Arts news

• When Spanish-language cinema flourished in Los Angeles

  20-08-2017 23:00
  It is impossible to tell from the outside, but the Downtown Independent movie theatre on Main Street in Los Angeles was once called the Aztecaa nod to the Spanish-language films it used to play in the 1940s.
  It was not the only such venue. Across the city, a network of more than 60 playhousesincluding the Million Dollar Theatre, today a national landmarkregularly screened movies for Latin American audiences, many of whom emigrated from Mexico or fled from the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). In 19
  
  Read more

• The darkness of the eclipse—and the American West

  20-08-2017 23:00
  Jackson Hole, Wyoming will experience a total solar eclipse today (21 August), and to celebrate, the local Center for the Arts has staged Observatories, an exhibition of site-specific works by ten contemporary artists, including Glenn Kaino and Sarah Braman. The works explore both the eclipse and the American Westwhich is in some ways, treated like a Disneyland or a Western film, but hidden underneath that veneer is the violence and dark history, says Andy Kincaid, who organised the show with C
  
  Read more

• Hulu And Netflix Are Banking On Nostalgia Making A Comeback

  20-08-2017 23:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Digital platforms are creating new audiences for old TV shows - as when this 25-year-old from Houston says "I know 'Game of Thrones' is all the rage — and I watch it too, sometimes — but it doesn’t have me hooked like 'Golden Girls.' ... I’m on my third round of watching the series right now."
  
  Read more

• Spotify Removes White Supremacist Music After Charlottesville

  20-08-2017 22:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  It's not the only tech company trying to remove the influence of actively racist groups from its site. "The existence of racist music on music platforms isn't a new phenomenon. Nearly three years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center pointed out to Apple and the iTunes Store that they were selling, and thereby profiting from, openly racist, neo-fascist musicians, like the hardcore band Skrewdriver."
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Top AJBlogs For The Weekend Of 08.20.17

  20-08-2017 22:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  Dancing on Water, Making Waves Onstage
  The Trisha Brown Dance Company performs at the Clark Art Institute and at Jacob’s Pillow. Trisha Brown’s Groove and Countermove. (L to R): Kyle Marshall (head hidden), Patrick McGrath, Oluwadamilare Ayorinde, Kimberly Fulmer, Amanda Kmett’Pendry, ... read more
  AJBlog: DancebeatPublished 2017-08-19
  Berkshire Bumble: Director’s Letter Reveals Focus Groups Kept in the Dark About Planned Art Sales
  In the sell-job
  
  Read more

• How One Filmmaker Captures Natural Rhythms While Telling An Intense But Low-Drama Story

  20-08-2017 22:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Lina Rodriguez takes her cues from things like a painting of a cow. "In the 1963 painting, a placid Holstein is framed against a night sky marked by wispy clouds and a full moon. The effect should be pastoral, but instead it is faintly alarming. 'There’s this calm, blue, unnerving light,' Rodriguez observes. 'It captures this idea of uncertainty that I see in his paintings. You see something that is quotidian but there is a threat.'"
  
  Read more

• The Legendary Dancer Julie Kent Talks About The Transition To Artistic Director Of The Washington Ballet

  20-08-2017 21:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Kent says that the adjustment from being a dancer in New York to being an artistic director in D.C. is a challenge, but that it's good for her two young children to see their parents taking on new work. "My service to the art form is now creating opportunities for other people. ... My focus is on them."
  
  Read more

• The Globe's New Boss Says She Has Ideas For The Theatre

  20-08-2017 20:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Michelle Terry isn't feuding with Emma Rice, won't direct any plays, wants children to fall for Shakespeare through their kinetic experience at the Globe - and the plays will be "gender-blind, race-blind, disability-blind."
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Jerry Lewis Dies At 91

  20-08-2017 19:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The high regard in which his comic abilities were held in France — he received the Legion of Honor award in 1983 — became a running joke in the U.S. long after Lewis’ style of broad physical comedy fell out of fashion. His final film, “Max Rose,” screened at France’s Cannes Film Festival in 2013.
  
  Read more

• Dick Gregory, Comedian And Civil Rights Activist And Icon, Has Died At 84

  20-08-2017 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Gregory, who was often mentioned with Lenny Bruce and Mort Sahl as satirists of the first order in the 1960s, at first thought that humor would win over more white people than activism, but gradually changed his mind - and his routine. Still, "it was Mr. Gregory’s conviction that within a well-delivered joke lies power."
  
  Read more

• Stuart J. Thompson, Broadway Producer And Manager Of Shows Including 'The Book Of Mormon,' Has Died At 62

  20-08-2017 18:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Patti LuPone called him a gentleman and said, "He elevated me." Even though he was in theatre, "an industry filled with larger-than-life figures who reveled in the spotlight, he preferred to stay behind the scenes, but his sharp intellect, good taste and dedication made him an influential force, his admirers said."
  
  Read more

• The Sheer Perfect Timing Of This 'Caroline Or Change' Revival

  20-08-2017 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Art imitates life imitates art: The play, "inspired by Kushner’s Louisiana upbringing, is set in Lake Charles, La., during the heat of the Civil Rights Movement. The plot centers on the uneasy relationship between a Jewish family and their black maid, Caroline, but the era of change is emphasized by a number of background events: the assassination of President Kennedy, the non-violent protests led by Martin Luther King Jr., and—in a particularly timely subplot—the destruction o
  
  Read more

• Living In One Is Hard Enough, But How Do You Sell A Frank Lloyd Wright House?

