SWOT + What?
The SWOT analysis is a well-known and highly valuable tool for strategic planning. … Yet, I’ve found that there are four additional questions that deserve to be asked whenever undertaking a SWOT analysis … read more
AJBlog: Audience Wanted Published 2017-01-09
Dear White Orchestras
The field is having a moment right now about the lack of black and brown people in American orchestras – on stage, backstage and in the audience. Some of the energy in the current moment can be … read more
AJBlog: SongWorking Published 2017-01-09
Bewitched
Danspace Project presents Vicky Shick and Dancers, January 5 through 7. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2017-01-08
12 Plays of Xmas: 10. Thieves’ Carnival by Jean Anouilh
I’ve just seen the trailer for La La Land (again), and now I’d like some of that at the theatre, please. Colourful, romantic, witty, blithe, with just enough melancholy to cut the sugar icing. … read more
AJBlog: Performance Monkey Published 2017-01-06
Monday Recommendation: Bill Evans Lost Sessions
Bill Evans, Some Other Time: The Lost Sessions From The Black Forest (Resonance) … read more
AJBlog: RiffTides Published 2017-01-09
Tag: 01.09.17
American Universities Are Investing In New Prestige Arts Buildings. And How About The Programs?
American universities are making big investments in new arts facilities. At least a half-dozen major projects are coming online this year. Why?
Schools now think of the arts less as a peripheral extracurricular activity than as an opportunity for innovative collaboration. At Stanford, for example, medical students examine the Rodin sculptures at the Cantor Arts Center to learn about conditions that afflict the hand. Meanwhile, Rice is due to open the Moody Center for the Arts next month, a $30m exhibition-cum-interdisciplinary laboratory space. “I’ve learned how important visual imagination is to thinking about science and engineering,” says David Leebron, the university’s president.
A few years ago Princeton announced it intended to be an arts destination. USC declares its desire to be known as an arts university. Duke and Stanford and Columbia all have the arts on their minds. Is there really such a demand?
The rising demand is leading schools that have traditionally marginalised the arts to enter a new kind of arms race. Princeton University in New Jersey “was losing students to some of our rival universities because we didn’t have the visibility in the arts that we should”, says Michael Cadden, the chair of the Lewis Center for the Arts, which anchors a 22-acre, $330m arts-and-transportation hub due to open in October. Princeton has 30% to 40% more students studying the arts than it did ten years ago, according to Cadden.
Arts facilities can have a tangible effect on the kind of talent schools attract. In the decade since Duke University in North Carolina opened the Nasher Museum of Art, it has seen a steep climb in arts portfolios submitted by prospective students, from 980 in 2006 to more than 2,800 last year.
The reality of the “arts boom” in universities is perhaps a bit more modest. There’s clearly money available to be raised for new museums and facilities. The buildings are prestigious and good campus eye candy that donors can attach their names to. But is there evidence yet of a similar uptick in the scale of investment in the arts programs?
Child’s Play: How Scientists Learn From How Children Experiment
“A quarter-century ago, psychologists began to point out important links between the development of scientific theories and how everyday thinking, including children’s thinking, works. According to theory theorists, a child learns by constructing a theory of the world and testing it against experience. In this sense, children are little scientists – they hypothesise on the basis of observations, test their hypotheses experimentally, and then revise their views in light of the evidence they gather.”
Justin Davidson: How “Mozart In The Jungle” Has Grown To Understand Classical Music
“I expected a cascade of clichés and prejudices: a maestro with no sense of rhythm who waves his arms as if washing an invisible car, audiences of stiffs and snobs, perhaps a new symphony that launches the composer into a life of nightly standing ovations and perpetual Champagne on tap. Three seasons later, I’m not just sold; I’m consumed with admiration.”
It’s Coming: Brexit Fiction (Which Means TrumpFic Can’t Be Far Behind)
Get ready. “Publishers predict that this trickle of fictional responses to Brexit will turn into a flood by the end of 2017. ‘I suspect we will see a lot more Brexit or Trump-America books once we have all lived through whatever changes these may bring [this year],’ said Kirsty Dunseath, fiction publisher at Wiedenfeld and Nicolson.”
When We No Longer Drive Our Own Cars, What Will Cars Become?
What cars may become is another sort of “third space” – that space traditionally occupied by cafes, pubs and other places where humans socialize. “Some companies have declared explicitly they want their cars to be the new third places. It’s a dramatic reinterpretation of what constitutes a social environment, and maybe not in a way we’re ready to accept.”
The British Plan To Keep Real Hamilton Tickets In The Hands Of Their Actual Human Purchasers
Basically, it’s an experiment: “Those buying tickets for Hamilton – one of the most highly anticipated shows of 2017 – will only receive a hard copy of their ticket when they arrive at the Victoria Palace Theatre.”
But, Says One Art Critic, Any General Art Strike Is Dumb And Useless Because No One Cares About ‘Cultural Elites’
A grim analysis from Britain: “Let’s face it: art and serious culture are completely marginal to American life. Trump’s victory proves that. Closing museums is not likely to have any impact on those who support him. With all due respect, they might be affected a lot more if reality television shows went on strike.”
Will Boston’s Theatre District Get New Life As Emerson College’s Colonial Theatre Reopens?
The deal with London-based Ambassador Theatre Group comes with a 40-year lease and both Emerson and ATG making capital investments in the 117-year-old building – and the revitalization of a theatre that’s been dark for more than a year.