“Kusama’s enormous popularity stems not just from the transformative experience of her photogenic art or its digital reach, but from her compelling personal narrative as well [as her] cultural brand as Pop Art’s eccentric auntie. … But it is also the result of a supporting structure that brings together [psychiatric] hospital, studio, fabricators, and galleries to surround her like an exoskeleton.” – ARTnews
Blog
John Williams at 88
“Williams is a courtly, soft-voiced, inveterately self-effacing man of eighty-eight. He is well aware of the extraordinary worldwide impact of his “Star Wars” music—not to mention his scores for “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T.,” the “Indiana Jones” movies, the “Harry Potter” movies, the “Jurassic Park” movies, and dozens of other blockbusters—but he makes no extravagant claims for his music, even if he allows that some of it could be considered “quite good.” – The New Yorker
Famed Hopi-Tewa Hoop Dancer Nakotah LaRance, 30, Dies In Fall
He began training his training at age 4 and went on to win the World Championship of Hoop Dance three times in each of three age divisions and tour with Cirque du Soleil for three years. – The New York Times
Needed: A New Deal For The Arts
This debilitating, isolating historical moment should make us rethink our attitudes, priorities and national policies with regard to our criminal justice system, health and education infrastructure and physical environment. Similarly, the American arts sphere shouldn’t merely hope to restore the “old normal” when it could instead be re-envisioned and rejuvenated. – Crosscut
Now Here’s A Black Female Composer Worth Rediscovering: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Wife
Shirley Graham Du Bois notched up plenty of achievements in her own right beyond the activism she shared with her husband: she was a novelist, playwright, biographer (of Paul Robeson, Booker T. Washington, and Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser), and radical who (in)famously joined the American Communist Party. But when she studied at the Sorbonne, her subject was music. The premiere run of her 1932 opera Tom-Tom was an enormous spectacle that drew audiences of 25,000 (the planned transfer to Madison Square Garden was derailed by the Depression), and David Patrick Stearns says a revival would be very worthwhile. – WQXR (New York City)
BalletX Is Turning Its Next Season Into A Film Festival
The plan just announced by artistic director Christine Cox is for “a new series launching Sept. 10 celebrating the company’s 15th anniversary with world premieres by 15 choreographers. She sees the season in terms of a subscription-based film festival with nine shorts and six features. The shorts will be dance films presented on a new virtual platform hosted on the company’s website called BalletX Beyond. The features are intended to be performed live in the spring or summer, depending on public health concerns, but they, too, may be turned into films, if necessary.” – The Philadelphia Inquirer
Cord-Cutting Really Is Starting To Strangle Cable TV. So What Are The Cable Networks Doing?
“The decline of cable isn’t a new story, but what has started to take hold is a change in narrative inside the industry. Rather than try to prop up what they all know to be a decaying linear business, cable executives are instead focusing on their still-healthy intellectual properties and the brands behind them. Some of those cable brands are even aiming to carve out a space in the streaming world.” – Variety
There Are Four Kinds Of Streaming Video Viewers, Says Hulu Report
A new study, titled “Unpacking the Streaming Experience” and released by Hulu to launch its “Generation Stream” audience research platform, found that consumers watch in four different ways, which Hulu calls therapeutic streaming, classic streaming, indulgent streaming, and curated streaming. – The Hollywood Reporter
New COVID Emergency Fund For Nonprofit Presses And Literary Organizations
Created jointly by the National Book Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, and the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses with $3.5 million from the Mellon Foundation, the Literary Arts Emergency Fund will make one-time grants of $5,000 to $50,000. – Yahoo! (AP)
Black Theatermakers In Europe Talk About The Change They’re Working Toward
Excerpts from a recent Zoom conversation among three artistic directors — Kwame Kwei-Armah of London’s Young Vic, Julia Wissert of Schauspiel Dortmund in the Ruhr Valley, and Eva Doumbia of Compagnie La Part du Pauvre near Rouen — about their challenges as well as “white universality, decolonizing theater institutions and their issues with the word ‘diversity.'” – The New York Times