The Stuttgart Ballet is performing a program of solos, duos, a trio, and a socially distanced adaptation of Maurice Béjart’s Bolero for 249 people in the theatre and 1,000 cars at a drive-in. The Parc de la Villette in Paris is making its stage available as a large-scale studio/workshop for various companies, with audience members (with limited, timed tickets) able to watch. In Prague last month, they managed to put on a complete contemporary dance festival. Sanjoy Roy reports. – The Guardian
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China’s Movie Theatres Are Reopening, But The Audience Isn’t Flocking Back
“By midnight [of the first day, July 20], cumulative nationwide gross takings totalled $502,000. … Earlier in the day, state media had reported that the total included more than $150,000 of prior bookings, which indicates that only modest numbers of cinema-goers made decisions on the day.” – Variety
National Gallery Of Art Responds To Allegations Of Harassment And Diversity Issues
Written by two former employees and one current staff member and signed by almost 70 others, the petition alleges sexual and racial harassment at the federally funded institution and calls for broad changes to make it a more diverse, equitable and transparent institution. – Washington Post
Threatened Frank Lloyd Wright Cottage To Be Moved To New Location
The one-story, three-bedroom cottage was built in 1913 as a temporary home for Wright’s lawyer, Sherman Booth. Booth developed a cluster of Wright houses, including one for himself, in the Ravine Bluffs section of Glencoe. – Chicago Tribune
How We Get Facts To Bend To Our Prejudices
“We keep hearing that this is a post-truth era, that feelings beat facts, people no longer care what’s true, and we’re heading for ruin. Opponents of Brexit and Donald Trump not only found those victories intolerable, but many refused to believe them to be legitimate, instead supposing that lies had swayed a docile population. This idea of a gullible, pliable populace is, of course, nothing new. Voltaire said, ‘those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities’. But no, says Mercier, Voltaire had it backwards: ‘It is wanting to commit atrocities that makes you believe absurdities’.” – Times Literary Supplement
How Science Fiction Writers Foresaw Pandemics
Science fiction writers have, indeed, always embraced globality. In interplanetary texts, humans of all nations, races and genders have to come together as one people in the face of alien invasions. Facing an interplanetary encounter, bellicose nations have to reluctantly eschew political rivalries and collaborate on a global scale, as in Denis Villeneuve’s 2018 film, Arrival. – The Conversation
Why People Can Feel Nostalgic For Things They Didn’t Experience
The politics of nostalgia doesn’t capitalise on people’s memories of particular past events they might have experienced. Instead, it makes use of propaganda about the way things were, in order to provide people with the right episodic materials to conjure up imaginations of possible scenarios that most likely never happened. – Aeon
Love movies, jazz, and thinking about them? A treat
Movies, jazz and reading remain my favorite solitary diversions, and Fresh Air critic Kevin Whitehead enables immersion in all three with Play The Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film. – Howard Mandel
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar On LA’s Historical Center of Jazz
Although I spent college and most of my NBA career in Los Angeles, it wasn’t until I retired from basketball and began my second career as a writer specializing in African American history and the nuances of popular culture that I learned how one area — Central Avenue — played a vital role in shaping both African American history and American popular culture. It was a revelation — and an inspiration. – Los Angeles Times
Will Theatre Take Advantage Of COVID To Change?
For those wanting transformation, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. But will hardship economics allow for new possibilities from our most prominent venues or will it just be a matter of survival for the performing arts? Leaders, coping with budgetary black holes, have a ready excuse for playing it safe. But what if safety lights the path to obsolescence? – Los Angeles Times