Arts news

• Actor Declares Himself A Non-Profit

  06-12-2021 22:28 via bbc.com
  
  “There was something quite liberating about going, alright, I’ll put large amounts of money into this or that, because I’ll be able to earn it back again. I’ve essentially turned myself into a social enterprise, a not-for-profit actor.” – BBC
  
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• The Regular Schmoes Asked Up On The Ballet Stage

  22-02-2026 22:00 via kcstudio.org
  “When the mood and choreography strike, Kansas City Ballet Artistic Director Devon Carney invites a few folks to perform on stage as supernumeraries. That’s a fancy term for extras—usually peasants—who mill around and have deeply animated conversations with their supernumerary neighbors.” – KC Studio
  
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• The Federal Communications Commission In The U.S. Is Going In On The ‘Must Be Patriotic’ Thing

  22-02-2026 21:30 via npr.org
  The FCC chair asked broadcasters to sign a pledge, and said they should “inform and entertain audiences by upping programming that ‘celebrates the American journey and inspires its citizens by highlighting the historic accomplishments of this great nation.’” – NPR
  
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• Damian Lewis On Being In The Public Eye

  22-02-2026 21:00 via artsjournal.com
  “I had a stalker. We had an injunction on her and I thought that everything was safe and then I was on stage doing a press night in the West End and someone stood up out of the front row and put flowers at my feet and I realised it was my stalker.” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Ireland’s Basic Income For The Arts Is Now Permanent, But What Does It Mean For The Artists?

  22-02-2026 20:30 via archive.ph
  In Ireland, despite how often the government uses Irish arts to market the country to tourists, “more than 56 per cent of artists and arts workers experience enforced deprivation (that’s three times the rate in the general population).” – Irish Times (Archive Today)
  
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• With Lost Boys And Dracula On Broadway, Plus Sinners At The Oscars, Why Are We So Immersed In Vampire Culture?

  22-02-2026 20:00 via nytimes.com
  “These mythological creatures tap into our anxiety over what would happen if we became otherly human. … As the horror author Grady Hendrix put it: ‘Vampires are the only monster that looks like us.’” – The New York Times
  
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• The New Wuthering Heights Treats One Of Its Women Very, Very Badly

  22-02-2026 19:30 via theguardian.com
  “The film Isabella is a narrative tool for Heathcliff rather than developing in her own right. She becomes another victim of ‘fridging,’ a term coined by Gail Simone that references the way in which many female characters are disposable, depthless plot devices.” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• South Africa Has Pulled Out Of The Venice Biennale

  22-02-2026 19:00 via hyperallergic.com
  “The move comes after the country’s right-wing culture minister Gayton McKenzie scrapped a pavilion proposal by artist Gabrielle Goliath and curator Ingrid Masondo.” They said, “The space will remain empty: a space of erasure, cancellation, censure.” – Hyperallergic
  
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• Why Discord’s Age Verification Idea Isn’t Going According To Plan

  22-02-2026 18:30 via therage.co
  Hackers discovered the Peter Thiel-backed verification software, Persona, “bundled in an interface that pairs facial recognition with financial reporting – and a parallel implementation that appears designed to serve federal agencies.” Discord swiftly decided to kick Persona to the curb. – The Rage
  
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• Rediscovering The Classic Cassette Tape Player

  22-02-2026 18:00 via yahoo.com
  For Spencer Richardson, who finds, repairs, and sells tape players, “his customers include older baby boomers and Gen X‑ers nostalgic for the players of their childhood, but most have been millennials like himself, drawn to something tactile and analog.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
  
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• Willie Colon, Trombonist And Bandleader, Producer And Composer, Has Died At 75

  22-02-2026 17:30 via nytimes.com
  Colón’s “driving musical energy and mischievous bad-boy image — he was long promoted as ‘El Malo’ — helped made him a luminary of New York salsa music, and [his] 1978 collaboration with Rubén Blades, Siembra, became one of the top-selling salsa albums of all time.” – The New York Times
  
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• The Berlinale Has Been A Complex Mess Of Politics. Why?

  22-02-2026 17:00 via npr.org
  “The Berlinale has gained a reputation as the most overtly political of the major festivals, not only for its programming choices, but for its history of engaging with global crises. … Critics say that despite being vocal on other issues, the Berlinale has not spoken out about Gaza.” – NPR
  
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• James Cameron Slams Netflix And Weighs In On The Side Of Paramount For Warner Bros

  22-02-2026 16:30 via cbc.ca
  Cameron even wants the U.S. Senate to block the Netflix bid. Either way, “the clock is ticking, but for those who may not be following the corporate back-and-forth closely, here’s a look at what each deal could mean.” – CBC
  
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• Our Inability To Focus On Books Isn’t A Failing

  22-02-2026 16:00 via aeon.co
  It’s a design flaw, and it can be fixed. “We have been here before. Not just once, but repeatedly, in a pattern so consistent it reveals something essential about how cultural elites respond to changes in how knowledge moves through society.” – Aeon
  
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• Bow To Trump’s Vision Of The Country If You Want A Grant, Museums And Libraries Are Told

  22-02-2026 15:30 via msn.com
  “The directive to hew to Trump’s preferences unnerved some grant writers, reviewers and former recipients accustomed to nonpartisanship from the agency, stirring debate over what it would mean to accept their funding.” – Washington Post (MSN)
  
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• AMC Started Playing An AI-Generated ‘Film’ Before Movies, But Had To Stop Almost Immediately

  22-02-2026 15:00 via fastcompany.com
  “Some called for boycotts. Some found it insulting that if pre-show screen time were being given to short films, AMC would feature AI-generated content rather than human-made movies. Almost all seemed to agree that the move was, as one disgruntled user put it, ‘hot garbage.’” – Fast Company
  
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• From The British Point Of View, What Really Are The BAFTAs Anymore?

