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Mentors Named for Subsequent Class in Rolex Arts Initiative

Mentors Named for Next Class in Rolex Arts Initiative

Ghanaian-born visual artist El Anatsui, British writer Bernardine Evaristo, Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke, French architect Anne Lacaton and American jazz singer Dianne Reeves are the new mentors in the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, a program launched by Rolex was established in 2002 to nurture new generations of outstanding talent.

The names of the new mentors and their protégés, who will work together for two years, were announced Friday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, where the Arts Initiative is celebrating the culmination of its current program cycle. This cycle featured Lin-Manuel Miranda, the first mentor in a recently added open category that includes multidisciplinary artists.

The protégés are architect Arine Aprahamian, writer Ayesha Harruna Attah, visual artist Bronwyn Katz, filmmaker Rafael Manuel and singer-songwriter Song Yi Jeon. In addition to travel and expenses, the protégés each receive a grant of around 41,000 US dollars.

The new group of mentors and protégés hail “from nine different countries in Asia, Africa, North America, Europe and the Middle East,” said Rebecca Irvin, Rolex’s head of philanthropy, in an email. “And her artistic work reflects many of the most pressing issues of our time, including sustainability, diversity and social change.”

Evaristo, who wrote in a statement that she had mentored the program “since Toni Morrison 20 years ago,” said that the “very close and personal attention” the mentee receives was very different from attending workshops or the writing courses. “It could also include career advice and personal development, as well as opening up conversations about creativity and society, and drawing inspiration from other art forms,” ​​she said.

Twenty years after its inception, the Arts Initiative, which uses influential advisors to select mentors and protégés, now has a bold list of alumni including David Adjaye, Alfonso Cuarón, Brian Eno, Lara Foot, Stephen Frears, Nicholas Hlobo, David Hockney , Joan Jonas, Anish Kapoor, Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Crystal Pite, and Tracy K Smith.

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Baryshnikov Arts Middle to Proceed On-line Programming This Fall

Baryshnikov Arts Center to Continue Online Programming This Fall

Baryshnikov Arts Center will hold another free online season before welcoming audiences back to its theaters in spring. Mikhail Baryshnikov, who founded the institution in 2005, said the main reason for remaining virtual was a long-planned replacement of its building’s heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system, which is to get underway in fall.

The coming season will include the premieres of commissioned pieces by River L. Ramirez, a comedian and musician (Oct. 18 to Nov. 1); the dancer Sooraj Subramaniam (Nov. 1-15); Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, a New York City dance artist (Nov. 29 to Dec. 13); and the dance duo Molly Lieber and Eleanor Smith (Jan. 10-24).

This is the second round of new work that the center has supported during the pandemic. The first was streamed during its spring 2021 season, and featured pieces by Stefanie Batten Bland, Mariana Valencia and Bijayini Satpathy.

“Instead of doing virtual galas, we decided to celebrate artists and their creativity,” Baryshnikov said of the choice to focus on commissioning. This emphasis, he added, is in keeping with the center’s primary mission, which is to help artists develop and experiment “without commercial pressure.”

The choreographers Kyle Abraham and Liz Gerring will also present new dances through the center this fall. Each has made a duet in response to Merce Cunningham’s “Landrover” (1972). Their contributions, commissioned by the center and the Merce Cunningham Trust, will stream Sept. 20-30 in an online program alongside solos and duets from Cunningham’s work performed by Jacquelin Harris and Chalvar Monteiro of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Two filmed solos by the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek (streaming Oct. 4-14); and “Pigulim,” a filmed dance-theater work by Ella Rothschild, an Israeli choreographer and former Batsheva Dance Company performer (available Dec. 13-23), round out the announced slate.

For Baryshnikov, it has been “a pleasant surprise” to see that the performing arts can be successfully created, shared and enjoyed in digital forms. “Thousands of people have been watching the online programming and we got so many responses from all over the world,” he said.

There are creative benefits to filming work that would otherwise be presented live onstage as well. “We gave artists the opportunity to really be in charge of their own presentation,” he said. “It’s a new medium — you have to be a cameraman or a director besides being a choreographer or a composer or an instrumentalist or a singer.”

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Abrons Arts Heart’s Fall Season Celebrates Trailblazers

Abrons Arts Center’s Fall Season Celebrates Trailblazers

Abrons Arts Center’s lineup for the fall season is a salute to groundbreakers and innovators in the arts, public housing and emerging technology.

“As we emerge from isolation, we wanted to focus on work that’s still been happening and developing in different ways during the pandemic,” Craig Peterson, the center’s executive artistic director, said in an interview. “Because it deserves an audience.”

