“By now, you’ve read a million paeans to the magic of sitting in a darkened theater, but it’s not just the evanescent experience of the silver screen that’s been whisked away. On a purely practical level, theaters act as a filter, a way of separating out a small handful of the hundreds of movies released every year, and although the system by which they end up there is riven with biases and blind spots, on balance, the movies that end up there are better than the ones that don’t, and their limited runs create a sense of occasion and urgency that the boundless availability of streaming can’t match.” – Slate
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Update: What Americans For The Arts Is Doing During COVID
The urgency of this vision has never been more apparent than in 2020—amid a global pandemic, heightened focus on social justice and racial equity, a huge economic downturn, and a contentious presidential election. These issues have impacted every community across the country and devastated artists, nonprofit and for-profit creative businesses, educational systems, healthcare, and trust in government. And because of long-term systemic inequities, these challenges have more severely affected people and communities of color. – Americans for the Arts
Why Science Isn’t Just About Data
“Before I drag you any further down what might strike you as a rocky, obscure and unpromising path, let me furnish an illustration of scientific censorship in action: the case of beauty.” – Aeon
Apple TV Relents And Allows “Charlie Brown Christmas” To Air On TV
On Wednesday, Apple bowed to the backlash, announcing it had teamed up with PBS for ad-free broadcasts of “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” (on Nov. 22) and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (on Dec. 13). – PBS
Baryshnibot: Ballerina Physicist Invents Ideal Dance Partner For Quarantine
A few weeks after the lockdown started back in March, Merritt Moore — who danced with ballet companies in Oslo, London and Boston before getting a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford — hit on the idea of using a robot as a partner for dance training while in isolation. So she ordered an industrial model and started programming it to do 15-second ballets with her for TikTok and Instagram. The pair has since racked up about 15 million views. (And yes, the machine’s name, which was crowdsourced, is Baryshnibot. The runner-up choice was Roboto Bolle.) – Pointe Magazine
Remembering Ellis Marsalis And His Outsized Influence
Happy endings don’t happen often during a novel coronavirus pandemic. Marsalis, eighty-five, died in New Orleans of complications from the virus on April 1. But when the crying is over and Marsalis gets the jazz funeral he deserves, even the most sober study of his contributions to music might begin with a celebratory cork popping from a bottle of champagne. Jazz spoke to him early, in a way that no music had before, and in its service, his character was revealed. – Oxford American
Australia Gets Ready To Restart Live Performance As (Almost) Normal
“Live performance venues and events will be allowed to reach capacity of up to 75% in states that have recorded no new locally acquired coronavirus cases in 14 days. … In what has been labelled the ‘Covid normal’ of the near future, indoor events and seated outdoor events will still be ticketed only, and additional restrictions will still apply to large-scale multi-day outdoor music festivals.” – The Guardian
The Rock Critic Who Decided To Rewrite Classical Music History
Paul Morley “still writes about rock today, when asked, but his focus has shifted. His current mission is to inspire rock fans to explore and love classical music. An admirable aim, as far as it goes.” – The New York Times
Character Dance Used To Be An Integral Part Of Ballet, And Just As Popular. What Happened To It?
“Most full-length classical ballets feature several character dances — troupes of dancing peasants, parades of visiting princesses. Today, those dances are often seen as ‘filler,’ interludes to give the principals a breather between classical variations. But back in the 19th century, … character dances had deep cultural significance. … (Picture a Paris opera house full of cheering crowds, demanding multiple encores after their favorite star performs a knockout mazurka.) How did something that used to be so popular, and once provided critical context, fade from prominence?” Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone gives an overview of the history. – Dance Spirit
California Designates Those Who Work In Entertainment As Essential Workers
On that list of exemptions, under “Industrial, Commercial, Residential, and Sheltering Facilities and Services,” there is essential worker designation 15 which reads, “Workers supporting the entertainment industries, studios, and other related establishments, provided they follow covid-19 public health guidance around physical distancing.” – Deadline