Study: Sensory Deprivation Improves Musicians’ Skills

“Oshin Vartanian of the University of Toronto and Peter Suedfeld of the University of British Columbia report floating in an Epsom salt solution one hour per week for four weeks boosted the technical ability of a group of college music students. This suggests such periods of minimal sensory stimulation can improve performers’ perceptual-motor coordination.”

Berlin Staatsoper’s Renovation A Year Behind Schedule

“The city’s development department said Tuesday that the opera’s 19th-century home on the former East Berlin’s Unter den Linden boulevard will now reopen at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season. It says work is progressing well but a hard winter and the need to take unexpected extra measures to reinforce the building site caused a roughly six-month delay.”

NY State Adopts New Rules For Museum Deaccessioning

“The New York Board of Regents has approved new rules for deaccessioning artworks … [At] least one of ten specific criteria be met when museums deaccession a work. Among the criteria are proving that an item is inconsistent with the museum’s mission, that it is redundant in the institution’s collection or that a work is stolen or inauthentic.”

Another Black Swan Effect: Portman’s Dance Coach Sees Business Soar

Mary Helen Bowers, the former New York City Ballet dancer who trained Natalie Portman, has a fitness company called Ballet Beautiful. “Publicity surrounding the training convinced non-dancers that Bowers’ fitness regimen could work for them … [and] membership has skyrocketed in the last six months – up a whopping 5,000 percent.”