Art

Indian theatre festival forced to close after Hindu vigilantes object to satirical plays

Bajrang Dal hardliners in Madhya Pradesh threaten violence over plays ‘disrespectful to the Indian flag’Rightwing Hindu vigilante groups in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh have forced the cancellation of an annual theatre festival, after threatening violence over satirical plays they accused of being “anti-national”.The annual theatre festival organised by the Indian People’s Theatre Association in the small town of Chhatarpur became the object of abuse and violent threats by Bajrang Dal, a h...
Tags: India, Theatre, BJP, World news, Culture, South and Central Asia, Stage, Freedom Of Speech, Hindu, Madhya Pradesh, Bajrang Dal, Bharatiya Janata, Chhatarpur, Indian People 's Theatre Association

Disney+ Closes In On 100 Million Subscribers

The subscriber count is up from the 94.9 million accounts Disney reported last month for the quarter that ended in January. And the surge — fueled by hits such as “The Mandalorian” and “WandaVision” — has encouraged the company to spend more on growing its streaming businesses. Disney in December unveiled an aggressive plan to ramp up programming for the service to 100 new titles a year. –
Tags: Art, Media, Disney, Audience, 03.09.21

How Companies Are Rethinking What It Means To “Own” Something

Business leaders, and their lawyers, have a bias — an unjustified faith, really — that legal ownership matters. Surprisingly often, it doesn’t, and some businesses today voluntarily forgo ownership altogether, even when the law makes protection available. – Harvard Business Review
Tags: Art, Ideas, 03.08.21

Settlement In Copyright Suit Against Robert Indiana Estate

The settlement agreement brings the legal wrangling over the estate of the artist known for his iconic “LOVE” series closer to an end. – AP
Tags: Art, Visual, 03.08.21, Robert Indiana Estate

DeepFake Technology That Animates Images (Really Creepy)

The AI family history app MyHeritage allows users to animate photographs from the past. Run a document through the app and it will seemingly bring it to life, making the subject’s eyes blink and look around. – The Conversation
Tags: Art, Visual, 03.09.21

The Democratization Of Storytelling

By now, a successfully kickstarted short is a rather common occurrence, but an Oscar-winning one is rare indeed. Crowdfunding is, of course, not the only way that storytelling on a mass scale has become more democratized in recent years. – Fast Company
Tags: Art, Media, 03.08.21

“Genre” Is Disappearing In Pop Music

“It’s difficult to imagine a Grammy ceremony that doesn’t rely on genre as its organizing principle—I suppose that would entail the bestowing of just one award, Best Music—yet genre feels increasingly irrelevant to the way we think about, create, and consume art.” – The New Yorker
Tags: Art, Music, 03.08.21

Why The Stonehenge Highway Tunnel Is Really A Good Idea

Archaeologist Timothy Darville: “Much of [the heated debate over the project] has been fuelled by negative publicity and misunderstandings about the processes by which archaeological concerns feed into planning and delivering development. But I want to offer a rather different perspective, and argue that this is the most ambitious conservation project ever undertaken to protect and enhance Britain’s archaeological heritage.” – Apollo
Tags: Art, Britain, Visual, 03.01.21, Timothy Darville

Big Worries About The Met Museum’s Plans To Sell Art To Survive

“Critics of the new guidelines, including Hollein’s predecessor, Thomas P. Campbell, believe in the sanctity of public collections and want to maintain strict controls to protect them. They view the shift as the first step in a fundamental change in museum operations.” – Washington Post
Tags: Art, Visual, Thomas P Campbell, Hollein, 03.08.21

So What Will The Financiers Who Bought Second City Do With It (Or To) It?

“Though private-equity firms are notorious for ruthlessly wringing efficiencies out of the properties they pick up, the investors who just bought one of Chicago’s most treasured cultural institutions contend a growth strategy is the only play that makes sense.” – Crain’s Chicago Business
Tags: Art, Theatre, Chicago, Crain, 03.08.21

Marie Antoinette’s Private Theatre Has Been Restored

The queen had the little playhouse built as part of her pretend village at Le Petit Trianon; she and her friends attended plays and operas there and even performed themselves. (Her Majesty once played Rosine in Beaumarchais’s The Barber of Seville.) The theatre is now so fragile (much of the interior is made of papier-mâché over wire mesh, just like a stage set) that it can only be used for performances once a year or so, but it has the only surviving 18th-century stage machinery in all of Fran...
Tags: Art, Theatre, Seville, Marie Antoinette, Le Petit Trianon, Beaumarchais, Rosine, 03.04.21

I Miss Theatre. I Didn’t Know I’d Miss The Audience Too

“What it has taken me a year to realize is how much I also miss the community of the audience — the strangers surrounding me, obscured by the dark, who have tacitly agreed to escape and exalt and squirm together.” – Washington Post
Tags: Art, Theatre, 03.08.21

Jazz Drummer And Bandleader Ralph Peterson Jr., 58

“The sheer, onrushing force of Peterson’s beat, paired with his alert ear and agile dynamism, made him one of the standout jazz musicians to emerge in the 1980s. Part of a striving peer group known as the Young Lions, which coalesced around the resurgence of acoustic hard bop, he distinguished himself early on as a powerful steward of that tradition.” – WBGO (Newark, NJ)
Tags: Art, People, Peterson, Young Lions, Ralph Peterson Jr, 03.01.21

