Tag: 10.22.19

Has The Drag Ballroom Scene Outgrown The Criterion That Once Defined It?

The performance-competitions that were made famous by the documentary Paris Is Burning, introduced the world to voguing, and arguably inspired RuPaul’s Drag Race have generally judged their participants and winners on “realness” — the ability to pass as the real thing for whatever the category. Ballroom veteran Sydney Baloue makes a case that, while it was needed as the ballroom scene was born and grew, the concept of “realness” may no longer be necessary and might actually be damaging. – The New York Times

How Does Chicago Keep Its Busy Storefront Theatre Scene Going? Hard Work, Low Pay, Grit, And Community

“Whether traditional black boxes or nontraditional spaces, often in residential neighborhoods, Chicago storefront theatre prides itself on more intimacy, as well as edgier material, than an audience member can find in a Broadway touring production or the city’s larger venues. Storefront theatre differs from community theatre, not in its meager starting budget but in its aspiration that those involved strive to be professional working artists. Even if they don’t make a living doing what they love, they are making a life (and some money) in it.” – American Theatre

Why America’s Professional Theatres Are Broken

“The effect of this legacy for mixed metaphors and a lack of public funding of the arts is a numbing of artistic innovation and an enlivening of artistic repetition. Companies often opt for what seems like more saleable programming—reliable commodities, you might say—to eke out new works initiatives. But commodification is a distraction from doing the real work that our mission statements claim we do.” – Howlround

Orlando’s Soon-To-Open Performing Arts Center Is Finally Settling Rent Dispute With The Groups It’s Being Built For

“The Orlando Ballet signed a contract with the [Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts] on Tuesday morning after protracted negotiations that saw accusations of unreasonable demands amid high-profile social-media and mass-mailing campaigns to sway public opinion. Opera Orlando and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra are still in discussions, an arts-center spokeswoman said, but ‘we anticipate signing agreements with them soon.'” – Orlando Sentinel

Why 120-Frames-Per-Second Ruins The Cinema Experience

“Our suspension of disbelief — the very thing that we need for the art form to work — dissipates. The smoothness and clarity of the image doesn’t make us feel like we’re sitting in a room with the characters from Gemini Man, it makes us feel like we’re suddenly sitting on the set with the actors from Gemini Man, watching them struggle through their lines.” What’s more, explains Bilge Ebiri, Ang Lee, who loves 120 fps tech so much, “is possibly the major director least suited to trying to make high frame rates work.” – Vulture

One Of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms Is At The Center Of A $14 Million Lawsuit

“The lawsuit [filed in Miami-Dade County] concerns a group of works that Miami dealer Inigo Philbrick and his gallery are allegedly withholding from Fine Art Partners (FAP), a Germany-based financial services company specialized in the art market.” That set of artworks includes pieces by Donald Judd, Christopher Wool, and Wade Guyton, as well as Kusama’s All the Eternal Love I Have for the Pumpkins. – ARTnews

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s ‘Between The World And Me’ Is Now A Play, And It’s About To Tour The U.S

One of the first things that Kamilah Forbes did when she became executive producer at the Apollo Theater in Harlem was contact Coates, an old friend from college, and ask to adapt his award-winning memoir. “Book reading can be so solitary; we read our books by ourselves, and unless you’re part of a book club, do you really engage within the topics or in the actual writing or primarily the topic that the book discusses?” Forbes said. “The question was about how can we use theatre as this collective form of communication to have the broader conversation with the book.” – American Theatre

Less Than A Decade Ago, The Detroit Symphony Seemed Doomed. Now, It’s Thriving

On top of a declining audience and debt, the orchestra had to weather a huge loss of endowment value during the Great Recession, a very bitter 2010-11 strike, and the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Now the DSO is expecting its seventh consecutive balanced budget, lower ticket prices and concerts in Detroit neighborhoods have led to a spurt of audience growth that includes students, and the orchestra made its first overseas tour in 16 years, wowing audiences in China and Japan. And much of the credit for all this good news goes to CEO Anne Parsons. – The Detroit News

Seems France Thinks ‘Salvator Mundi’ Might Still Arrive For Part Of The Louvre’s Big Leonardo 500 Show

Just last week, the French government amended the document indemnifying all loans of artwork for the exhibition to cover Salvator Mundi if it arrives anytime before the end of this year. What’s more, documents show that France was negotiating for the loan of the painting up to the last week of September. – The Art Newspaper