Several of the productions scheduled at the 300-seat playhouse for the coming season were booked before the pandemic and postponed because of it, said Peterson, who curated the season in collaboration with Ali Rosa-Salas, the recently appointed artistic director of the center.

“Lots of them got displaced when we stopped live performance,” he said. “But we never stopped supporting artists and always intended to present them.”

The center has scheduled a free concert, “Holy Ground: Land of Two Towers,” by the jazz ensemble Onyx Collective on Sept. 11 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

“It felt like an appropriate way to think about the long-term impacts of historical moments like the ones we’re in now,” Rosa-Salas said.

A week later, the center will open a free outdoor photography exhibition, “Community Matriarchs of NYCHA” (for the New York City Housing Authority), celebrating five women who have transformed their neighborhood on the Lower East Side, where they organized food distribution, especially during the pandemic, to other residents of public housing. The exhibition, presented as part of the Photoville Festival 2021 in partnership with the digital storytelling platform My Projects Runway, will include portraits by Courtney Garvin and video interviews by Christopher Currence and remain on view through Dec. 1.

“I’m really excited to uplift women activists in our community and reflect on the role of public housing in our neighborhood and city,” Rosa-Salas said.

From there it’s on to Frankenstein, Bigfoot and Sasquatch as Abrons presents a streaming video adaptation of Sibyl Kempson’s “The Securely Conferred, Vouchsafed Keepsakes of Maery S.,” beginning Oct. 29. First performed as an experimental, four-part radio play in January, the production, presented by the 7 Daughters of Eve Thtr. & Perf. Co., is described as a visual journey through the layered universe of Mary Shelley, the author of “Frankenstein.” The new virtual video work will feature hand-cut collages, digital and analog animation and illustration and collaborations with more than a dozen artists. An in-person screening is also set for Halloween at the new Chocolate Factory Theater.

Closing the season from Dec. 10-12 is a live motion-capture piece, “Antidote,” created in collaboration with Pioneer Works. Directed by the Jamaican-born choreographer Marguerite Hemmings and the new-media artist LaJuné McMillian, it explores the relationship between physical movement and motion-capture technology and how the latter can be used as a tool of personal power and liberation. The project is a collaboration with six young artists from high schools on the Lower East Side and in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood.

“It’s an intergenerational experiment and a great way to end the season,” Rosa-Salas said.

The full season lineup is available at abronsartscenter.org.

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17 New York Arts Organizations Are Amongst These Receiving $30 Million

17 New York Arts Organizations Are Among Those Receiving $30 Million

The Queens Museum is among 46 cultural nonprofit organizations selected for a new $30 million program by Bloomberg Philanthropies that is intended to support improving technology at the groups and helping them stabilize and thrive in the wake of the pandemic. A Bloomberg Tech Fellow is being appointed at each organization, the philanthropies announced Tuesday.

Heryte Tequame, assistant director of communications and digital projects at the museum, was chosen as its fellow in what is known as the Digital Accelerator program and will be in charge of developing a digital project of her choice. In an interview she said that in 2020, the museum “realized where we needed to expand our capacity and invest more.”

“I think now we’re really taking the time to see what we can do that has longevity,” Tequame said. “And not just being responsive, but really being proactive and having a real future-facing strategy.”

The organizations don’t know exactly how much of the $30 million each will receive yet, but Tequame said she wants to use at least some of it on the museum’s permanent collection.

Another recipient, Harlem Stage, selected Deirdre May, senior director of digital content and marketing, as its tech fellow.

That performing arts center — which largely focuses on artists of color — aims to use the assistance in part to increase accessibility, Patricia Cruz, its chief executive and artistic director, said in an interview. “People who cannot leave their homes, for example, would be able to see some of the finest artistic performances that could be made,” Cruz said, because “that’s the core of what we do.”

The 46 organizations selected for the program include nonprofits in the United States and Britain. Among them are 26 in the United States, and 17 of those are in New York City, including the Apollo Theater, the Ghetto Film School and the Tenement Museum. The chief executive of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Patricia E. Harris, said in a statement that when the pandemic hit, cultural organizations had to get creative to keep their (virtual) doors open.

“Now we’re excited to launch the Accelerator program to help more arts organizations sustain innovations and investments,” Harris said, “and strengthen tech and management practices that are key to their long-term success.”

As Cruz from Harlem Stage put it, “We’re ready to be accelerated.”

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Chief of Individuals for the Arts Retires After Office Complaints

Leader of Americans for the Arts Retires After Workplace Complaints

Robert L. Lynch, the longtime president and chief executive of the Washington-based advocacy organization Americans for the Arts who had been on paid leave since December amid workplace complaints, has agreed to retire effective immediately, the organization’s board announced Thursday.

