Arts news

• All The Books That Won Big Prizes This Year

  24-12-2021 23:29 via bookmarks.reviews
  
  From the Pulitzer to the Booker, the Nebula to the Edgar, here are the winners of the biggest book prizes of 2021. – Bookmarks
  
  Read more

• Why Our Ideological Fights Descend Into Fights About What Words Mean

  24-12-2021 23:01 via thepointmag.com
  
  The well-rehearsed rhetorical drama over this kind of conceptual terminology is only one of the ways in which arguments over definitions and usage have risen to prominence and in some cases become almost synonymous with the desire for social change in recent years. – The Point
  
  Read more

• In The Middle Of The Night, Hong Kong Authorities Remove Tiananmen Memorial

  24-12-2021 22:32 via washingtonpost.com
  The 26-foot-tall artwork, known as the “Pillar of Shame,” had stood at the University of Hong Kong for nearly a quarter-century and honored the hundreds, if not thousands, of students and others killed on June 4, 1989, when the Chinese military crushed pro-democracy protests. – Washington Post
  
  Read more

• American Contemporary Theatre Closes Its Acclaimed MFA Program

  24-12-2021 22:01 via datebook.sfchronicle.com
  The program consistently ranked as one of the top five graduate acting schools in the country, after more than five decades educating such distinguished alumni as Denzel Washington, Anna Deavere Smith, Annette Bening, Elizabeth Banks and Anika Noni Rose. – San Francisco Chronicle
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Man Buys $30 Drawing. Now It Could Be Worth Millions

  24-12-2021 21:30 via nytimes.com
  
  “It was either a masterpiece or the greatest forgery I had ever seen,” he said. – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• Christkindlmärkte: A Brief History Of Germany’s Christmas Markets

  24-12-2021 21:01 via qz.com
  
  The mercantile/community gatherings date back to at least the 14th century, and though they’ve since spread through much of the world, they’re especially dear to Germany (where pandemic-induced cancellations hit very hard). Here’s the story of the markets, from prune Zwetschgenmännle to hot Glühwein. – Quartz
  
  Read more

• An Iconic Chicago Building Is Saved

  24-12-2021 20:26 via chicagoreader.com
  
  Chicago has a forest of imposing skyscrapers, and nothing else like this squat concoction of glass and steel that looks from the outside like a spaceship docked in the heart of the Loop, and reveals, on the inside, the city’s most vertiginous and spectacular atrium.  – Chicago Reader
  
  Read more

• How Jewish People Eating Chinese Food Became A Standard Part Of American Christmas

  24-12-2021 20:03 via mentalfloss.com
  
  It’s not only because Chinese restaurants were the only places open on Christmas back in the day … – Mental Floss
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Holidays with music, in person or not

  24-12-2021 20:03 via artsjournal.com
  Despite my avowed abhorrence of Christmas music, I enjoyed maestro Kurt Elling leading his hometown quintet in a holiday-themed performance at Chicago’s City Winery last Sunday.
  Kurt Elling © Marc PoKempnerMy entire evening — accompanied by best friends, and including the surprise discovery after the Winery show of a heartening young trumpeter at the Hungry Brain —was a reminder that hearing music in person with others is a key experience, even if the potential for spreadi
  
  Read more

• Is The Golden Age Of Travel Over?

  24-12-2021 19:31 via aeon.co
  
  The old way it was practised, at vast scale, and across increasingly porous borders, has begun to look like it might be a terminal casualty. At the time of writing, there are only memories, and the work of reorienting ourselves to a more inert and less hospitable world. – Aeon
  
  Read more

• A Small Ballet Company Bounces Back From Hurricane Ida

  24-12-2021 19:02 via pointemagazine.com
  
  Flooding caused by the storm wrecked the studios of Roxey Ballet in Lambertville, NJ; said director Mark Roxey, “The building was submerged in water. It looked like everything had been flipped upside down and shaken in a snowglobe.” Here’s how the community came to the rescue. – Pointe Magazine
  
  Read more

• Is Paris’ Grand Palais Throwing Out Its Big Art Fair?

