What will it take? Money. Cash money. Direct cash money, to the students, for their survival, with few barriers – and given out quickly. “Many students … aren’t sure they can afford to return for another college semester. They need financial support delivered flexibly, quickly, and respectfully. They should not have to demonstrate their poverty or rehash trauma to merit support.” – The Atlantic
Author: ArtsJournal2
As Museums Remain Closed, The Work Goes On Inside
Or, in the case of the Gardner, also in the Museum’s gardens. Just before the museum was shut down again to help prevent gatherings of people from different households, “horticulturists at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum were putting the final touches on one of the city’s most anticipated floral displays: The Holiday Garden, a vivid infusion of more than 400 flowering plants, ferns, and shrubs that each year transform the Fenway museum’s courtyard into a lush bouquet brimming with poinsettias, cyclamen, amaryllis, and orchids.” – Boston Globe
A Composer With Hearing Loss Says Beethoven’s Music Encodes The Experience Of Being Deaf
Gabriela Lena Frank says that she can tell, from her own experience, some of what the composer was doing as he lost more and more of his hearing. “More pitch distance and difference, and more vibration and resonance, create a recipe for happiness for a hearing-impaired person, trust me. A more dissonant and thick language, with clashing frequencies, also causes more vibration, so the language does get more physically visceral that way, too.” – The New York Times
Barbara Rose, Art Critic And Art Historian Who Helped Define Art Of The 20th Century, 84
Rose wrote the 1965 essay “ABC Art,” which helped to define and codify Minimalism. She went on to defy the essay (she loathed its title, something The New York Times noted in its obit), defend the genre of painting, write the textbook American Art Since 1900, and teach, write reviews, produce documentary films, and champion both formalism and individual women artists. – Artforum
The First Movie Theatre Debuted 125 Years Ago, And Despite Everything, Cinema Isn’t Dead Yet
Cannes’ Thierry Fremaux: “Cinemas have been through other trials: they died often, and yet they’re still alive because the public yearns for collective experiences. In their absence, theaters — which are our homes, our churches and our rituals — have never been so present. When will we see each other again? Soon. We must!” – Variety
Inventing The Solo Waltz
No, we can’t all have random dance partners this year, so let’s go with a throwback to 1908. “The waltz may have a reputation as the ultimate social dance for partners — the way it is traditionally performed at the balls — but there is another interpretation, one that resonates in this pandemic year of physical distancing. More than a century ago, the Viennese dancer Grete Wiesenthal transformed the waltz into a powerful form of solo movement.” – The New York Times
Jamie Foxx Is The Voice Of Pixar’s First Black-Led Film
But Pixar did a lot more, Foxx says, than just hire a Black man to be the lead character. “The filmmakers enlisted a host of A-list cultural, music and faith consultants — including Ryan Coogler, Kenya Barris, Quincy Jones and Yo-Yo Ma — to lend their expertise and perspective to the film’s story, in addition to the artisans who worked on the film directly, like Jon Batiste (who composed original music for the film) or Daveed Diggs and Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson (who voiced characters Paul and Curley in the film, while also consulting on the story).” – Variety
How Realistic Is Netflix’s Ballet Drama Series?
Tiny Pretty Things is about as realistic as you might expect on every level … except dance. The show “may have outrageous levels of drama, mystery and murder, but the ballet is undoubtedly the best part of the show. That’s likely because nearly every actor playing a ballerina in the show is a trained dancer in real life. Those dancers’ influences are what make the portrayal of ballet so realistic in the show.” – CBR
The Generosity Of A Playwright Who Earned Some Unexpected Money
This isn’t exactly a normal year for any playwright, and indeed, Jeremy O. Harris of the multiple-Tony-nominated Slave Play has earned little from his plays. But fashion collaborations and HBO came through – and Harris is coming through for others in return, including numerous “microgrants” to 152 U.S.-based playwrights. “In dire times, he believes, everyone should be committed to ‘protecting, uplifting and sharing,’ adding: ‘Some might call it philanthropy, but I call it upkeep or maintenance.'” – The New York Times
What Was The Best Movie Of 2020?
Let the Slate Movie Club kickstart that conversation (and perhaps explain where to find all of these so-called best movies of a year when we mostly couldn’t go to the cinema). Start here, and work forward, for discussion of everything from First Cow to Beanpole to Bacarau and so many more. – Slate