“Bob has dedicated his life to the arts, in particular increasing access to the arts for everyone,” the board’s statement said, “and we know he will continue to be a passionate advocate for many years to come.”

The board did not say whether Mr. Lynch had received a severance package.

Mr. Lynch, 71, had voluntarily stepped aside late last year while investigations into the organization’s equity and diversity practices and workplace management were ongoing. Those investigations have now concluded, the board’s statement said, though it did not disclose the findings.

He will be succeeded by Nolen Bivens, a retired Army brigadier general and former board member who had led the organization since December. Mr. Bivens helped found the National Initiative for Arts & Health Across the Military, which provides access to creative arts therapies at military clinical sites across the country.

Before he went on leave on Dec. 16, Mr. Lynch had led AFTA for more than three decades. He served on the Biden-Harris transition team for the arts and humanities and was a prominent advocate for resources for nonprofit organizations. His annual compensation package exceeded $900,000, according to the organization’s tax filings.

Mr. Lynch was criticized by a number of current and former AFTA employees and advisory council members late last year, who called out the organization for falling short with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion. Several complainants also said they had been sexually harassed while they worked at AFTA, and said the organization had a management culture rooted in intimidation.

Critics had called for Mr. Lynch to resign from the organization, because, they said, he had long been unresponsive to the issues they raised. As calls grew for AFTA to diversify its leadership and better serve creative communities and artists of color, Mr. Lynch publicly defended the group’s actions, and vowed to do better.

AFTA said in December that it would be the subject of two independent investigations: one related to the work environment, and one focused on AFTA’s policies and procedures surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion. Those have now concluded, though the board did not say when or if it plans to release the findings.

Caitlin Strokosch, the president and chief executive of the National Performance Network, a group of artists and organizations that campaign for racial and cultural justice, said in an email on Thursday that while Mr. Lynch’s resignation had been a positive step, the “toxic practices of supremacy culture” remain within the organization he built. She criticized AFTA for declining to share the findings of the investigations.

“Americans for the Arts had an opportunity for truth-telling,” she said, “and has instead chosen a path that seeks to sweep their practices under the rug, to reject transparency, and to bank on the status quo to keep them in power.”

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They’ve Given $6 Million to the Arts. No One Knew Them, Till Now.

They’ve Given $6 Million to the Arts. No One Knew Them, Until Now.

The Alphadyne Foundation – who were they? Christine Cox didn’t know, and neither did Google seem to know when she checked late last year in the dark days of the pandemic when organizations like hers struggled to stay alive.

Cox is the co-founder and artistic director of BalletX, a Philadelphia-based contemporary dance group. Although she tried to remain optimistic about the prospect, funding slowed and donors tired of the video views. Then, in December, the Juilliard School president Damian Woetzel called and said a mysterious benefactor named Alphadyne might have some money. Cox drafted a proposal and tried not to awaken her hopes. A number of scholarship recipients had already turned down BalletX, and even at its best, it usually took forever for money to arrive.

But eight weeks after she sent her pitch, the money came in from Alphadyne. It was real money, six-figure money, more money than any donor had ever given them in a single year. Even now, Cox can’t believe it’s real. “We have never received a gift like this,” she said. “My jaw dropped and I started crying.”

The scenario was repeated at various performing arts organizations in and around New York over the past year. At the Harlem Dance Theater. In the National Sawdust, the concert hall in Brooklyn. At the Kaufman Music Center in Manhattan. A phone call came in, a proposal was requested, and then, within a few weeks, it was booming: a serious piece of change, courtesy of the Alphadyne Foundation, whoever they were.

The group that helped select recipients turned out to be as colorful as Alphadyne.

In addition to Woetzel, this included Jay Dweck, a financial technology consultant and violin maker, who made headlines in 2014 for installing a multi-million dollar violin-shaped Stradivarius pool in his garden. and Annabelle Weidenfeld, a former English concert manager who fell in love with the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein in the 1970s despite an age difference of six decades – and vice versa. (A decade after his death in 1982, she married the English publisher Lord George Weidenfeld, an engagement that made her the titular lady.)

Gil Shiva, a former board member of the Public Theater, was also won over to attend. (Alphadyne helped sign the audience’s Shakespeare presentation in the park this summer.)

Philippe Khuong-Huu, former managing director of Goldman Sachs and founding member of the investment firm Alphadyne Asset Management, united them all. Khuong-Huu, a 57-year-old Frenchman of Vietnamese descent, is by and large the primary person responsible for the Alphadyne Foundation, which didn’t exist before the pandemic.

