Routine at public gatherings in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, the custom of Indigenous land acknowledgment, or acknowledgment of country, has only recently started to gain traction in the United States outside of tribal nations. In New York City the practice is sporadic but growing, occasionally heard at high-profile cultural and educational institutions like the Whitney Museum of American Art and New York University.
Tag: 08.01.18
Unintended Consequences? New UK Knife Law Could Impact Theatre
The Offensive Weapons Bill, which is currently going through parliament, includes a section that would make it an offence for a seller to deliver a bladed product to a residential address. Knives required by fight directors or stage managers as props for sets would no longer be able to delivered to these addresses, which he said would create difficulties for the industry.
The Ethics Problem With True-Crime Entertainment, Especially The Highbrow Kind
“Serial and Dirty John and The Jinx and Wild, Wild Country are all conspicuously well made, with lovely visuals and strong reporting. … But for these so-called prestige true-crime offerings, the question of ethics — of the potential to interfere in real criminal cases and real people’s lives — is even more important, precisely because they are taken seriously.”
Brazen Thieves Steal Royal Swedish Jewels And Escape By Speedboat
“This happened during the middle of the day in an open cathedral where there were people in the cathedral at the point of the theft. They were kept in locked showcases with an alarm and they still managed to get away. Of course, it’s absolutely devastating. These are our national heritage items of great significance.
The Infantalization Of Our Culture
Some cultural practices today routinely infantilize large swaths of the population. We see it in our everyday speech, when we refer to grown women as “girls”; in how we treat senior citizens, when we place them in adult care centers where they’re forced to surrender their autonomy and privacy; and in the way school personnel and parents treat teenagers, refusing to acknowledge their intelligence and need for autonomy, restricting their freedom, and limiting their ability to enter the workforce.
After Outcry, Philadelphia Orchestra Adds Two Women Composers To Upcoming Season
“Partially in response to national criticism for assembling a 2018-19 season without a single work by a female composer, the orchestra Wednesday issued a revised season schedule … In November, the orchestra will give the U.S. premiere of Perspectives by Canadian composer Stacey Brown, and then in June perform the overture-like Masquerade by London-born Anna Clyne.”
The Nation Magazine Apologizes For Publishing Widely-Criticized Poem
“The 14-line poem, by a young poet named Anders Carlson-Wee, was posted on the magazine’s website on July 5. Called ‘How-To,’ and seemingly written in the voice of a homeless person begging for handouts, it offered advice on how to play on the moral self-regard of passers-by by playing up, or even inventing, hardship. But after a firestorm of criticism on social media over a white poet’s attempt at black vernacular, … the magazine said it had made a ‘serious mistake’ in publishing it.”
Vladimir Voinovich, Satirical Author And Pre- And Post-Soviet Dissident, Dead At 85
“[In the 1970s, he] had been blacklisted after criticizing state censorship and defending dissidents such as novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and physicist Andrei Sakharov. … Through his subsequent exile in West Germany and the United States, his return to the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalization policy of glasnost, and the rise of President Vladi¬mir Putin, Mr. Voinovich remained one of Russia’s most mordant critics of authoritarianism and bureaucratic corruption.”
Legal Suits Settled In Soulpepper Theatre Co-Founder Harassment
Four actresses sued Albert Schultz and Soulpepper in January, alleging he groped them, exposed himself, pressed against them or otherwise behaved inappropriately. Schultz resigned hours after Kristin Booth, Hannah Miller, Diana Bentley and Patricia Fagan held a news conference to lambaste him and Soulpepper. A lawyer representing the four woman also confirmed Wednesday that the “matters have settled.” They added that they have no further comment. The woman have said previously that the company’s failure to deal with their repeated complaints about Schultz had prompted them to go public.
What LA’s MoCA Needs From Its New Director
Christopher Knight: “What MOCA needed right now in the director’s office was a seasoned museum administrator, something it hasn’t had since Jimmy Carter was president. The fundamental lapse has been caused by the board of trustees’ faulty selection criteria, which are at the heart of the institution’s long-standing travails. Instead, the director’s job lately has been held by a series of ambitious curators, whose administrative record has been secondary at best. Naming Biesenbach to the top post repeats that error yet one more time.”