Report Card Time: Here’s How Our Children Are Doing Studying Music And Art

The arts assessment measured students’ knowledge based on their ability to understand and interpret historical pieces of art and music. One question, for example, asked eighth graders to identify the instrument at the beginning of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” (It’s a clarinet.) The report also looked at their creative abilities. In one exercise, students were asked to draw a self-portrait, which was then scored for attention to detail, composition and use of materials.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between The World And Me’ To Be Made Into Theater Piece

“Mr. Coates’s fiery work – which made him the National Book Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize finalist [and, arguably, earned him a MacArthur ‘genius award’] – will be adapted into a multimedia performance, with excerpted monologues, video projections, and a score by the jazz musician Jason Moran. Portions of Mr. Coates’s letters to his son would be read aloud, while narratives of his experiences at Howard University and in New York City could be performed by actors.”

Ah, Where Are The Avant-Garde Art Movements Of Yesteryear? (A Trip Down Memory Lane)

With Jerry Saltz just having ruminated on “The Avant-Garde That Lost By Winning,” what about the ones that simply lost? Alex Greenberger and Andrew Russeth offer “an unabashedly opinionated deep dive into the terms, artists, and movements that may once have seemed destined for the canon but that now chart as footnotes, as well as many that have returned to the forefront.”

How Playwrights Have Been Putting A Spotlight On Gun Violence In America

“Cite the numbers, and the problem instantly becomes too vast to grasp: More than 33,000 people killed and upward of 78,000 wounded by firearms each year in the United States … This is where the stealthy power of theater has an advantage, at least theoretically. … News reports arrive after the fact, but theater can meddle with time and dimension, showing us the before, the during, the yet to come.” Laura Collins-Hughes surveys the plays that have been exploring the issue.

What Other States Can Learn From Rhode Island’s Arts Incentives

“While Rhode Island may be the smallest state in the country, [it] has become a powerhouse when it comes to attracting artists and art lovers to its shores. And the method by which state leaders have leveraged Rhode Island’s tax code to benefit the creative community could serve as a model for other states looking to cultivate a stronger arts economy.”