Joan Acocella: “A lot of modern-dance companies are talking about ‘legacy’ and trying to come up with ways to perpetuate it. Why? Well, the art form is more than a century old. Many modern-dance companies are now big institutions, prestigious features of our cultural landscape. If they disband, a ton of people will lose their jobs. More important, there will no longer be anyone to perform the dances properly, in the style passed down through generations of dancers. The work will cease to exist. It would be as if, when Rembrandt died, all his canvases were taken out into the back yard and burned.” – The New Yorker
Tag: 06.24.19
Has Magic Been Displaced By Science? Not At All
Far from having evaporated, ‘folkloric disenchantment’ is still common today in the writings of self-described magicians, shamans and witches. But we also find its analogue in academic disciplines. In this academic version of the myth, nostalgia for vanished magic has been replaced by the idea that a scientific worldview has stepped in to replace more primitive folk-belief systems. – Aeon
Who Gets Duped By Fake Online Images
The main factors that determined whether a person could correctly perceive each image as a fake were their level of experience with the internet and digital photography. – The Conversation
How The Mueller Report Was Turned Into A Play And Live-Streamed By A Superstar Cast
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan (The Kentucky Cycle) adapted the special counsel’s notoriously careful report into a drama titled The Investigation: A Search for the Truth in Ten Acts — each act covering an act of possible obstruction of justice detailed in the report. And on Monday, a cast featuring Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, Michael Shannon, Alfre Woodard, Jason Alexander, and many others read and streamed the play live; John Lithgow played Donald Trump. – Los Angeles Times
Calm Down, Folks — Netflix Has Not Locked Down The Future Of Cinema
Not, argues David Sims, that you could tell from the big New York Times package on the future of movies. We need to keep in mind that “Netflix is still a young company, one that’s sitting on a mountain of debt and creating new film and TV at a rate that feels unsustainable,” that studios are building their own streaming services to compete with Netflix, and that last year’s box office grosses from actual cinemas were the biggest ever. – The Atlantic
New York City’s Public Libraries Drop Access To Streaming Movie Service
The Brooklyn, Queens, and New York Public Library systems began offering cardholders free access to the well-regarded service Kanopy in 2017, and last year about 1% of cardholders used the service. Now the libraries have said that rising costs (Kanopy charged the libraries $2 per view) have made offering the service “unsustainable.” – The New York Times
Guelph Treasure Case: Berlin Museums Will Appeal To US Supreme Court For Dismissal
“The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, the organisation that oversees Berlin’s state museums, says it will appeal to the United States Supreme Court to dismiss a claim for the Guelph Treasure filed by the heirs of a consortium of Jewish art dealers who say they sold the artefacts under duress in the Nazi era. The heirs say the treasure is worth at least €200m.” – The Art Newspaper
That Queer Sex Video Jair Bolsonaro Tweeted? It Was Guerrilla Performance Art, Say The Men In It
In March the Brazilian president posted a video clip shot at a gay street party during São Paulo’s Carnival, tweeting, “We have to expose the truth so the population are aware of their priorities.” Now the pair caught on the video have spoken to the media for the first time since Bolsonaro’s tweet: they say they’re part of a six-person queer art collective called Ediy. “We want to perform in public places. Places where this sort of thing is not expected. We refer to it as ‘hacking the imagination’.” – The Guardian
Elizabeth Banks: Making Money In Hollywood Is Getting Tougher
“There’s a lot more work, but it’s a lot harder to make money on anything. It’s one of the reasons the unions are up in arms right now. For low-end workers, the people on the tail of those big productions, it’s a lot harder to get by. And that’s true for middle-class actors and writers, too.” – The New York Times
How “Hamilton” Changed The Broadway Touring Business
The 2018-19 touring season that just ended set records in box office ($1.6 billion) and attendance (18.5 million). “Hamilton” had a clear hand: There are now four productions beyond New York, up from three the previous season. The total number of “Hamilton” weeks on the road sprang from 121 to 177, according to Charlotte St. Martin, president of the Broadway League. – Washington Post