It’s also relatively private. His only real foray into the public eye came a decade ago when his purchase of a 10-room Park Avenue terraced duplex drew the attention of The Observer. At first, he declined to be interviewed for this article and only agreed after learning that a story about the foundation would take place with or without his contribution.

In the interview, Khuong-Huu said that when the pandemic broke out in New York last year, when the pandemic broke out in New York, he and his Alphadyner colleagues were seized with a sense of urgency and, although he did not use those words precisely, were indebted to noblesse.

“We realized early on that this pandemic affects people very unevenly beyond general inequalities,” said Khuong-Huu. “Once the crisis is over, you will have people who did something about it and people who didn’t. We had to do something immediately. “

This is not usually how it works in the nonprofit art world, where organizations go to enormous lengths to identify potential donors and spend years carefully nurturing those relationships before asking for a single dime.

During the pandemic, however, Alphadyne was part of a growing group of philanthropists, a sector that has often been criticized for being slow to respond to a crisis that was acting in a rush, according to Sean Delany, former head of the New York State Charities Bureau.

“I’m not saying this is a universal revolution, but I’ve seen a lot more of it than I have seen in normal times,” Delany said.

The performing artists were particularly overwhelmed last year and, for various reasons, often had no access to financial relief. Between July and September 2020, when the average unemployment rate was 8.5 percent, 55 percent of dancers, 52 percent of actors, and 27 percent of musicians and singers were unemployed, according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The foundation pledged to give away an initial $ 10 million and identified efforts already ongoing in New York to help people in need.

Khuong-Huu said Alphadyne’s money went to ReThink Food NYC, through which restaurants feed the poor; Accompany Capital, a nonprofit that supports refugee and immigrant owned businesses; and the Bronx Community Foundation.

More than half of the foundation’s money went to the performing arts, a sector in which Khuong-Huu has some expertise. He sits on the board of directors at Juilliard and his two teenage daughters are award-winning violinists.

And he was a firm believer in what would help artists more than handouts.

“For artists, what they need most is performance,” he said. “Getting a check from the government is good, but going to a concert is very, very meaningful.”

To make sure the money was being used to get the cast back on track, his SWAT advisory team came in.

Dweck – his Stradivarius-shaped pool was back in the news when Mariah Carey rented his house last summer – knew Khuong-Huu from her time at Goldman Sachs, where they partly bonded over their mutual love of the violin.

When asked for recommendations, Dweck immediately thought of the Perlman music program, which became another Alphadyne recipient. With Kate Sheeran, executive director of Kaufman Music Center, he helped create Musical Storefronts, a pop-up concert series that ran in New York from January to April.

“We have 100 percent acceptance,” said Dweck of the musicians’ interest. “People said, ‘Where and when?'”

The side of the series, an empty Lincoln Center storefront, has been donated. Sheeran said Alphadyne provided the necessary funding at around $ 450,000 for the center to provide well-paid work to 200 artists, as well as sound engineers and ushers. Many of the musicians have not had a paid live performance since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We were just so grateful,” said Isaiah J. Thompson, a jazz pianist and the youngest Juilliard graduate to appear on the series.

Lady Weidenfeld, who Khuong-Huu had met through the pianist Menahem Pressler, her companion since Lord Weidenfeld’s death in 2016, helped out from England, suggesting projects and changes, and checking artist fees and the like.

Woetzel connected Alphadyne to National Sawdust because he supported independent artists. “That was the community that was hit the quickest because there weren’t any gigs,” said Woetzel.

National Sawdust had cut staff by 60 percent and cut wages, and artistic director and co-founder Paola Prestini said it was unclear how the venue could survive. But Alphadyne’s money enabled him to build a digital platform, commission work from 100 artists, commission 20 composers for $ 3,000, and conduct workshops and masterclasses. The digital engagement numbers have increased.

“It was transformative – I couldn’t believe it,” said Prestini. “It suddenly felt like the community we were trying to build just froze.”

This year, Prestini said, Alphadyne National gave Sawdust a second round of funding, again in the six-figure range, and more than the first time.

At BalletX, the Alphadyne money filled the gap in their budget and gave their dancers 20 weeks of paid work. Cox has commissioned 15 choreographers, five of whom have performed live this summer, including in June.

Two non-profit arts organizations used Alphadyne funds to partner with the Violin Channel to create a 10-episode online concert series that ran February through April. Geoffrey John Davies, the founder and executive director of the Violin Channel, said the performers were paid concert prices for four hours of work and the footage was reduced to a 40-minute show and 10-minute interview, which the artist would hold the rights.

In the end, Davies said, the show sparked millions of views. Production of a second series, also supported by Alphadyne, is slated to begin in June.

