“These companies aren’t out to nail trends, as the fast fashion manufacturers of past decades did, but rather to sell an all-encompassing clothing system through which consumers are meant to live. In tech terms, the brands are platforms and the products must be scalable, aimed at as wide and profitable an audience as possible, whether those products are fabric sneakers or ethically manufactured underwear. It’s clothing as software, embracing an ethos of one-for-all uniformity.”
Tag: 05.09.18
The Seven Most Influential Art Critics Today (Per The New York Observer)
Yes, new Pulitzer winner Jerry Saltz is on the list and Roberta Smith is not. But the list is gender-balanced and includes two nonwhite women, so it isn’t necessarily propping up the patriarchy. (The list’s compiler is female, for what it’s worth.) And each choice has a well-argued justification.
The Reality For Women Of Color Wanting To Run Arts Organizations
A recent study found “zero women of color as executive directors in LORT, the largest professional theatre association in the United States, and only one woman of color as an artistic director. This is a dismal reality for women like me who are founders of their own theatre company, hoping to transition to jobs at LORT theatres in the future. The ugly truth, which was revealed in the study, is that “hidden behind a gender- and race-neutral job description is an expectation, grounded in a stereotype, of what a theatre leader needs to look like: white and male.”
A Female Star Who Fought Back Against Fat-Shaming Nearly 100 Years Ago
“[Sophie Tucker] realized that because she was not traditionally beautiful, she could get away with a candor that other women could not. While her routines contained bawdy tales of sex and romance, she also incorporated material about her weight. …[And] in 1923, she wrote in the Los Angeles Times that she was hoping to organize a fat women’s club, explaining that she wanted to help women ‘laugh and eat without feeling conscience stricken.’ For Tucker, members of her club simply had to swear to see the ‘beauty of a double chin.'”
What Does The Dance In Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Signify? Let The Choreographer Tell You
Sherrie Silver: “There are a lot of dark themes in it, so they wanted us to be the light of the video. You know how kids are innocent and kind of unaware of what’s going on? We were there to smile and bring joy to everyone watching it, because the background is bringing so much darkness and reality. … [We] wanted to bring joy to it, in the middle of madness. That’s what kids do and that’s what dance does – especially African dance.”
Ariel Dorfman: The Writer As Displaced Person
Dorfman reflects on the curious reality of living everywhere and feeling at home nowhere – always being a stranger, an observer. “Not to belong anywhere, to be displaced, is not a bad thing for a writer.” He pauses. “If you can deal with it. If it doesn’t destroy you.” To survive the rootlessness, he says, it helps to have a moral compass and a strong family. “More than a traveler, I’m a displacer. In other words, I’m a person who is constantly meditating on what it means not to arrive at a place, but to be on my way somewhere else.”
Is Genius, By Definition, Male? (Actually, It’s Literally True)
Here is the etymology the Oxford English Dictionary provides for the word genius, imported to English straight from the Latin: “male spirit of a family, existing in the head of the family and subsequently in the divine or spiritual part of each individual, personification of a person’s natural appetites, spirit or personality of an emperor regarded as an object of worship, spirit of a place, spirit of a corporation, (in literature) talent, inspiration, person endowed with talent, also demon or spiritual being in general.” There’s more, but there’s already so much: genius, by definition a male condition. Genius, a male condition that inflects its maleness on the individual soul. Genius, an object of worship. Genius, perhaps slightly demonic.
At 74, One Of France’s Greatest Singer-Songwriters Is Literally Back From The Near-Dead
“[Françoise Hardy] learned she had lymphatic cancer in 2004; her health declined; and, in 2016, she was placed in a coma from which doctors thought she would never wake up. Against all odds, Ms. Hardy has returned and recovered her sensually adolescent voice, and her taste for writing.”
Growing Like Mad But Hemorrhaging Cash, Can MoviePass Survive The Summer?
“With the service’s subscriber base exploding from 20,000 ([last] August) to nearly two million users in under one year, MoviePass faces fresh doubts about its ability to remain in the game. Specifically, the embattled company is facing existential reckoning about its gigantic negative cash flow, financial sustainability, and protection of user data.” Chris Lee explains the situation.
ABT Begins Program To Commission Female Choreographers
“American Ballet Theater announced a multiyear initiative on Wednesday that will support the creation and the staging of new works by female choreographers. The A.B.T. Women’s Movement, which will support at least three female choreographers each season, grew out of Ballet Theater’s Women’s Choreographers Initiative, which has already funded dances by Jessica Lang, Lauren Lovette and Dana Genshaft.”