Tag: 12.22.20

Tutus: A Brief History

“What is the history of this strange protruding skirt which allegedly gets its name from the French children’s word cucu, meaning ‘bottom’? Pointe took a look back at some important moments in innovation,” from Marie Taglioni’s bell-shaped skirt in the 1832 premiere of La Sylphide to the ten-foot-wide social-distancing tutu that the Dutch National Ballet developed this year. – Pointe Magazine

Conan Doyle Estate Settles In Enola Holmes Copyright Case

“The Enola Holmes case hinged on Sherlock Holmes’ complicated copyright status. Most Holmes stories sit in the public domain, and stories like Enola Holmes — which reimagines Holmes (played by Henry Cavill) having a younger sister — can freely repurpose their elements. But 10 of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories are still protected by copyright, and the Doyle estate argued that they depict a meaningfully different version of the character.” – The Verge

What I Learned From Spending 2020 Working, Learning, And Entertaining On The Same Screen

Alissa Wilkinson: “In a strange, unexpected way, this year made me appreciate the richness of experience we’ve normally enjoyed both offscreen and on and, along with it, the importance of context in those experiences. Reality seemed to collapse because the context for everything was the same: a brightly lit rectangle in my house.” – Vox

How Hollywood Negotiated The Pandemic, Studio By Studio

“One studio’s delayed theatrical title became another studio’s new original streaming film. While some focused on remounting pipeline productions, others fast-tracked new productions that allowed for contained stories with minimal casts. Big-ticket packages were purchased with the hope of a future return to theaters and franchise films rejiggered to allow for back-to-back production of installments. Ahead of 2021, The Hollywood Reporter takes a closer look at how each studio’s film division is traversing the new landscape.” – The Hollywood Reporter

Christian Lawyers’ Group Sues Director Of Madrid’s Reina Sofia Museum For Blasphemy

Last week the institution opened a major retrospective of the iconoclastic Argentine artist León Ferrari, whose work often riffs subversively on Christian imagery. Within a few days, the Asociación Española de Abogados Cristianos filed a legal action against Manuel Borja-Villel, the museum’s director, arguing that the show “insult[s] Jesus” and “mocks the Gospel.” – ARTnews

The Erasure of the Arts

To me the most salient feature of The Upswing, the important new book co-authored by the sociologist Robert Putnam (who also wrote Bowling Alone) on the disappearance of “social capital,” is incidental: the authors completely fail to consider the arts. In fact, I have the uncomfortable feeling that The Upswing may partly be a symptom of the shortcomings it observes. And it is not alone. – Joseph Horowitz

How The Choir Of King’s College, Cambridge Prepared Its Lessons And Carols Service For This Year Of Pestilence

Just as the boy chorister who sings the opening solo never knows that he’ll be the one to do it until immediately before the service (and its worldwide broadcast) begins, so — with a new strain of coronavirus raging around England — the choir and its director didn’t know until a week before Christmas Eve whether they’d be able to to the worldwide broadcast live. Here’s how they prepared for either eventuality. – The New York Times

Can Dudamel’s New Virtual Reality Film Make The Young’uns Think Orchestral Music Is Cool?

“The film” — titled Symphony in Madrid — “is split into two, 12-minute sections. The first, shown on a giant screen, follows three young musicians in Spain, the US and Colombia as they practise their instruments and move through landscapes and soundscapes that range from the Mediterranean coast to the streets of New York and a coffee farm on a tropical mountainside. For the second, visitors are invited into the other trailer, given a virtual reality headset and headphones, and urged to take leave of their senses.” – The Guardian