“They were just overjoyed,” he said of the artist. “I was inundated with lyrics that said, ‘Thank you, thank you.'”

Overall, Khuong-Huu said the Alphadyne Foundation granted $ 6 million to the performing arts but refused to provide any further details on how much more it had put into their fund this year. The foundation has not yet issued any public statements or press releases and still does not have a website. Khuong-Huu also said it does not accept unsolicited requests.

The foundation is still mysterious, although news of its size has spread throughout the New York art world. Anna Glass, executive director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, said the organization received $ 250,000 from Alphadyne in the fall – three weeks after submitting a two-paragraph proposal. The money helped cover two residence bladders for 16 of their dancers.

Still, said Glass, she hardly knows anything about the giver of the gift.

“Just want to say thanks, man behind the curtain,” said Glass. “Whoever you are, thank you.”

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Artwork Basel Hong Kong and Eurovision convey the worldwide arts scene again

Art Basel Hong Kong and Eurovision bring the global arts scene back

With two major cultural events last weekend, the international art scene signaled that it does not intend to have Covid cancel another year.

Held May 19-23, Art Basel Hong Kong marked the return of one of the most revered art fairs in the world. The show followed Frieze New York, which happened earlier this month and was the first major art fair in New York since the pandemic began.

After a one-year hiatus, the extremely popular Eurovision Song Contest also returned to Europe. The competition took place May 18-22 and, according to the show’s organizers, was watched by nearly 200 million viewers, including a live audience of 3,500 people.

After large gatherings around the globe were canceled for more than a year, both events mark a significant step forward on the path to normalcy after the pandemic and highlight the different methods Asia and Europe are using to achieve this goal.

Art Basel Hong Kong becomes “hybrid”

With its first show in more than a year, Art Basel returned to the world stage after canceling its three annual shows last year – Hong Kong in March, its flagship show in Basel, Switzerland in June, and Miami Beach (Florida) in December.

All three events are back this year with the first Art Basel Hong Kong, which will present a “hybrid” format that allows participants to appear virtually or in person.

Art Basel Hong Kong 2021, which was relocated from March to May, made its debut in a “hybrid” trade fair format.

Mighuel Candela | SOPA pictures | LightRocket | Getty Images

Private collectors from more than 30 countries and territories took part in “virtual tours” of the fair, which was held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. More than 100 galleries participated, with many joining through satellite booths that allowed gallery owners to interact with attendees without traveling to Hong Kong.

“After we had designed our booth plan for the fair, the gallery delivered all of the artwork to Hong Kong to be installed by the Art Basel team, as in previous years,” said Valerie Carberry, partner at Gray. Chicago, New York. “Since we couldn’t travel to Hong Kong to attend the fair ourselves, Art Basel appointed us a booth assistant who took care of the booth in our place.”

The gallery planned video meetings ahead of the show to prepare the assistant, who, according to Carberry, “was incredibly professional … we felt well represented”.

Face masks were created as new canvases at Art Basel Hong Kong 2021.

Anthony Kwan | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

The participants were also able to view their collections via online viewing rooms that Art Basel launched last year. Online rooms of the canceled exhibition in Hong Kong in 2020 showed works from more than 230 galleries and, according to Art Basel, attracted around 250,000 visitors.

“We all wanted to be there in person, of course, but the ability to share real-time information with customers at your booth was as close as ever to an in-person pandemic art fair,” said Carberry.

“We all felt a bit ‘jet lagged’ after we did not travel, but it was worth telling our Hong Kong customers how much we value their business and the support of our program.”

The Eurovision Song Contest is back

The cancellation of last year’s Eurovision Song Contest, or Eurovision for short, may have resulted in this year’s competition reaching its largest audience since 2016.

In the singing competition that began in 1956, musical acts from predominantly European countries compete against each other, with 26 reaching the grand finals. The country that produces the winning act hosts the next competition.

This year, the Italian rock group Maneskin won the main prize and made sure that the competition will take place in Italy in 2022.

Italian rock group Maneskin won Eurovision in 2021, which relied on social distancing and testing to keep participants healthy before the show.

Soeren Stache | Image Alliance | Image Alliance | Getty Images

The show was largely a face-to-face event with most of the attendees performing live from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Australian Montaigne performed over a taped shot due to their inability to travel to Europe. This was a first in the show’s 65-year history.

Participants wore masks and followed social distancing mandates. According to Eurovision, the participants were subjected to regular Covid tests and isolated in their hotel rooms unless they were exercising.

The show also limited the number of live viewers present. Still, the 3,500 people who watched in person were enough to make Eurovision one of the largest live entertainment events in Europe since the beginning of the pandemic in 2021.

