Radical reinvention: That’s what Meg Booth, chief executive officer for Society for the Performing Arts, sees in this time when artists and audiences must stay separate to stay safe.
Since its founding in 1982, TITAS has been all about bringing the best of the arts to North Texas. The 2020-21 season had been planned to expand upon this mission by featuring, for the first time ever, an all-American lineup of visiting dance companies—until the coronavirus happened.
The coronavirus’ upheaval forced Ars Lyrica Houston to throw out most of its plans for this season--including its cherished project for its second fully staged opera.
Since 2014, Houston has been host to a citywide takeover. For one week in April, the city itself is activated as a site for art, creativity, social consciousness, and dialogue as the CounterCurrent festival and its artists spread throughout the inner loop to hold a series of provocative performances.
Houston-based artists Stephan Hillerbrand and Mary Magsamen, known collectively as Hillerbrand+Magsamen, address topics of family, communication, and consumerism, most recently through their ongoing body of artworks called The Devices Project.
For artists Nick Vaughan and Jake Margolin, putting up plaques and statues or writing books are still absolutely necessary, but still they see many opportunities to let queer folk “be super queer in how they honor and preserve these histories.”
Photography, as with many aspects of Western culture, comes loaded with a eurocentric canon that shapes the everyday perspective and expectations of the field.
The Houston Symphony will be one of many orchestras that mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. But how many groups will also spend part of next season celebrating women who play the violin?