A Day In The Life Of A Ballet Dancer: Behind The Scenes With English National Ballet’s Francesca Velicu

“Rising star Velicu, who was born in Bucharest, is certainly one to keep your eye on. Earlier this year, she picked up an Olivier Award, named the winner of Outstanding Achievement in Dance for her performance in Pina Bausch’s Le Sacre du Printemps. She joined the English National Ballet in 2016 and was quickly promoted to First Artist the following year. … We caught up with her in rehearsals to find out more about what it takes to become a ballet dancer, and how she spends each day.” (video)

Australia’s Largest Contemporary Art Museum To Be Built In Melbourne

“With an estimated A$1bn dollars flowing into Australia’s second largest city through cultural tourism each year, Melbourne has long-been described as the country’s cultural capital. … In a move that should cement Melbourne’s place at the top, the Victorian State Government has now announced a partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) — one of the world’s most-visited art museums — to build Australia’s largest contemporary art gallery, NGV Contemporary, in the city’s revitalised arts precinct.”

What Exactly Is An ‘Outsider Artist’?

Sanford Schwartz: “Put roughly, an outsider artist is a figure who makes a body of work while operating in relative isolation, unaware of, or indifferent to, developments in the work of professional artists … An outsider artist might be someone who resolutely, and perhaps eccentrically, wants to live and work only on her or his terms. An outsider artist might be someone who has been institutionalized, or who suffers some physical impairment, which keeps the person at a remove from others. But an outsider artist, as the term has evolved, might as easily be someone whose daily experience — as, say, a black person in the South — has kept that person from having any real contact with the larger culture beyond his or her immediate community.”

Jazz Festival Boss Fired After Saying That Gay People Don’t Exist And Homosexuality Can Be Cured

“The board of the association behind the festival, Pori Jazz 66 ry, met on Wednesday evening to discuss [incoming CEO Aki] Ruotsala’s views as expressed in an interview with [the Finnish regional newspaper] Satakunnan Kansa. In that interview Ruotsala said he does not believe there are homosexuals, only homosexuality, and said that it was similar to drug addiction in that it could be ‘fixed’.”

As Ticket Prices Rise, Attendance Drops At Britain’s Regional Theatres

“UK Theatre’ member venues, comprising more than 200 auditoria, took a reduced total of £469.8 million from ticket sales in 2017, down £1.9 million on the previous year. The total number of tickets sold was also less than in 2016, falling 1.87% from 19 million to 18.7 million. … This is despite a 2.9% increase in the total number of performances in 2017.”

What We’re Losing In The Algorithm Society

There is a convincing case that when it comes to overseeing the use and abuse of algorithms, neither the European nor the American approach has much to offer. Automated decision-making has revolutionized many sectors of the economy and it brings real gains to society. It also threatens privacy, autonomy, democratic practice, and ideals of social equality in ways we are only beginning to appreciate.

The Complete Von Karajan – Does Anyone Care About This Deluge Of “Complete” Recordings?

It has long been considerably less expensive to spiff up and repackage an existing recording than to make a new one. The first stereo albums of Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony, for example, sound as though they were recorded yesterday, although some of them are nearly sixty-five years old and every person associated with them is either dead or long retired. Brilliant young performers now have to compete not only with their contemporaries but also with a host of legendary ghosts. Through technology we have established a permanent pantheon of great performances, one that can be very difficult, perhaps impossible, for newcomers to crack.