prominent visual arts institutions, the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museum.
A Trans Gender Literary Canon?
“I’m apprehensive about the limitations inherent in canonization, mainly canon’s inadequate literary representation of difference as tokenism, and the prohibitive inaccessibility for those who can’t afford education at the highest levels. So it’s not a canon exactly, but a corpus. It’s something more like a body: mutable, evolving, flexible, open, exposed, exposing. It’s the opposite of erasure; it’s an inscription.”
London “Borough Of Culture” To Get Its Own Dancers-In-Residence
London Mayor Sadiq Khan: “I am determined to ensure that all Londoners get the opportunity to experience our cultural riches regardless of their background or where they live, and to increase the level of participation in culture across London.”
New York’s Storefronts Are Disappearing. Can You Regulate A Fix?
Several studies indicate that 20 percent of Manhattan’s storefronts lie vacant—concentrated in the borough’s most trafficked areas, where commercial rents have soared. The worrisome trend—which exists outside of Manhattan, too—suggests a question: What happens when a city becomes too costly to offer the very ingredients that people look for in a city?
So “Reality TV”? Reality Movies Are A Whole Different Animal
These films serve as a testament to the growing trend of “street casting”—using “normal” people, discovered in their natural habitats, rather than those found through casting agencies or the professional acting community. Some of the best independent films of the past few years—Sean Baker’s “The Florida Project,” Andrea Arnold’s “American Honey,” and Abdellatif Kechiche’s “Blue Is the Warmest Color”—were created this way, and they make the notion of professional acting seem altogether antiquated, particularly when the characters are part of a milieu that requires a heightened degree of specificity. Stories about subculture succeed when handled delicately, and with the willing guidance of those within it.
Virtual Reality Promises To Give You Experiences Outside Your Experience. But Can It Cultivate Empathy?
VR researchers tell us that simulations can let us see what it’s like to experience the day-to-day indignities of racist microaggression, of becoming homeless, or even of being an animal primed for butchering. The hope is that this technologically-enabled empathy will help us to become better, kinder, more understanding people. But we should be skeptical of these claims. While VR might help us to cultivate sympathy, it fails to generate true empathy.