  22-02-2026 14:30 via theguardian.com
  One British producer in a year in which exactly one British actor was nominated in the two major acting awards: “The Baftas fall between two stools: it’s both a British awards show and an Oscars bellwether. It makes sense to do both, but it’s a real dilemma.” – The Guardian (UK)
  
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• Why The BAFTAs Are Important, From The Point Of View Of The Oscars

  22-02-2026 14:00 via nytimes.com
  If you’re in Hollywood, well, “the BAFTAs are the British movie industry’s major award show and also widely seen as a bellwether for the Oscars because of the overlap in their voting academies.” – The New York Times
  
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• Toni Morrison, And The Power Of Ambiguity

  22-02-2026 13:30 via lithub.com
  “Fiction has no obligation to dispel ambiguity. It can make use of it—even intensify it—in order to evoke and transform experience. In Beloved, Morrison does take possession of the master’s tools, but she bends them, breaks them, and then uses them to reshape the house.” – LitHub
  
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• When ‘The Pitt’ Wanted To Portray A Rape Kit Collection Storyline, They Called In Some Experts

  22-02-2026 13:00 via yahoo.com
  The writers didn’t want to focus on the survivor’s trauma. “The story serves to bolster the emotional arc of the show’s healthcare providers, in this case Dana, who assists with the exam from start to finish as the department’s certified SANE nurse.” – Los Angeles Times (Yahoo)
  
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• AJ Chronicles: Metropolitan Opera as Poster Child

  21-02-2026 21:36 via artsjournal.com
  My weekly pondering on arts and cultural stories for the week of February 22nd.
  
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• ‘It brings the moon down to Earth’: Mimi Mollica’s best phone picture

  21-02-2026 12:00
  A sleepless night led the Sicilian photographer to capture this remarkable lunar image from his London balconyMimi Mollica says that his photograph of the moon above London presents something of a dichotomy. “There is an element of surprise in seeing the moon in proximity to our terrestrial life, a ‘wow’ factor,” the Sicily-born photographer explains. “And yet this photo also democratises her; bringing her down to Earth, almost touching a building.”M
  
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• From Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die to Tracey Emin: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead

  21-02-2026 07:00
  Sam Rockwell stars in Gore Verbinski’s madcap sci-fi comedy, and the YBA Goat is back with a new exhibition at the Tate ModernGood Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
  Out nowIf Sam Rockwell materialised in an LA diner dressed like something that escaped from an off-Broadway production of Starlight Express, wouldn’t you hear him out? In visionary director Gore Verbinski’s new film, Rockwell plays a man from the future, who has come back to warn us about the perils of artificial inte
  
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• A New Spirit Of Choreographic Artistry In Olympic Figure Skating

  20-02-2026 20:50 via dancemagazine.com
  “It seems we’re in a particularly fruitful era of artistic innovation in skating. What’s driving the current wave — and how might it shape the future of the sport? – Dance Magazine
  
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• The World Shunned The Taliban. So Why Do They Seem To Be Thriving?

  20-02-2026 20:31 via thewalrus.ca
  In January, the Taliban announced a new criminal code that, among other provisions, allows domestic violence and the corporal punishment of children and appears to legitimize slavery through the use of the word “slave.” – The Walrus
  
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• Robert Nichols’s Indelible Railroad Poems Back in Print

  20-02-2026 20:11 via artsjournal.com
  <a href="https://www.artsjournal.com/herman/2026/02/robert-nicholss-indelible-railroad-poems-back-in-print.html" title="Robert Nichols’s Indelible Railroad Poems Back in Print” rel=”nofollow”>Just received a masterly bilingual edition in English and German of “Slow Newsreel of Man Riding Train” by Robert Nichols. It is the latest in Stadtlichter Presse’s bilingual Heartbeats series devoted to American poets of the Beat generation.
  
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• Reading “Animal Farm” In Afghanistan: A Women’s Book Circle Becomes A Form Of Resistance

  20-02-2026 20:01 via theguardian.com
  With the Taliban having outlawed the education of girls and severely restricted women’s other rights, a clandestine group of women gather weekly to read books ranging from Orwell and Hemingway to contemporary Iranian fiction. – The Guardian
  
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• Ohio Comedian Jailed For Making Fun Of Police

  20-02-2026 19:44 via deadline.com
  Comedian Anthony Novak was nabbed by Parma police, tossed into the county jail and charged “with a felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison,” all for the alleged crime of making fun of said police force. – Deadline
  
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• Can A Rhythmic Beat Be Copyrighted?

  20-02-2026 19:31 via theconversation.com
  The case, known as the Fish Market dispute, asks whether a looping beat widely associated with reggaeton can be protected by copyright. More than 150 artists and producers have been named as defendants, and around 3,600 songs are implicated. – The Conversation
  
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• Who Is Championing Adventure In Classical Music?

  20-02-2026 19:15 via thecritic.co.uk
  Up-and-coming composers, looking for a break-out moment with their immense musical feel and depth, probably have their arms and tapping their feet wondering to themselves: where are our champions of new classical music? – The Critic
  
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