tagged w/ Cutlure
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"How do you instill an appreciation for the arts in your kids, thereby enlarging their creative and critical-thinking skills while deepening their enjoyment of life?
The question has added urgency at the moment. The statewide education budget crunch has prompted many cash-strapped schools to cut back on programs in music, theater, dance, photography, and the visual arts. In February, a report by the Boston Foundation found that as students in Boston’s 143 public schools move into the higher grades, their access to arts programs of all kinds sharply diminishes.
For parents who want to pick up the slack and shoulder the role of arts advocate and educator, one place to start is exactly where Martin’s mother began: in the home. The first art to develop is the art of looking. Martin says parents should foster “a visual awareness of your surroundings’’ within their children. “Think of looking games as something to do when you’re walking. ‘How many colors can you find in this landscape? What story can we tell each other about this picture?’ ’’ she says. “Think about opportunities to engage your kids with the visual world.’’
While you’re doing that, stock an “art shelf’’ or an “art box’’ with plenty of construction paper, markers, fabric scraps, and old magazines (for cutting pictures out of). That way, when inspiration strikes your child, he or she will have the tools at hand to execute their vision.
The next step is to take them to a museum, so they can see how the pros do it. The MFA offers activity sheets for children, called “Art Connections,’’ that allow them to explore “Mythical Creatures, Powerful Figures, Flowers, Cats, or Writing.’’ Also available at the museum are art classes for kids, a visiting guide replete with “gallery games,’’ a family audio guide, and a “Family Art Cart’’ for children ages 4 and older.
Martin advises parents to build field trips with their kids around a theme. For instance, using the MFA’s self-guiding “Art Connections,’’ parents and children could follow the theme of “Writing in Art’’ from a cuneiform inscription dating to ancient Assyria to an inscribed golden bowl in the early-Greece gallery to the Egyptian funerary arts gallery.
“What you want in visiting a museum is a balance of focus and freedom,’’ says Martin. “Affirm your child’s observations. ‘Ah, so you’re noticing the brushstrokes are short and choppy. Oh, so you think the bird is about to eat the worm.’ ’’
An appetite for the performing arts can likewise be kindled at home, according to Kimberly Haack, director of student programs at the Boston Conservatory, which trains students in theater, music, and dance.
That’s how it worked for Haack: When she was a child, her mother would play the cast albums from “South Pacific’’ and “West Side Story,’’ and Haack and her twin sister would sing along and act out the scenes. “It started for me with the music,’’ she says. “Music is the one thing that sticks around through thick and thin. Instilling that in your child is hugely important.’’""How do you instill an appreciation for the arts in your kids, thereby enlarging... more
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"Harry M. Bagdasian hopes memories are long and attics full among theater folk in Washington and beyond. He's on the hunt for scripts of plays that premiered in the 1970s and '80s at the long-defunct New Playwrights' Theatre in Washington, which, as a determined 23-year-old, he co-founded.
He remembers thinking, " 'Wow. No one's doing new plays in Washington, the capital of our country. Why don't we have a theater here working with American playwrights?' We only had about two cents, but we started anyway."
New Playwrights' presented new work on a shoestring from 1972 to 1988, for most of that time in what is now the Church Street Theater. Bagdasian left the company in 1984 "kind of burned out," he says. On his Web site (http://www.hbagdasian.com) he writes, "I left NPT in the incapable hands of a Board of Trustees that eventually let the place go bankrupt."
Some of the scripts he's seeking are: "And They Dance Real Slow in Jackson" by James Leonard Jr.; "Rats," a musical spoof of "Cats," by Tim Grundmann; "Canticle" by Michael Champagne and William Penn, based on Dante's "Inferno"; and a 45-minute musical "Hamlet!," which featured a very young J. Fred Shiffman, now a busy Washington actor.
Perusal of Bagdasian's Web site shows youthful shots of such soon-to-be Washington theater luminaries as Molly Smith, artistic director of Arena Stage, and Fred Strother, another busy actor. Stage and film actress Marcia Gay Harden worked there, as did Yeardley Smith, the voice of Lisa Simpson, and James C. Nicola, artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop. (Lloyd Rose, who was chief drama critic at The Washington Post, was New Playwrights' dramaturge.) A play by Washington-based writer Ernest Joselovitz, "Hagar's Children," was picked up by the Public Theater's Joe Papp and produced off-Broadway in 1977.
Aside from nostalgia, Bagdasian has other reasons to create a formal archive of his New Playwrights' treasures. "Being the eternal optimist, I would like to see some of this material rediscovered and revisited by this new generation of producers and artistic directors, because there's a lot of fun material. There's a lot of engaging drama that did not get published and is worth rediscovery," he says.""Harry M. Bagdasian hopes memories are long and attics full among theater folk in... more
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"An invasion led by artificially intelligent machines. Conscious computers. A smartphone virus so smart that it can start mimicking you. You might think that such scenarios are laughably futuristic, but some of the world's leading artificial intelligence (AI) researchers are concerned enough about the potential impact of advances in AI that they have been discussing the risks over the past year. Now they have revealed their conclusions.
Until now, research in artificial intelligence has been mainly occupied by myriad basic challenges that have turned out to be very complex, such as teaching machines to distinguish between everyday objects. Human-level artificial intelligence or self-evolving machines were seen as long-term, abstract goals not yet ready for serious consideration.
Now, for the first time, a panel of 25 AI scientists, roboticists, and ethical and legal scholars has been convened to address these issues, under the auspices of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) in Menlo Park, California. It looked at the feasibility and ramifications of seemingly far-fetched ideas, such as the possibility of the internet becoming self-aware.
The panel drew inspiration from the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA in California, in which over 140 biologists, physicians, and lawyers considered the possibilities and dangers of the then emerging technology for creating DNA sequences that did not exist in nature. Delegates at that conference foresaw that genetic engineering would become widespread, even though practical applications – such as growing genetically modified crops – had not yet been developed.
Unlike recombinant DNA in 1975, however, AI is already out in the world. Robots like Roombas and Scoobas help with the mundane chores of vacuuming and mopping, while decision-making devices are assisting in complex, sometimes life-and-death situations. For example, Poseidon Technologies, sells AI systems that help lifeguards identify when a person is drowning in a swimming pool, and Microsoft's Clearflow system helps drivers pick the best route by analysing traffic behaviour.
At the moment such systems only advise or assist humans, but the AAAI panel warns that the day is not far off when machines could have far greater ability to make and execute decisions on their own, albeit within a narrow range of expertise. As such AI systems become more commonplace, what breakthroughs can we reasonably expect, and what effects will they have on society? What's more, what precautions should we be taking?""An invasion led by artificially intelligent machines. Conscious computers. A... more
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In a city still shaken from the attacks on September 11, 2001, Arab Muslims find themselves in a cosntant struggle of identity, security, and acceptance. However, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn has served as a hub for the immigrant population and gives them a local place that reminds them of the home countryIn a city still shaken from the attacks on September 11, 2001, Arab Muslims find... more
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