The annual competition, which casts a spell over Europe but is largely unknown to American audiences, is slated to launch in the US next year on NBC. According to the Eurovision website, artists from 50 states, five US territories and Washington, DC will compete in the “American Song Contest” for the title of the best original song.

What’s coming?

With the exception of Art Dubai, which began in late March 2021, most of the major international art exhibitions that were originally supposed to take place before May have been canceled. These include Frieze Los Angeles and Dutch Tefaf Maastricht, both of which were postponed before being canceled.

The Art Basel fairs in Basel and Miami Beach are back in the books, although the Switzerland show has been postponed from June to September in order to “visit as broad an international audience as possible,” according to the fair’s website.

Another top international art fair, Frieze London, is slated to return in October.

It is expected that these fairs will be very personally attended. According to Marc Spiegler, the global director of Art Basel, the digital components of Art Basel will be retained.

“We have developed a variety of techniques and tactics for people to access a gallery’s programming digitally,” he told the New York Times. “The pandemic has enabled us to do a better job for the collectors who cannot attend.”

The next Eurovision competition is planned for May 2022. Although details have not been confirmed, online speculation about dates and locations has begun.

Hong Kong is also pushing high-profile plans that align with the city’s conservative approach to curbing Covid. In line with its nickname as the “Art Capital of Asia”, the city will host a number of art festivals and exhibitions, including the contemporary art exhibition “Ink City” and the French May Arts Fest with around 80 events across the city in June.

This year, a new visual arts museum is due to open in Hong Kong’s new “T” -shaped M + building.

PETER PARKS | AFP | Getty Images

The Hong Kong Ballet will play Romeo + Juliet next month after the show was canceled last summer.

The new M + building in Hong Kong will house one of the largest museums for contemporary visual culture in the world. The “T-shaped” museum has an area of ​​65,000 square meters, including 33 galleries, three cinemas, a research center, restaurants, a tea and coffee bar, a members’ lounge and a roof garden with a view of Victoria Harbor.

The museum is slated to open this year.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

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Performing Arts Make a Cautious Return in New York

Performing Arts Make a Cautious Return in New York

The days are getting longer. The sun is shining. The number of New Yorkers vaccinated continues to grow every day.

And now, more than a year after the coronavirus pandemic suddenly dropped the curtains on theaters and concert halls across town and blacked out Broadway and comedy clubs alike, the performing arts are starting to bounce back.

Like budding flowers awakening just in time for spring, music, dance, theater and comedy returned cautiously over the past week as the venues were allowed to reopen with limited capacity – in most cases for the first time since March 2020.

But the pandemic remains unwieldy in New York and across the country. New York City is still a coronavirus hotspot. New cases persist at around 25,000 per week. In addition to the rush for vaccination, variants remain. And at least a number of appearances have already been postponed due to positive tests.

All of this leaves art institutions struggling to strike a delicate balance between ongoing public health concerns and a desire to serve weary New Yorkers seeking a sense of normalcy.

New York Times reporters visited some of the earliest indoor performances and spoke to the seminal viewers and staff who recorded them. Here is what they saw.

March 31

25-year-old Isaac Alexander went to the Guggenheim Museum with headphones on on a drizzly Wednesday evening and danced to the beat of Byrell the Great’s “Vogue Workout Pt. 5 ”and casually fashionable as he passed residential buildings on the Upper East Side.

He was en route to helping a friend in Masterz at Work Dance Family, a performance group led by Courtney ToPanga Washington, a transfemme choreographer from the ballroom scene. When Alexander reached the museum, he was escorted into the rotunda of the Guggenheim and pointed to a place along its spiral ramp. Like other viewers, he was masked and asked to leave immediately after the show for safety reasons.

“You can take any venue, set up a stage, invite people and turn it into a ball,” said Alexander, an artist who dances in the ballroom scene himself.

The show – a fusion of street dance, ballroom, and hip-hop – was allowed in the rotunda after the state inspected it and granted the Works & Process series special arrangements to hold socially distant performances there. The nine-person cast had spent two weeks with Washington in a quarantine bubble in New York State, whose accommodation, meals and coronavirus tests were paid for during rehearsals.

With a throbbing thump in the background, the dancers moved through intricate formations, some of which waited on the outskirts while solos and duets were in the spotlight. There were bangs and locks, pirouetting, somersaults, ducks running (a quiet, hopping walk) and cat running (a stylized walk with hips open and shoulders lowered) in exact synchronicity.

Alexander looked down from his seat and cheered the dancers during the 30-minute work. He said he hadn’t seen a show since January 2020 before the pandemic shutdown. As an artist who gets ideas when he watches his colleagues, he was happy to see a live performance.

