The actors are OK with all of this: “The nudity has struck some theatergoers as so extreme and the sex so prolonged that the actors can hear members of the audience gasp when it begins. Occasionally someone will say, ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no! Cora Vander Broek says of the moment the stage lights rise on her character, Jules, straddling Wheeler (played by Ian Barford) in bed.” – Los Angeles Times
Tag: 02.14.19
The Theremin Had A Life Before Sci-Fi Movies Took It Over
The original advertising campaigns for the theremin included it as a home music-making instrument. “This campaign primarily targeted middle and upper-class white women, a demographic frequently associated with (and compelled to take on) domestic music-making and most likely to select music technology purchased for the home.” – NewMusicBox
A San Francisco Theatre Has To Cancel A Show Because A Government Agency Decides It’s Not Unique Enough
Not unique enough for a visa for the Canadian artists, that is. EXIT Theatre’s founder had consulted a lawyer and submitted reams of information about why the play Crippled, by playwright Paul David Power, was indeed “culturally unique.” But a week before it was set to open, the visa was denied. – KQED
The Curious Story About The Musician Who Faked His Live Performances?
The Composer’s music moves people, and he is not characterized in the book as necessarily a bad person; he meets with every fan who stays after the concert to chat with him, and he knows his work provides comfort to people going through the hard years after September 11. And his CDs are his own compositions. It’s just that if you were to pay to see a performance by the Composer’s ensemble, it might not necessarily be a “live” rendition by the musicians on the stage in front of you. – New York Magazine
Canada’s National Gallery Gets A New Director
Alexandra Suda comes to the position from the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), where she is currently the curator of European art and the R. Fraser Elliott chair of prints and drawing. – CBC
Were The Arts Impacted By The American Government Shutdown?
Bob Lynch tries To Add it up: “A specific example of the chilling effect of the shutdown’s impact on arts organizations and local businesses comes again from the Smithsonian, which reportedly lost $1.5 million in revenue during the first 10 days of the shutdown. According to the Secretary of the Smithsonian David Skorton, the roughly $1 million a week that the institution lost is unrecoverable and will have long-term impact.” – Americans For The Arts
How Hip-Hop Choreographer Rennie Harris Makes A Major Piece On The Alvin Ailey Dancers
“I’m a street dance choreographer. I do street dance on street dancers. I’ve never set an hour-long piece on any other company outside my own, and definitely not on a modern dance company.” Nevertheless, Ailey artistic director Robert Battle decided that Harris was the right person to be the company’s first-ever choreographer in residence. – Dance Magazine
Arts Philanthropy Is Losing Out
Unfortunately, big-ticket philanthropy is in the middle of a protracted sea change that is already having a direct effect on the arts. Thirteen years ago, the Journal reported that younger new-money donors were increasingly choosing to give it not to fine-arts organizations but to humanitarian causes like AIDS research and education reform. In 2013, Bill Gates put his seal of moral approval on this new tendency by declaring in an interview with the Financial Times that donating money “to build a new wing for a museum rather than spend it on preventing illnesses that can lead to blindness” was, in his words, “slightly barbaric.” – The Wall Street Journal [paywall]
This Theatre Keeps 180,000 Bees On Its Roof
Sian Alexander, executive director of the Lyric Hammersmith theatre in London, writes about how, as part of the organization’s Green Strategy, three hives were installed on top of the building (with a substantial harvest of honey as a result). – Arts Professional
Study Suggests That Small Teams Of Scientists Are More Innovative Than Large Ones
In the largest analysis of the issue thus far, investigators have found that the smaller the research team working on a problem, the more likely it was to generate innovative solutions. Large consortiums are still important drivers of progress, but they are best suited to confirming or consolidating novel findings, rather than generating them. – The New York Times