“We chose the deliberately flexible element of a ‘sequence’ because it felt the most focused: It is often in one inspired moment, more so than a single frame or entire work, that we are able to see the form progress. … This list is not intended to be comprehensive. One hundred is a crushingly compact number of slots with which to encapsulate the totality of a medium. That isn’t to say we didn’t try.” – Vulture
Tag: 10.05.20
Adam Smith On The Perils Of Sympathizing
Sympathy, Smith believed, was inseparable from imagination and from reasoning. We can’t access what other people feel. Instead, we imagine what other people must be feeling, or rather what we believe that we would feel if we were in their position. – Psyche
How Online Theatre And Its Audience Are Changing Each Other
“Our great crisis, the coronavirus, forces us to watch plays alone, in the crannies of our homes, instead of drawing us into proximity with strangers. Our current government, unlike that led by Franklin Roosevelt, doesn’t see a connection between economic privation, social estrangement, and the kind of nourishment that can come only through an encounter with art — and has no sense of responsibility to encourage the flourishing of art and public life. And so, in a very real way, each of us is on her own. The work of playwriting, acting, and theatrical production today might be to reintroduce us to one another, one at a time.” – The New Yorker
Using Limestone Remnants Of Ancient Greek Sculptures To Make New Reproductions: Okay Or Not Okay?
2,600 years ago, the world’s largest Doric temple to Zeus stood in southwestern Sicily, and its façades incorporated 38 towering statues of Atlas, seeming to hold up the roof the way the Titan held up the sky. All but one of those statues have long since fallen to pieces, but the monument’s director wants to use pieces of the ruins to reproduce eight of the ancient Atlas figures and incorporate them into a contemporary sculpture. Archaeologists are appalled. – The New York Times
Boston Symphony Gives Andris Nelsons Evergreen Contract
“The Boston Symphony Orchestra and music director Andris Nelsons have agreed to a three-year contract extension, … ensuring he will lead the symphony through the 2024-25 season and possibly beyond: An evergreen clause allows his commitment to stretch well beyond the new term. … Nelsons has signed a similar contract extension with the BSO’s sister orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig.” – The Boston Globe
Paris Opera Ballet Finally Starts Reconsidering Blackface And Other Racial Issues
Following a manifesto signed by nearly one-fourth of its employees, the world’s oldest ballet company, and perhaps its most tradition-bound, has invited a pair of outside experts to write a report and make recommendations about matters onstage (eliminating blackface, dying tights to match dancers’ skin tones, reworking the traditional ballets blancs that use only white tutus) and off. – France 24 (AFP)
Jérôme Bel: The Dance World Is Going Through A Major Change
Jérôme Bel has been impressed with the activist streak of younger artists. “They want to work without travelling the globe in the way my generation did,” he says. “The dance community is going through drastic change right now. It’s for us to adjust in order to remain in sync with a world in need of transformation.” – The Guardian
Study: Demand For Diverse TV Programming Outstrips Supply
The study highlighted that audience demand for shows with diverse casts rose 113% from 2017 to 2019. Last year, the level of demand for shows with diverse casts was 17 times greater than the demand for the average U.S. TV show (it was eight times higher in 2017). – Los Angeles Times
What The Anti-Smoking Campaigns Can Teach Us About Regulating Social Media
The comparison is more than metaphorical. It’s a framework for thinking about how public opinion needs to shift so that the true costs of misinformation can be measured and policy can be changed. – MIT Technology Review
Nobel Literature Prize Has A Scandal-Plagued Few Years. Look For A “Safe” Choice This Year
The prize has been mired in scandal since November 2017, when the Swedish Academy, which selects the winner, was caught up in sexual abuse and financial misconduct allegations, which resulted in the conviction of Jean-Claude Arnault, husband of academy member Katarina Frostenson, for rape in 2018. The following January, Frostenson left the Academy after she was found to be the source of leaks of previous winners. The Nobel was postponed in 2018 in the wake of the controversy, but found itself fiercely criticised again over its choice of Peter Handke as winner in 2019. – The Guardian