“Now that we’re opening up again, I can feel my wings coming back,” he said. “The inspiration comes back.” JULIA JACOBS

2nd of April

It was the middle of the afternoon on a Friday, an unusual time for a show, but still the opening of “Blindness” at the Daryl Roth Theater. Only about 60 people were allowed to participate. Bundled in their parkas, they stood on the sidewalk along East 15th Street and stood on green dots.

Mayor Bill de Blasio arrived and added a pompous element to the otherwise Off Broadway soundshow. The theater staff put on emerald green jackets and matching green face coverings – “Green for go!” One employee said – that hid the smile their eyes had betrayed. For about 10 minutes, the scene near Union Square felt like a cross between a political campaign event and a Hollywood premiere.

“This is a really powerful moment,” said de Blasio on the steps of Daryl Roth’s entrance. “The theater is returning to New York City. The curtain rises again and something amazing happens. “

Updated

April 5, 2021, 12:58 a.m. ET

He and producer Daryl Roth, who gave the theater its name, greeted the guests waiting to be let inside. Some thanked the mayor for helping the performing arts return. Some asked for a selfie; others exchanged wrist and elbow bumps. There were theater-goers celebrating birthdays, people eager to post on social media, and a San Francisco artistic director who’d come to do a safety research every time his playhouse reopened.

As the audience entered the theater, they put their wrists to a machine that checked their temperatures. An usher led them to their seats, which came in pods and were spread out under a labyrinth of fluorescent tubes. As soon as everyone was settled in, a welcome message rang out over the speakers. it was greeted with cheers.

The small crowd took out headphones from sealed bags hanging from their chairs and tucked them over their ears. A couple held hands. A man closed his eyes. And “Blindness”, a haunting audio adaptation of the dystopian novel by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, began.

For the next 75 minutes, viewers heard of a city ravaged by an epidemic of blindness. For a long time people were plunged into complete darkness in their seats; but towards the end of the show there was a glimmer of light.

“It was very familiar,” said Dean Leslie, 58, after the show. “One of the moments that really spoke to me is now – when I was back on the road.”

“It’s poetic,” he added. “It’s something we’ve all lived. We have now shared that. “MATT STEVENS

2nd of April

“Make Sure They Practice Social Distancing!” One guard called another as people descended into the dimly lit basement of the comedy basement.

About 50 spectators – a crowd of mostly 20 people smart enough to buy tickets online – sat at their tables for the club’s first live show in over a year.

Outside, two 23-year-olds were waiting on the sidewalk, hoping for the waiting list. They’d moved to New York City in the fall and decided to live together in the West Village because of the nearby music venues and comedy clubs that they couldn’t go to until Friday.

John Touhey, 27, who was lucky enough to get tickets to this first show, said his reason for coming was simple: “Just to feel something again.”

Downstairs in the club, the host of the show, Jon Laster, jumped onto the stage with a triumphant cry: “Comedy Cellar, how are you feeling?” Some of the spectators had taken off their masks as soon as they reached their tables; others waited for their food and drinks to arrive.

The pandemic was an inevitable theme of the night: it had dominated the lives of everyone in the room for the past year. Vices interviewed the mostly white crowd about where they had fled to during the pandemic months (Kansas City, Mo., Savannah, Ga., Atlanta). When he put each comic on stage, he unplugged the socket and allowed the cast to use their clean microphones, the spherical tops of which had disposable covers that looked like miniature shower caps.

Only a third of the room’s capacity was allowed, but the small crowd’s laughter filled the room. And the comedians talked to the audience as if they were old friends who were catching up after a year. Gary Vider joked about his new baby; Tom Thakkar recounted his drunken celebrations when President Biden won the election; Colin Quinn wondered why the subway still stank without the crowds. and Jackie Fabulous was telling stories about living with her mother for the first time in 20 years.

Halfway through her set, Fabulous paused and took a breath.

“I feel the adrenaline,” she said. “It’s finally settling down.” JULIA JACOBS

2nd of April

Towards the end of the last third of a performance with mixed ambient sound, classical cello, opera singing, pop music and much more, Kelsey Lu appeared in a pink floral costume and proclaimed: “Spring has sprung.”

The crowd of about 150 in the airy McCourt room of the shed giggled. And when Lu’s performance was over, the audience did something they hadn’t been able to do indoors for more than a year: They gave a standing ovation.

“You could feel it,” said Gil Perez, the Shed’s chief visitor experience officer. “The excitement, the fun, the energy of a live show – there’s nothing like it.”

The McCourt, the Shed’s flexible indoor and outdoor area, is cavernous in size (17,000 square feet) and has a high quality air filtration system. Participants entered through doors that led directly into the room and their temperatures were checked immediately. Digital programs were accessed on smartphones using a bar code on the arm of the seats, which were individually and in pairs, approximately 12 feet from the stage and six feet or more apart.

