“Despite a widespread assumption that everyone fits into neat gender categories, I’ve always been treated as a gender question mark. My social interactions since childhood have been filled with wildly vacillating gender expectations. These days, though, I identify as nonbinary not because I am androgynous. Rather, I do so because experiencing life as an androgynous person has made me acutely aware of how gendered expectations and assumptions saturate our lives.”
Blog
Want To Build Your Own Banksy-Style Painting Shredder? Here’s How!
The helpful folks at Fab Lab Irbid “have provided a list of materials, a free instruction guide, and an accompanying video of their success” in fabricating a picture frame that will destroy its contents on command.
Life gets lush: Gregory Spears meets The Crossing
Many composers go from maximal to minimal as they pare back and distill their musical language; Spears may be going the opposite direction. His Requiem and the neo-medieval dance opera Wolf-in-Skins are extremely spare; the music of his hit opera Fellow Travelers is understated dramatically but more harmonically rich; The Tower and the Garden, his new 30-minute piece for choir and string quartet, is positively lush.
Funding Engagement
I get questions on this topic frequently and always have to gird myself before responding. So here is what I try to bear in mind in answering the questions.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Campbell Gamble: Tom & Max Hollein Improbably Trade Places
My first reaction when the press release hit my inbox today was: “This has got to be a hoax!” Reading the first sentence of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s announcement made me even more incredulous.
We’re Obsessed With Genealogy. But Our Genes Tell Us Mixed Messages
In a sense, we are all royals, even if we don’t all have royal DNA in our genomes. And yet, we are obsessed with genealogies. ‘By one estimate,’ Carl Zimmer writes, ‘genealogy has now become the second most popular search topic on the internet. It is outranked only by porn.’
A Competition For Contemporary Concert Dance? How Does That Work?
“So how do you compete in this kind of vocabulary? According to the rules, judges are looking for performers who are ‘fluent in contemporary concert dance vernacular.’ Dancers are given separate scores for their artistry, technique and future potential, with particular attention paid to physical expression, response to the music, use of space and technical skill as well as strong choreography and movement invention.”
MPAA: More Than Half Of All Movies In The Past 50 Years Have Been Rated “R”
The breakdown: Since 1968, the first year of the ratings classifications, there have been 17,202 movies rated R, 5,578 rated M/GP/PG, 4,913 rated PG-13 and 1,574 rated G. Just 524 movies have been rated X or NC-17, reflecting the reluctance of exhibitors to carry those titles.
How The Minnesota Orchestra Became The Leading Recording Orchestra In The US
“No other American orchestra comes close to equaling the Minnesota Orchestra’s achievement as a recording powerhouse over the past quarter-century. Most orchestras in the U.S. are not recording at all or release only occasional live recordings, usually on in-house labels with zero support from major record companies.” But Osma Vänskä and the Minnesotans have been racking up rave reviews, awards, and sales figures with their CDs on the BIS label. Reporter Terry Blain looks at how they do it.
Nico Muhly On Defining His Music:
“I find it supremely uninteresting and not productive, because you find yourself writing the press release before the piece. If you get caught up in self-definition, you don’t do yourself any favors announcing to the world what the project is stylistically.”