Archaeologists say that the date is significant because the 5th century, after the departure of the Roman imperial rulers, is considered the start of the Dark Ages, and the fact that the mosaic could still be made indicates that conditions in England may not have deteriorated as rapidly as is generally thought. – ARTnews
Blog
Playing And Singing With Plexiglas Between Musicians May Not Be As COVID-Safe As You Think
A team of engineering researchers at Princeton has been running tests on how well the clear partitions protect people from the breath droplets of others nearby. The verdict? Well, Plexiglas barriers are fine as far as they go, but that’s exactly the problem … – NJ.com
Ann Reinking, Tony-Winning Dancer-Actor-Choreographer, Dead At 71
“She was perhaps best known as a performer for playing Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago. It was the role that she stepped into in 1977 at 26, and which helped make her a star. And it is the role that she returned to triumphantly nearly two decades later in the hugely successful 1996 Broadway revival — which she also choreographed.” (It was the latter which won her a Tony Award after three previous nominations.) – The New York Times
London’s Theatres And Concert Halls Closed Again As COVID Cases Multiply
The capital and some surrounding areas have been moved into Tier 3, the UK government’s most stringent level of restrictions, meaning that live audiences are barred only a few weeks after they had begun (in limited numbers) to return. Performances may continue to be streamed from empty venues, so classical music concerts may continue in some form. That doesn’t work so well economically for theatre, and producers are howling in protest. – London Evening Standard
Did American Cities Build Too Many Luxury Developments?
Across the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic has sapped Americans’ appetite for fancy projects like this, in no small part because the cross-section of upwardly mobile people who can afford such apartments—like well-off students, high-earning young professionals, or people with second homes—have fled urban city centers or scaled back on spending. – Slate
Poets On COVID – Is This All There Is?
“This lukewarm book, largely uncompromised by alert feelings, political insight, wit, striking intellect or lightning of any variety, is — to borrow a slab of Orwell’s Newspeak — doubleplus ungood.” – The New York Times
The Cost Of Being Charley Pride
Ultimately, Pride was rewarded by the country music business — by the end of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, he was one of the genre’s central, crucial performers, a part of the firmament. But he was also, naturally, the exception that proved the rule — even with his success as an example, the country music industry remained largely inhospitable to Black performers. He was a one of one. – The New York Times
How The Internet Broke Our Brains
“Imagine the 21st-century worker as accessing two modes of thinking: productivity mind and leisure mind. When we are under the sway of the former, we are time- and results-optimizing creatures, set on proving our industriousness to the world and, most of all, to ourselves. In leisure mode, the thrumming subsides, allowing us to watch a movie or finish a glass of wine without considering how our behavior might affect our reputation and performance reviews. For several hours a week, on Sunday evening, a psychological tug-of-war between these perspectives takes place.” – The Atlantic
Could The Streaming Wars Hit Their Peak In 2021?
The problem with all this growth is that eventually streaming services will just run out of households to sign up. This year, video-on-demand services have seen more growth than any other time in their history… But in 2021 the industry could see a massive cooling. Everyone will have tried everything and pretty much decided which ones they’re sticking to. – Wired
Dancing on Stone and in Water
I’ve said it before, and forgive me if I say it again: Dancers can’t not dance. There they are on my laptop’s window — at work in their apartments, in parks, on piers, and in empty streets. Maybe partners and roommates have filmed you performing; maybe you just attached your cell phone to a music stand and shooed the cat away. Dušan Týnek’s Quarry Dance IX is nothing like that. – Deborah Jowitt