Arts news

• BMG Says It May Have Given Black Recording Artists Unfair Contracts

  20-12-2020 22:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  And BMG doesn’t mean “in historical times,” but since 2008. “Although it did not identify the labels in question, BMG said black musicians’ royalties were up to 3.4% lower than those of non-black artists.” The inquiry at BMG will continue. – BBC
  
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• Stanley Cowell, Versatile And Innovative Jazz Pianist, 79

  20-12-2020 22:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Cowell “had one foot firmly in the jazz tradition and another in the avant-garde. He often performed standards and jazz classics, but in new and unexpected ways.” – Washington Post
  
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• The Head Of Americans For The Arts Steps Aside After Many, Many Workplace Complaints

  20-12-2020 21:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  The powerful arts advocacy nonprofit had many successes – but workplace culture wasn’t one of them. “The move comes after a growing chorus of criticism, from current and former AFTA employees and advisory council members, who said that the organization was failing its mission with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion. There were also complaints of sexual harassment, and of a management culture that was built on intimidation instead of transparency.”
  
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• There’s A What In This Year’s Vatican Nativity Scene?

  20-12-2020 21:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  That’s right, an astronaut. Italian and other Catholic media have not been kind. But, says a ceramics teacher from Castelli, Abruzzo, where the original crèche figures were made: “It is rich in symbols and signifiers that offer a non-traditional reading of the Nativity scene.”– Hyperallergic
  
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• Yes, It Absolutely Is A Big Deal To Have Queer Christmas Movies

  20-12-2020 20:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Why would anyone want to join that schlocky tradition? Well, ask screenwriter Michael Varrati. “‘Movie Christmas is a lot different than real Christmas,’ Varrati said. ‘Not everybody has a great relationship with their family or has pristine memories of yesteryear.’ In holiday movies, he added, queer people ‘get to live in the Christmas they always wanted or didn’t get to have.'” – The New York Times
  
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• The Creative Team Of ‘Ma Rainey’ Used Horsehair To Reflect Actual Hairstyles Of The 1920s

  20-12-2020 20:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Honestly, the head of the hair department deserves several medals. “In my mind, it was close to human hair, and when I got that box, it was nothing like human hair at all. They tie thread from the top to the bottom of the tail, and they chop it off and mail it to you. And you know where that tail lies, there was manure and lice eggs. Nothing was alive and active, but it was crusty, wiry and coarse. … I ended up building that wig, strand by strand. And every time I pulled those litt
  
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• The Art Of This Summer’s Protest Movements

  20-12-2020 19:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  How to preserve the murals, protest slogans, and art painted mostly on plywood this summer? At Minneapolis’ George Floyd Square, a caretaker says, “Each piece holds within itself the energy of the uprising, of the person who wrote that letter or who drew that painting or who crafts that sculpture or picked out that rock or laid that t-shirt or their helmet or that plant or that flower. … So every piece is sacred!” – NPR
  
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• Is Making Movies Worth It Right Now?

  20-12-2020 19:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  That’s really what Tom Cruise’s rant was about, and it’s also about the concentration of power during the pandemic, while studios are paying millions to try to keep their productions afloat: “In the short term, this means more projects in the pipeline to keep Tinseltown busy. In the long term, though, the shift only widens Hollywood’s power imbalance, creating an industry dependent on the wealthiest studios and celebrities.” – The Atlantic
  
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• Call for entries - New Emergence Art Prize 2021 / New Emergence Art / London

  20-12-2020 18:47
  The New Emergence Art Prize 2021 offers a £500 cash prize and a permanent feature in our online gallery. We want to help under represented artists to gain exposure and provide financial...
  
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• Another Delay For The Film Academy’s Museum

  20-12-2020 18:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Announced in 2012, supposed to open in 2017, and … what now? “Setbacks have included sparring architects, the discovery of mastodon fossils by excavation crews, a budget that ballooned by roughly 90 percent, the ouster of its founding director and now, for the second time, the coronavirus pandemic.”– The New York Times
  
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• Wood’s A Great Building Material, Except For That Little Thing Called A Legacy

  20-12-2020 18:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Take Stonehenge, for example. “Stonehenge too might once have been largely a wooden structure. The central bluestones and the rings of sarsen stones that surround them are surrounded in turn by several rings of postholes, just as at Woodhenge. The stones could therefore originally have been covered or surrounded by a huge ring-shaped wooden building. The archaeological blogger Geoff Carter has even suggested that the sarsen stones themselves and their lintels could have acted as load-bear
  
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• Call for Participants: 'Gratitude' Short Film / / Yorkshire

  20-12-2020 17:47
  If you are a creative, we'd like to hear from you!We are searching for five participants to feature in a silent short film, exploring their perception of gratitude. The short film will be...
  
