Blog – Page 2388 – ArtsJournal Wayback

Big Plans For Sydney Dance Company As It Heads Toward 50th Anniversary

Rafael Bonachela, who took the reins of the company from Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon in 2009, “wants to create a Sydney Dance Company 2, a sibling company of eight young dancers to tour regional theatres throughout Australia. … [He] also wants Sydney to have its own ‘dance house’ – a dedicated theatre just for dance performances such as Sadler’s Wells or The Place in London – and an annual international dance festival.”

In Tehran, Architects Design A Modernist Mosque Without Minarets, And Conservatives Freak Out

The site for the mosque is next to the City Theater, one of Tehran’s landmarks of modern architecture, and authorities were very concerned that the new building not overshadow its neighbor. So the architects designed a spare, low-rise building that sweeps up from the ground toward the focal point of worship. Now religious hardliners are refusing to recognize it as a mosque at all.

Mystery Solved: New Zealand Library Figures Out Who Was Hiding Books

“They initially thought kids playing pranks were to blame, but later discovered it was the city’s rough sleepers who were actually stashing the books so they could return the next day to continue reading.”

In Praise Of Ignorance: Why Is The BBC Covering The Arts As If Expertise Is Bad?

The presenters of Front Row, the only arts magazine programme on the whole of BBC television, began their new assignments by announcing they could not be bothered with theatre. Giles Coren, a restaurant critic, says he finds plays too stressful and the seats too uncomfortable and has barely been to the theatre in years. No matter, he still got the job. Amol Rajan, the BBC’s media editor, rather than, oh I don’t know, its arts editor, said he was too busy with his baby to go. Poor man. But if Boycott could not attend Test matches, he would be out. The only half-qualified presenter was Nikki Bedi, who at least presented an arts programme on the BBC World Service. Unfortunately, she has produced no criticism worth remembering, and declared that she had no time for “long shows without intervals”.

Report: UK Music Teachers Have Never Had It So Bad

Music teachers have never had lower pay or less job security, a new report by the Musicians’ Union (MU) has found. It also stresses job dissatisfaction is on the rise due to a widespread lack of financial support, such as maternity pay and sick pay, and questions the extent to which a career in music teaching “is still viable”.

Kirkus Changed The Rating On A Book – Why This Is An Earthshaking Move

In doing so, Kirkus, one of the country’s most prolific book reviews, has somehow managed to misapprehend both the nature of reviewing and the nature of books. As I’ve written in this magazine, criticism exists in different flavors, but its defining feature is an individualism of response. That response can be wise or unwise, popular or unpopular. A reviewer can squander authority by seeming too often at odds with good judgment. But, without critical autonomy, the enterprise falls apart.

Oskar Eustis Talks About His 30 Years Working With Tony Kushner

“There’s no artist I’ve learned more from than Tony, and what I’ve learned is a kind of fearless grandiosity. Angels was an immense act of arrogance — to write a seven-hour play about gay people when you were a completely unknown writer whose one show was at best a succès d’estime. So there came a moment where it became clear to me that the Eureka Theatre did not have the resources to do Angels in America.And at that point, I’d have to say, ‘Thank you very much for writing this, but you’re two years late, it’s still a huge mess, and I have a theater to run.’ But I did the opposite. I said, ‘That show is so good that I believe in it more than I believe in my theater company.’ And I left the Eureka and went to Los Angeles to produce Angels in America. I spent six years total with Angels.”

Connecting Neuroscience With Human Nature

In his new book Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst, Robert Sapolsky, a neurobiologist at Stanford, endocrinologist and expert on baboons, sets out to ground morality in neurobiology as opposed to the pure reason of Kant’s “categorical imperative”. But unlike Kant (at least for me), Sapolsky is highly readable.

LA’s New Institute Of Contemporary Art Joins An Increasingly Crowded Downtown Art Scene

“The ICA LA joins a number of new downtown arts spaces. The Broad Museum, founded by collector Eli Broad, opened in 2015, and the Main Museum, spearheaded by downtown developer Tom Gilmore, followed in 2016. Other speculators have latched onto the art angle too. Plans for a recently announced, futuristic development by Danish architecture wunderkind Bjarke Ingels feature outdoor sculptures and gallery spaces alongside boutiques and upscale “artist lofts.” The Artist Loft Museum of Los Angeles, a pop-up just opened in a longtime artist’s studio, exists to acknowledge the artists who gave the Arts District its name but can no longer afford to live and work in the area.”