  24-12-2021 18:29 via news.artnet.com
  
  RX France is challenging the validity of the process, claiming that it has received two written commitments to the fairs from RMN-Grand Palais, the public body that owns the beaux-arts building, in 2019 and in 2021. – Artnet
  
  Read more

• “Dirty Harry” At 50: Portrait Of A Seminal ’70s Antihero

  24-12-2021 18:04 via theguardian.com
  
  “Partisans on either side looking for affirmation of their stance will be disappointed. … Neither condemning nor condoning his actions, the film offers what may be the clearest image of the archetypal cop’s self-perception as the only one willing to do the dirty jobs holding America together.” – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Omicron Shutdown Comes At A Bad Time For Broadway

  24-12-2021 17:32 via washingtonpost.com
  This selective information release does little to quell anxieties, and resentment toward the Broadway establishment is often triggered. – Washington Post
  
  Read more

• Do Egyptians Think Verdi’s “Aïda” Is Cultural Appropriation? Merely Silly? Actually, They Don’t

  24-12-2021 17:01 via theguardian.com
  
  to Cairo and asked people there about it — and she found that people, even those who’ve never seen it themselves, seem generally proud of Aïda and its glorification of their homeland’s ancient history. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Brigitte Lefèvre Helped Transform France’s Entire Dance Scene Into What It Is Today

  24-12-2021 16:35 via nytimes.com
  
  She led the way in introducing the country to contemporary dance, not least at the Paris Opera Ballet, which she ran for two decades, and she helped establish choreography centers with resident companies throughout France. Here she talks about her choices and her legacy. – The New York Times
  
  Read more

• Even The Color Blue Is Having Supply-Chain Problems

  24-12-2021 16:03 via news.yahoo.com
  
  Two factories in France produce much of the world’s synthetic ultramarine pigment; one stopped making it, and the other couldn’t meet the extra demand and froze exports, causing difficulties for all sorts of businesses worldwide. And there are similar issues with other colors. – Yahoo! (The Washington Post)
  
  Read more

• Conservatives Trying To Ban Certain Books From Schools Forget About The Streisand Effect

  24-12-2021 15:34 via theguardian.com
  
  In Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, whether the topic is race, sexuality, history, or something else, grownups trying to keep particular books from teens end up reminding the teens that those books exist and can be obtained from booksellers. – The Guardian
  
  Read more

• Enormous Changes At The Last Minute At The Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Messiah”

  24-12-2021 15:02 via inquirer.com
  
  The scheduled conductor and all four soloists, who’d been rehearsing together, tested positive the day before Wednesday’s concert — and, rather than canceling, the orchestra managed to round up another cast and conductor within 24 hours. David Patrick Stearns reports on how it went. – The Philadelphia Inquirer
  
  Read more

• Fifteen Minutes Before Curtain Time, Broadway Playwright Steps In To Save Performance From Cancellation

  24-12-2021 14:31 via playbill.com
  
  With three cast members testing positive for COVID and only two understudies available, Keenan Scott II grabbed his script for Thoughts of a Colored Man and decided to go onstage himself. (Alas, after the following night’s performance, the run was cancelled anyway.) – Playbill
  
  Read more

• England Doubles The COVID Arts Relief Funding It Announced Just Days Ago

  24-12-2021 14:05 via news.artnet.com
  
  On Monday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that £30 million ($40 million) was being added to Arts Council England’s Culture Recovery Fund. On Thursday, that amount was raised to £60 million ($80 million), including £1.5 million ($2 million) earmarked for freelancers. – Artnet
  
  Read more

• In person—or at home

  24-12-2021 13:03 via artsjournal.com
  In today’s Wall Street Journal I review stage versions of A Christmas Carol in Providence, Rhode Island and Philadelphia. They can both be viewed in person and on line. Here’s an excerpt.
  *  *  *
  Staged versions of “A Christmas Carol” come in every possible flavor. In 2020, though, they were all streamed, for America’s theaters were still shut tight by COVID-19. This year, though, they’re mostly open again—at least for the moment&mda
  
  Read more

• Replay: John Fahey plays “Joy to the World”

  24-12-2021 13:02 via artsjournal.com
  Go here to listen to John Fahey play “Joy to the World”:(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
  
  Read more

• How The Internet Changed Music This Year

  24-12-2021 00:01 via slate.com
  
  The geeks among you will recognize that the words “decentralization” and “distributed network” invoke a nearly 10-year-old model of equitable Web-based information flow, one that’s currently on fire because of the Wild West-mood surrounding Web 3.0, crypto, and NFTs. – Slate
  
  Read more

Follow @ArtsUK1 on Twitter!