In the past few months, several unofficial art spaces, both non-profit and commercial, have opened up across Havana. As the ruba’s Fidelegular influx of US collectors to the island has dried up under the Trump administration’s travel restrictions, artists have turned their attention to works and projects aimed at the local community.
Tag: 01.25.18
Guided Tours Are Tacky, Touristy, And The Best Way To Sightsee
Jeffrey Bloomer: “Friends offered stories of backdoor culinary tours in Istanbul down rickety staircases and through secret restaurants. I heard about guides whom you pay just to skip the line at overrun international museums but then charm you half to death anyway. And then there were many stories of guides like mine in Vermont, stewards of decidedly unexotic locations who know enough local chicanery to make every government building and local landmark feel like the seed of the next great American novel.”
Some Scientific Thinking On Music As A Universal Language
A new study finds categorizing obscure songs by their intended function is surprisingly easy to do—even when they’re the product of a faraway foreign land. Universal patterns of human behavior steer songs “into recurrent, recognizable forms,” writes a research team led by Samuel Mehr of Harvard University. It adds that these commonalities can be detected even as music maintains “its profound and beautiful variability across cultures.”
Some Skepticism About “Music As A Universal Language”
“While music is universal, its meanings are not,” adds Anne Rasmussen, an ethnomusicologist at the College of William and Mary. And those meanings are created both by the people making and hearing the music, and by the entire cultural package that surrounds it. A Bach cantata that was composed to celebrate God, for example, means something very different when played in a 21st-century concert hall or in a New York deli. The meaning of music, in other words, “is not something you can perceive while listening through a pair of headphones,” says Rasmussen.
Scientists, Activists Push For American Museum Of Natural History To Kick Rebekah Mercer Off Board
“This week, more than 200 scientists and other academics who have advocated policy action on climate change endorsed an open letter that calls on the museum to remove [the prominent right-wing donor] from its board and ‘end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation.'” Protesters have been demonstrating in front of the museum as well.
Three Ballerinas Explain How They Actually Pull Off Those 32 Fouettés In ‘Swan Lake’
“You’ve done your variation, you run offstage, you have a moment to collect yourself, and you just go. If you were to give yourself time to think, ‘I have to do 32 fouettés now,’ I don’t think you’d go back out on stage.” Elizabeth Murphy, Lesley Rausch, and Laura Tisserand, principals at Pacific Northwest Ballet, explain how they do it, physically and mentally. (includes video)
Trump Asks Guggenheim To Lend A Van Gogh For White House; Guggenheim Offers The Solid Gold Toilet Instead
The White House asked to borrow van Gogh’s Landscape with Snow for Donald and Melania Trump’s private quarters. Curator Nancy Spector denied the request – but she did offer, with the artist’s support, the notorious “interactive sculpture” titled America, Maurizio Cattelan’s auriferous commode that was in use for a year in the Guggenheim’s fifth-floor public restroom.
Pianist Angela Hewitt Injured In Fall Before Concert, Performs Nevertheless
“[The Canadian pianist] took a tumble down a flight of stairs before her concert in Oxford last night, twisting her ankle. But she still managed to carry on with the show. Giacomo Panico reached her in England for the rest of the story.” (podcast)
Christo To Float Pyramid In London’s Serpentine Lake
The artist will create on of his Mastaba sculptures – a large group of colored barrels stacked into a pyramidal shape – to float on the man-made lake in Hyde Park as a centerpiece of a show this summer at the Serpentine Galleries.
Harassment And Bullying Are Rife In UK Theatre: Survey
In the wake of the Weinstein and Spacey scandals, “The Stage carried out a survey to determine the scale to which harassment and bullying has affected, and continues to affect, theatre and performing arts professionals.” Here is an extended presentation and analysis of the survey results. Among the leading stats, 43% of respondents had experienced bullying in the course of their theatre work, and 31% had experienced sexual harassment.