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• Seattle Theatre Leaders Help The Arts World Understand How To Go Far Beyond Lip Service To Anti-Racist Changes

  20-12-2020 17:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Theatre leaders met in May to hash out a response to the Black Lives Matter protests and the extrajudicial killings of George Floyd and other unarmed Black people. “They were beginning a process to overhaul the entire ecology of their field, at every level — casting, staffing, fundraising, boards, tech crews, audiences, everything — and inject anti-racism into its DNA. … If this broad coalition of theater makers effectively transforms one part of the arts world in one c
  
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• How The Ailey Company Is Dealing With The Pandemic

  20-12-2020 17:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Considering that it’s not an easy time for dance companies, the Times says, the Ailey is making wonderful choices for its current and future audiences. “Since Dec. 2, the company has been releasing themed programs mixing archival and newly filmed performance excerpts with taped conversations about the dances and the moment.” – The New York Times
  
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• As Britain Goes Under A New Lockdown, Insurance Extended For Actors And Crew Members

  20-12-2020 16:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  And independent cinemas are getting support as well, or at least some support. Actors are into it. Gemma Arterton, perhaps also over the streaming discussions: ““We have to support our local cinemas to make sure those special moments can be experienced by generations of children and adults alike, for years to come. Watching a film at home just isn’t the same.” – Variety
  
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• It Sure Got Easier To Binge-Watch Shows This Year

  20-12-2020 16:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  A show with 121 episodes? Sure. What’s going to interrupt you – your baking plans? In addition, of course, there’s the comfort-watch of familiar characters like the cast of Friends or Living Single. Then there’s the pleasant idea of things changing. “Character-driven shows about crime soon became my balm for the unrelenting sameness of daily life. These worlds follow a consistent storytelling logic. The plot changes as time moves along, and time—unlike in rea
  
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• Some Writers Spend Their Time On Christmas Novels All Year Long

  20-12-2020 15:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Not so easy this year. “‘It’s the least festive I’ve ever felt in my life,’ Ashley says, of writing A Surprise Christmas Wedding amid the gloom of 2020. ‘Every word was a struggle.'” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• The Path From Broadway To Your TV Screen Is, While Now Familiar, Still Bumpy

  20-12-2020 15:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  The good: “Musicals — and, in a way, plays too — are now being filmed because of their music, not in spite of it.”
  The less good: “They put us onstage with the story and give us no say.” – The New York Times
  
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• Model-making Techniques Course Online / / London / online

  20-12-2020 14:50
  A 5-day intensive, practical course covering model-making skills for theatre, film, animation or spatial design. Led by David Neat from his studio in Deptford, London SE8.  Next course dates in...
  
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• Philadelphia Orchestra’s New Principal Guest Conductor Says It’s A Good Time For Women On The Podium

  20-12-2020 14:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Nathalie Stultzmann: “It’s very clear that things have improved. … What is incredibly difficult still is for a woman to get a position. We see great orchestras always having women coming for a week to guest conduct. It’s very important to see in the next years more women in the crucial positions of music director and principal guest conductor at the head of important orchestras.” – Philadelphia Inquirer
  
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• Why Netflix’s ‘Ma Rainey’ Ends With A Scene That’s Not In The Play

  20-12-2020 14:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Director George C. Wolfe says of the final scene, “It’s a very slippery little slope: When does sharing become cultural appropriation become theft?” – Los Angeles Times
  
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• Many TV Shows Shut Down Because Of Positive Tests – Many Of Them False Positives

  20-12-2020 13:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Several shows got what might be called early Christmas holidays this week, with a side of positive coronavirus test terror spicing up those free days. – Vulture
  
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• The Berlin Film Festival Is Now Delayed

  20-12-2020 13:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  And there are pretty clear indications that Cannes and Venice may – and probably should – follow suit. “‘There is a great desire to meet face to face,’ Mariette Rissenbeek, the festival’s executive director, said in a statement, but ‘the current situation does not allow a physical festival in February.'” – The New York Times
  
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• In conversation with Colin Ford CBE / The Royal Photographic Society / South West / London

  20-12-2020 12:15
  Colin Ford CBE was one of Britain's first curators of photography and has had a long and distinguished career. In this online event taking place on 28 January 2021 he discusses some of the highlights...
  
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• Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Fly in League With the Night tate britain review

  20-12-2020 10:00
  
  Tate Britain, London
  Poised, mysterious and yet somehow always the same, the British artist’s allusive paintings elude deeper scrutinyA black woman trains her binoculars on something we cannot see in the darkness. Another reclines on a couch in sepulchral gloom, in a pose borrowed from Manet. Two black men pull on white socks at dusk, echoing the athletes in a painting by Degas, but in a darkness so obliterating it makes their actions seems conspiratorial, perhaps even ominous.The painting
  
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• ‘Petri dish’ culture: infamous Covid-19 graffiti preserved for Manchester

  20-12-2020 08:16
  
  Frankie Stocks, the teenager behind headline-grabbing lockdown message recreates work for posterity on chunk of demolished wall Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageSomewhere deep in Manchester City Council’s storage is a new and unusual piece of modern art.Weighing one tonne, the chunk of concrete and mangled iron, which previously belonged to a notoriously unpopular partition wall in central Manchester, is expected to make its gallery debut in the new year. R
  
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