  20-08-2017 17:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Yeah, it's not easy, surprisingly. "For brokers like Mr. Milne, marketing these houses offers unique challenges, including the need to become a Wright expert, to devise a strategy for separating potential buyers from sightseers, and to develop a convincing argument for why someone should pay a premium to live in a house with small bedrooms and a snug kitchen, cinder-block walls, cement floors, narrow doorways, a carport instead of a garage and, quite likely, no air-conditioning."
  
  Read more

• Before You Repost A 'Toxic Twitter!' Article With An Approving Comment, Consider This

  20-08-2017 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The story is bigger than a one-off about how "toxic" Twitter has become for some people. "The challenges that the YA community is experiencing are deeply connected to — and reflective of — the challenges Americans face as a nation. Questions of class, culture, and race erupt in the news and on our streets every day, and the white supremacist terrorism on display in Charlottesville is just one small battle in a war that’s sure to claim many casualties."
  
  Read more

• Can A Small, Actor-Focused Theatre Make It Today? (Reports Indicate No)

  20-08-2017 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Basically, the problem is money. "The Houston theater scene knew and respected the couple, and critics generally adored the work they did. But a few years in, and after receiving grants to form the company, Lehl and Tobin-Lehl realized that there was no system in place for 4th Wall to grow. Billing themselves as champions of artists, their plea for more support - enough to pay a small, full-time administrative staff - fell on silent ears."
  
  Read more

• A High School Student's Film About Transgender Youth In China Gets Popular, And Gets Banned

  20-08-2017 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Does the film "violate socialist values"? Well, it's been screened several times in the past few weeks, but wider circulation "is proving challenging in a country where gender identity remains a sensitive topic. Chinese law allows individuals to change their gender on personal identification cards, but only if they have undergone sex reassignment surgery, and this is illegal for people under 20."
  
  Read more

• As 'Hamilton' Opens In Los Angeles, What Does It Mean Now?

  20-08-2017 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  It means the same thing it did before, only more so: "With a cast far more racially mixed than the European-descended men who penned the Constitution, the play’s power is that promises of equality made in the 1700s should never be forsaken. The American dream, the play suggests, belongs to all, not to the resentful and narrow vernaculars reverberating through red and blue state battles."
  
  Read more

• The Monuments Of Tomorrow, And The Artists Who Are Building Them

  20-08-2017 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  In Philadelphia, with years of input and discussion, artists are building new monuments. "As a result of the years-long project, a public art project titled Monument Lab,' will take over the city of Philadelphia this fall. Twenty artists of various ages, races, gender identities and artistic backgrounds will erect monuments in 10 public spaces spread throughout the city."
  
  Read more

• It's Such A Golden Age For TV That Writers Are Ending Up In The Emergency Room With Panic Attacks And Worse

  20-08-2017 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The substance use and abuse is becoming legendary for some who are on severe deadlines. Why? "A record 455 original scripted series aired last year, and by the time 2017 comes to a close that tally is expected to top 500."
  
  Read more

• Suburban Theater In Illinois Gets Complaints For Same-Sex Couple In 'As You Like It'

  20-08-2017 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  You'd think that some folks in the suburbs near Chicago had, somehow, never met a lesbian couple: "More than 2,000 people have seen the outdoor show, which closes Sunday, since previews began July 12. Rice received about two dozen phone calls, letters and emails complaining mostly about the relationship between courtier Touchstone (a role typically played by a man) and shepherdess Audrey (a role typically played by a woman)."
  
  Read more

• The 'Little Picasso' Dreaming Of Asylum In Serbia

  20-08-2017 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  This is about the artist himself, but also about much more than his life: "The story of Farhad — a smart, lanky boy — is more than an unexpected bright light in grim circumstances. It shines a light on forgotten asylum-seekers and suggests the untold potential lost among migrants stranded along the Balkan route to Western Europe."
  
  Read more

• On my radar: Laura Carmichael’s cultural highlights

  20-08-2017 11:00
  The former Downton Abbey star declares her love for Indian food, Andrew Scott’s Hamlet and RuPaul’s inspiring podcastTwo years after graduating from the Bristol Old Vic theatre school in 2008, Southampton-born Laura Carmichael was cast in ITV’s Downton Abbey and shot to fame. Since starring as Lady Edith for the last time in 2015, she has appeared in several films including indie comedy Burn Burn Burn and period drama A United Kingdom. She has also carved out an impressive stag
  
  Read more

• Richard Woods, artist: ‘I made six identical bungalows and installed them around Folkestone’

  20-08-2017 09:00
  The playful Slade graduate on why he is bringing vibrant colour – and a potent message about the housing crisis – to Folkestone TriennialBorn in Chester in 1966, Richard Woods graduated from the Slade School of Art in 1990. He has become known for his architectural installations characterised by cartoon-like decorative surfaces, bold patterns and vibrant colours, which he has said are inspired by his parents’ garish 1970s home and were once described by the Guardian as &ld
  
  Read more

• Now, Today, Tomorrow and Always review – young Turks do Morrissey

  20-08-2017 09:00
  Towner Gallery, Eastbourne
  Filmed in Istanbul in more liberal times, a newly poignant Smiths karaoke session redeems an otherwise banal survey of pop culture in artIt takes less than 10 minutes to scoot around Now, Today, Tomorrow and Always, a diminutive new show at the Towner Gallery in Eastbourne that aims to explore the effect of pop culture on contemporary artists, and at first sight it’s all a bit underwhelming: even The Uses of Literacy (1997), an installation by Jeremy Deller compr
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUKnews on Twitter!