An old Dupont Circle trolley station, unused for decades, has been turned into a subterranean art space called Dupont Underground that draws more than 3,000 visitors a month (so far).
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Priceless Ancient Texts Found In Palimpsests At World’s Oldest Continuously Operating Library
Seventy-four parchments that had been scraped over and re-used by the monks of St. Catherine’s at Mt. Sinai during the Middle Ages are now being re-examined using cutting-edge spectrography. They’ve uncovered previously unknown Greek poems and treatises (including a pharmacological recipe by Hippocrates), some of the oldest Christian texts in Arabic, and writing in some ancient languages that had been thought unrecoverable.
An Urban Dance Form That Uses The Body As Both Percussion Instrument And Movement Medium
Gia Kourlas writes about step – ” a percussive-movement tradition that uses the entire body as well as the voice and is popular in African-American fraternities and sororities” – and a new documentary about The Lethal Ladies, the girls’ step team at a Baltimore high school.
Maybe Ballet Really Is Becoming More Diverse
In an article with the hopeful headline “The Future of Ballet Is Inclusive and Queer,” Trina Mannino surveys the strides (ahem) that are being made, both at mainstream companies and in new troupes.
How Samizdat Recordings Were Smuggled Around During Soviet Days
“The music flowing out of the record player sounds distant, muffled, surrounded by whispers. The singer’s voice alternates moments of clarity with crackly sputters– as if coming out of a wormhole from a windy day in the Fifties. You can get the sense that what is being played is no ordinary vintage record: indeed, on the platter, instead of a vinyl, is the X-Ray of some guy’s skull, cut in the shape of a disc.”
Book Piracy In Russia Is Even Worse Than Anyone Thought
The Russian government (which you’d think might not want to publicize this) estimates that between a quarter and a third of all books on the market in the country are pirated. (The problem is virtually nil with print books, though; it’s all in the e-book sector.) Even more worrisome is what one survey found about Russians’ beliefs regarding pirated content.
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.09.17
Should Museums Compare and Contrast Cultures?
It seems to be a trend these days for art museums (and some galleries) to mix and match cultures and, sometimes, time periods. Sometimes, this is about breaking down so-called false hierarchies in art history … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2017-08-09
How A Talented Detroit Teacher Teaches Music To Kids
“Young people like to play, so if you can make the material they’re trying to learn more kinesthetic, it helps it to stick a bit better. It’s a way to transform the classroom into a living, breathing art, so that it becomes a part of them, as opposed to material that they’re supposed to absorb and spit back out.”
What The Design Of National Parliament Assemblies Says About Countries
“What they found is that all the plans adhere to one of five basic setups: benches opposing each other in two sets of lines; a semicircle; a horseshoe; a circle; or a classroom-like layout, where politicians are rigidly oriented to face the front of a room. While many European national parliaments have opted for the semicircular layout — indicative of a “consensus-seeking” room, XML says — it’s mostly authoritarian countries that have adopted the classroom setup, from Cuba to China to North Korea.”
Soon There Will Be 44 BILLION Video Cameras Watching Us, Say Experts
By 2022, the total number of cameras in the world will reach about 44 trillion. Jaw-dropping as that figure is, it doesn’t seem so crazy when you realize that today there are already about 14 trillion cameras in the world, according to data from research firms such as Gartner.