“Not Good Enough”: London’s Royal Opera House Announces 19 Male Conductors, One Woman For New Season

The Royal Opera’s director of opera, Oliver Mears, was asked if that was a good ratio. “No it is not an acceptable ratio at all … of course,” he said. “But this is something which is a long-term project. It’s not going to happen instantly and in the following years we have a much better ratio of female conductors and it is something which is is an absolute priority for us.” – The Guardian

Polite? Pleasant? Not Words You Ever Thought Would Characterize The Whitney Biennial

Linda Yablonsky: “Considerate” and “pleasant” are not words I ever expected to apply to a show that carries outrage and upset in its historical baggage. With works by 75 participants, this biennial is an airy installation of refined art as free of bombast as it is of new ideas. It doesn’t preen. It doesn’t strut. Strangely, for an exhibition that aligns with the politics of resistance, it doesn’t ruffle many feathers, either.” – The Art Newspaper

Daniel Libeskind Designing Museum Of Humans In Kenya

The project was commissioned by conservationist Richard Leakey, whose fossil discoveries have helped reveal how humankind has evolved. “The museum — titled ‘ngaren’ — will be the first center of its kind to present research, discovery, and exploration of more than two million years of human history and the origins of our universe from evolution, biodiversity, and overpopulation, to war, disease, and climate change.” – DesignBoom

‘The Most Holistic Approach To Creating Belonging That I Have Witnessed In A Theatre’

Critic Alex Rosenfeld writes about A Fierce Kind of Love, a devised play about the intellectual disability rights movement, and how everything about the production, from the integration of performers with disabilities into the development of the script and the cast to the provisions made by the presenter (FringeArts in Philadelphia) for audience members of varying (dis)abilities, demonstrated the difference between inclusion and belonging. – HowlRound

How Exactly Do You Define ‘Camp’? You Shouldn’t Even Try (Sorry, Susan Sontag)

“Camp, an agent of nonsense, resists this exercise. Or actually, like a child, kind of ignores it and wanders elsewhere.” J. Bryan Lowder takes it as a basic principle that camp is, or ought to be, fun — and whatever Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” is, fun it ain’t. “One can walk out of Sontag’s brain and into a less oppressive headspace. One can have a relationship with camp not marked by acrimony. But getting there requires recognizing how we got here.” So Lowder does some deep-diving — well, Slip ‘N Slide-ing, actually. – Slate

Stop Asking What It’s Like To Be A Female Director, Say Females On Cannes Jury

Filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher: “It’s sort of like asking someone who survived a shipwreck why he’s still alive. … Why are you asking us? Well, ask the person who built the boat, who sold the tickets, the schools. People have said there haven’t been enough women, but it’s not enough to talk about at the end [of the chain]. We have to look at the beginning of the chain.” – Vulture