Tag: 02.21.19

Explaining ‘The Satanic Verses’ — Any Why We Won’t Be Seeing Anything Like It For A While

“The increasing prominence of radical Islam, or Islam as a political force, is obviously one factor. The other factor, especially in the West, is the increasing emphasis on culture and ethnicity, religion included, as a means of self-definition. … Rushdie’s satirical look at religion comes across quite differently when Islam is conceived of as an identity. What began as a critique of ideas is taken as an insult to a group, and often a marginalised group, at that.” – Aeon

What Went Wrong At Ireland’s Two National Orchestras, And How To Fix It

An investigation last year found that the national broadcaster’s two orchestras, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, were under-utilized, underfunded, and plagued by low morale and mistrust. RTÉ National Symphony general manager Anthony Long talks with a reporter about how things got to such a pass and what’s being done to improve things. – The Journal of Music

Dorrine Kondo: Film Industry Diversity Numbers Are Revealing, But Not Nearly The Whole Story

“In my book “Worldmaking: Race, Performance and the Work of Creativity,” I approach the issue of diversity as a cultural anthropologist, playwright and performance studies scholar. In it, I argue that cultural representation is about something deeper than parity for the sake of parity – that everyone needs to be mirrored in the public sphere in order to exist and to count as a fully dimensional human being.” – The Conversation

Actor Jussie Smolett Charged With Felony For Staging Hate-Crime Attack

The 36-year-old actor, a star of the Fox series Empire, received an outpouring of national attention and sympathy after he was reported to have been violently attacked in Chicago by two white men shouting anti-black and anti-hay epithets. After the police found and interviewed the ostensible attackers, who turned out to be two Nigerian-American brothers, and collected additional evidence, they arrested Smollett, alleging that he concocted the entire thing. – Vulture

Nine Months After #MeToo Resignation, Milwaukee’s Florentine Opera Names New CEO

Last May, company general director William Florescu resigned because of what the Board described as because of “violation of the Florentine Opera’s policies and prohibitions concerning sexual misconduct.” His successor, the company’s first female leader, is Maggey Oplinger, currently director of community partnerships at the Milwaukee Symphony. – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Public Theater Sues Ian Schrager’s Public Hotel For Trademark Infringement

“A half-mile apart on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, two buildings claim to be putting on theater for the PUBLIC, using boldfaced font to advertise their mission. … The Public Theater, which opened its first show in the 1960s, claims that the Public hotel [which has a performance space] is essentially siphoning off its business by riding on its theatrical coattails.” – The New York Times

Met Museum Gets Major Gift Of Colonial South American Art

“It was either a dream come true or a prank: a man living in São Paulo with no previous relationship with Metropolitan Museum of Art cold-called the New York institution one day in 2017 and said he wanted to donate some of his paintings. And not just any paintings, but Spanish colonial works, a category that the Met publicly said it wanted to build up. It was not a prank, and in early March, the museum will unveil the gift from James Kung Wei Li — ten 17th- and 18th-century works from Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, in a gallery in the American Wing called Art of the Colonial Andes.” – The Art Newspaper