15 May 2020 - Can digital art threaten the future of live performance?
Zoom with a view: how lockdown art classes are booming online
Nadja Sayej (The Guardian, 14/05/2020)
On 30 March, Big Bang Theory star Jim Parsons posted a selfie on Instagram holding up a painting of two vases – which he made himself.
In the caption, Parsons told his followers that he created the artwork with the help of an online art class. “They’re doing live classes via zoom and, quite to my delight, I was not only able to figure out how to use zoom, but I also painted this in the process!” he wrote. “No museums are asking to display my first still life painting, but I feel just a little bit more peaceful from the process … and I got to see real life other people who were also taking the class – a real gift right now!”
Parsons is not alone. Thousands of us have been turning to Zoom, the video conferencing platform, to get a creative workout. From life drawing art classes to small-town museums, pandemic cartoons and upcycled sculptures, it seems to be the perfect answer for cooped-up creativity in our current quarantine.
The Daily Call That 200 Arts Groups Hope Will Help Them Survive
Robin Pogrebin and Michael Paulson (The New York Times, 14/05/2020)
It’s hard enough to Zoom with your mother.
Imagine being one of the more than 200 arts leaders who for the past month have been getting on the same daily Zoom call seeking comfort, counsel and connection as they try to stave off a raft of institutional failures prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
More than just a logistical feat, the phone call has become a singular measurement of how worried, desperate and vulnerable cultural organizations have become since the virus hit. And just as notable, how much they are actually acting these days like the “arts community” to which they often aspire.
More typically, the city’s cultural institutions compete for audiences, donors and attention. Museums rarely interact with performing arts groups. Manhattan cultural behemoths don’t often communicate with their scrappier counterparts in other boroughs.
Digital theater is all the rage, but could it destroy the live stage?
Charles McNulty (Los Angeles Times, 13/05/2020)
No one at this point can answer when live performance will come back. Not the medical experts. Not theater owners and producers. And not the unions that represent the creative professionals whose livelihoods are in a state of suspended animation.
Digital is the only safe stage right now. Theaters, fighting for their lives, have been creatively exploring how to connect to their audiences with media technology. Richard Nelson wrote a play for Zoom, celebrated productions from the past are streaming, online benefit play-readings are proliferating and virtual town halls have become the new theater hangout.
Kim Cattrall on 'guarding' regional theatre affected by coronavirus
(BBC News, 14/05/2020)
Kim Cattrall fondly remembers an inspirational trip to her local theatre in Liverpool, as she talks about the importance of regional theatre.
The Sex and the City actress says regional theatre may be ''lost'' as a result of closures during the coronavirus pandemic.
It comes after one such theatre, The Nuffield Theatre Southampton, went into administration.
She spoke to BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz about her fears for the stage.