What People Regret On Their Deathbed

“Broadly, people seem to wish for a more meaningful life. They wished they’d been more authentic in their activities (1; 3). They wished they’d prioritised friends and themselves, rather than work (2; 4; 5). They wished, in short, that they’d stopped and smelled the roses.” – Aeon
Tags: Art, Ideas, 03.08.21

Putting Together The Pieces Of A Lost Florence Price Score

The pioneering Black composer’s Fantasie Nègre No. 3 in F minor was thought to be incomplete: only the first two pages were known to have survived. Here’s how musicologist Samantha Ege found the rest of the piece tucked away in the archive of music discovered in Price’s old summer house in 2009. – BBC
Tags: Art, Music, Samantha Ege, 03.08.21

Why Music Schools Like Juilliard Have To Change

Classical purists clutch their hearts in disgust at the mere suggestion of their holy shrines teaching business skills like freelancing or contemporary styles like pop, rock, or electronic music. But consider that the geniuses we hold in high regard from ages past — the very ones we teach in classical schools now — were trail-blazing innovators in their time. – Rolling Stone
Tags: Art, Music, 03.08.21

Brown Paper Tickets Will Pay $9 Million To Stiffed Customers

Following a consent decree from the Washington S\state Attorney General’s office, Seattle ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets has agreed to pay $9 million in restitution to an estimated 45,000 customers at both ends of the company’s business model: ticket buyers owed refunds and event organizers owed box-office revenue.” – The Seattle Times
Tags: Art, Washington, Seattle, Issues, Audience, 03.08.21, Brown Paper Tickets

Murdoch Admits It Out Loud: Fox News Is The ‘Opposition’ To Democrats And Biden

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s elder son, told a group of investors that Biden’s presidency would be good for Fox News (which, of course, used the slogan “Fair and Balanced” for decades): “The main beneficiary of the Trump administration from a ratings point of view was MSNBC … and that’s because they were the loyal opposition, That’s what our job is now with the Biden administration.” – NBC News
Tags: Art, Media, Fox News, Biden, Msnbc, Murdoch, Trump, Fox Corp, Lachlan Murdoch Rupert, 03.04.21

Aspen Santa Fe Ballet To Cease Performing

“The 25-year-old [company] will eliminate its centerpiece: the professional performing arm of the company. The ballet schools and youth Folklórico programs in Santa Fe and Aspen, Colo., will continue to operate, but Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will shift its post-pandemic focus to creating and producing, as well as consulting other companies on their strategies for successful touring.” – Santa Fe New Mexican
Tags: Art, Dance, Santa Fe, Aspen Colo, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, 03.08.21

Lauren Lovette, Only 29, Will Retire From New York City Ballet

“I spent a lot of last year feeling like I didn’t make a difference. [Some colleagues] were saying some sweet things to me about different ways that I impacted their lives and how I could never leave. I sat there and I felt so embraced and comforted by everything that I was hearing, and loved — really, genuinely loved. … I woke up the next day, and I sent my letter of resignation. That was it.” – The New York Times
Tags: Art, Dance, New York City Ballet, Lauren Lovette, 03.08.21

Milwaukee Symphony’s New Principal Tuba Is 19 Years Old

Robert Black comes from a family of brass players in suburban Chicago; his mother is a high school band teacher. He’s currently finishing his sophomore year at Rice University in Houston remotely and says he’s committed to finishing his B.A., though he may transfer to a Wisconsin school. – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Tags: Art, Music, Chicago, Wisconsin, Houston, Rice University, Robert Black, Milwaukee Symphony, 03.02.21

New Bill In U.S. Congress Would Provide $5 Billion or Libraries

“The Build America’s Libraries Act was introduced by in the House of Representatives by Reps. Andy Levin (D-MI-9) and Don Young (R-AK-at large) along with 52 cosponsors. The bill seeks to provide funds to address decades of needed repairs, updates, as well as the construction of modern library facilities in underserved and disadvantaged communities. The bill’s Senate counterpart (S. 127) was introduced on January 29. – Publishers Weekly
Tags: Art, Congress, Senate, Words, Don Young, Andy Levin, 03.05.21

Flying cats and a burning Banksy: why are digital art prices suddenly rocketing?

A Banksy just fetched $382,000 despite going up in smoke, while a cat cartoon bagged twice that. And it’s all thanks to NFTs, an offshoot of crypto currency bitcoin. But is this a bubble about to burst?Last week masked men set fire to a Banksy screenprint called Morons (White) at a secret location in Brooklyn, livestreaming the destruction via the Twitter account @BurntBanksy. The men worked for a company called Injective Protocol, which bought the print for $95,000 in order to destroy it and re...
Tags: Art, Technology, Life and style, Culture, Brooklyn, Art and design, US sports, Nba, Banksy, Collecting, Goya, Chapman, Digital Art, Mirza Uddin

John Simm meets Tracy-Ann Oberman: 'Without the audience, we’re just shouting in a room'

The actors and old friends talk about how theatre beats TV, the terror of standup – and the joys of making Yoko Ono crack upJohn Simm’s dad encouraged him towards a career on stage; Tracy-Ann Oberman’s parents were horrified by the idea. Both became household names on television – in Life on Mars and EastEnders respectively – but both love the camaraderie and unpredictability of live theatre. Simm’s theatre credits include Hamlet, Macbeth and the Norwegian odd-couple comedy Elling. Oberman is du...
Tags: Television, Drama, Theatre, Yoko Ono, Culture, Television & radio, Stage, Venice, Mars, Hamlet Macbeth, Tracy-Ann Oberman, John Simm, SIMM, Magic Alex, Elling Oberman