The staff checked in the audience with tablets. Ticket holders had to provide proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test. They flipped through their phones to bring it up. As soon as they were cleared, they entered a timed entry line: one for 7:40 p.m. and one for 10 minutes later.

“I’m an important worker,” said Roxxann Dobbs, a 37-year-old postman as she waited to be let in and had fun. “

Ian Plowman, her husband, added, “I feel on the verge of next time in New York, the next period.”

Before and after the show, people got the looks of old friends and stood in their seats to chat. One woman congratulated another on a coronavirus vaccine. One person leaned over to a friend and remarked, “This is so beautiful!”

Alex Poots, the Shed’s artistic director and general manager, said he got “quite emotional” as the evening ended and he pondered Lu’s description of a spring awakening.

“Very nice,” he said. “I missed that so much.” MATT STEVENS

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Entertainment

The American Academy of Arts and Letters Unveils Expanded Roster

The American Academy of Arts and Letters Unveils Expanded Roster

The American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honorary society of leading architects, artists, composers and writers, announced 33 new members on Friday to expand and diversify.

Among them are the painter Mark Bradford, the poet Joy Harjo, the artist Betye Saar and the composer Wynton Marsalis and the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The institution, founded in 1898, had limited its membership to 250 since 1908. Members are elected for life and do not pay any dues. In addition to 33 members, the academy announced that it will grow to 300 members by 2025. The step towards diversification comes as the arts deal with issues of race, inclusion and social justice.

“The Board is committed to creating a more inclusive membership that truly represents America and believes that expanding the Academy’s membership will allow the Academy to more easily achieve that goal,” the organization said in a statement.

Early on in its inception, the organization, which now manages more than 70 awards and prizes totaling over $ 1 million, consisted mostly of white men like Theodore Roosevelt, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, John Singer Sargent and Mark Twain. So far, new members could only be elected after the death of existing members.

“That the doors of the institution have opened to a more representative membership is a symbol of a cultural change that is long overdue,” said Harjo in an email to the New York Times.

“Every culture has helped restore, reshape and revamp this land,” she added. “Together we are a rich, dynamic field of action in every shade, tone and rhythm.”

The Academy heralds its most diverse group as institutions across the country have reckoned with racial justice, justice and inclusion over the past year. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a $ 5.3 million program last June to distribute curated book collections to prisons across the country. Later $ 250 million was pledged to reconsider the land’s monuments and memorials and incorporate the history of the marginalized people. In January, the Library of Congress also announced a Mellon-funded initiative to expand its collection and provide future librarians and archivists with multiple contacts.

Staff from other arts organizations are also voicing their problems with the gatekeepers of the high arts: a coalition of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Opera, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and other New York-based cultural institutions have issued an open letter in the social media about the “unfair treatment of black and brown people” last year, in which, among other things, the “immediate elimination of ineffective, biased administrative and curatorial leadership” is demanded.

The academy includes only American architects, artists, writers, and composers. New additions that do not belong to these categories include honorary members such as Mikhail Baryshnikov, Spike Lee, Unsuk Chin and Balkrishna Doshi.

All new members will be accepted in a virtual award ceremony on May 19th.

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Entertainment

Report: New York Metropolis’s Arts and Recreation Employment Down by 66 P.c

Report: New York City’s Arts and Recreation Employment Down by 66 Percent

From 2009 to 2019, employment in this sector – which includes the performing arts, spectator sports, gambling, entertainment, recreation, museums, parks, and historic sites in this report – increased 42 percent, faster than the 30 percent rate for the whole Employment in the private sector.

In 2019, more than 90,000 people were employed in the arts, entertainment and leisure in 6,250 institutions, according to the report. These jobs had an average salary of $ 79,300 and total wages of $ 7.4 billion. In addition to companies with employees, there are a large number of self-employed, including artists and musicians, according to the report.

In February 2020, just before the pandemic shutdown in New York City, nearly 87,000 people were employed in the arts, entertainment and recreation sectors, the report said. Many large institutions announced closings on March 12th. A national home stay ordinance came into effect on March 22nd. By April, employment in this sector was 34,100.

Budgets in arts and leisure facilities have been “decimated,” the report says, and some organizations and institutions have struggled even after they reopened. They said lower revenue due to capacity constraints, as well as decreased ticket sales, have limited income and require budget cuts.

Many performing arts venues are still closed. Most Broadway theaters don’t expect to reopen until June at the earliest, the report said. The Metropolitan Opera and the New York City Ballet announced that they will not reopen until September.