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      The Vitality of Black Criticism

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      Before his death, Greg Tate spoke with four other critics at the Pop Conference about the need for Black writers to face down racist institutions and take the lead in cultural conversations.Last month, popular music lost one of its greatest philosophers and storytellers: The critic, scholar, teacher, musician and New York City grass-roots cultural icon Greg Tate, a towering intellect and a modern-day griot, died at 64. His singular critical prose — in The Village Voice and Vibe, among other outlets, and collected in two anthologies — seamlessly fused dense, dazzling vernacular wisdom and street corner wit with equally intricate ivory tower analytic discourse.When I set out to organize the “dream team” lineup for a round-table session titled “Black Critics Matter” for the 2021 Pop Conference — an annual gathering of journalists, academics, musicians and other creatives — Tate was the first person I contacted. In his 40-year career as a working critic, he revolutionized the form and content of music journalism by centering Blackness as both the analytic framework to engage and experience popular music as well as the language to tell the story of the music itself in living color.Our April session included three other pioneering writers: the critic, poet, novelist, playwright, librettist and scholar Thulani Davis; the New York Times critic-at-large Wesley Morris; and the veteran music journalist Danyel Smith, the host of the “Black Girl Songbook” podcast and author of the forthcoming “Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop.” Below are edited excerpts from the hour-plus panel. (The full conversation is available here.)The conversation was wide-roving: at turns, intimate and candid, funny and incisive, moving and brutally honest, and consistently reflective and mindful of the under-acknowledged import of Black critical voices and the role that they play in challenging the racism at the foundations of cultural institutions, and the taste-making power those institutions continue to wield.We started by affirming simple truths: that Black critics have been setting the record straight and engaging Black citizenry “in the making of its own story,” as Elizabeth Méndez Berry and Chi-hui Yang wrote in 2019, across the centuries, from Frederick Douglass’s sharp observations about blackface minstrelsy to the barrier-breaking journalism of theater and music columnists like Pauline Hopkins, Sylvester Russell and Lester Walton in the late 19th and early 20th century. The long Harlem Renaissance gave us figures like Nora Holt, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. And Amiri Baraka and Phyl Garland wed Black nationalist desire with fierce, experimental music criticism in the Black Arts era.Their work helped lead an intellectual revolution in writing and thinking about the importance of Black sound, but also more broadly showcased the meaning of being an informed, opinionated and passionate listener dedicated to inviting readers into felt and meaningful conversations about the culture that matters to them. Greg Tate carried that tradition forward with a combination of potent love for Black peoples and a swagger fueled by that same deep and unbridled affection. In April, when the annual PopCon holds its 20th anniversary gathering in Brooklyn, it’ll be a second-line lovefest for one of its greatest voices.DAPHNE A. BROOKS Many of us have been thinking for some time about the absolutely crucial role that critics of color, that women critics, that L.G.B.T.Q. critics can and have played in shifting and opening up and challenging the kinds of conversations, the value systems, taste-making, and gatekeeping rituals and processes that have long dominated mainstream popular music criticism. If 2020 reminded us of anything, it’s that the struggle for African American autonomy in the American body politic is a multifaceted one tied to necessary and interlocking social, political as well as cultural revolutions in valuing Black life. Culture critics, we know, play a pivotal role in identifying and narrating the dimensions of that value. But in the history of popular music culture across the 20th and 21st centuries, how often have we extensively imagined Black folks as critics, as knowledge producers in relation to their own expressive cultures?GREG TATE I discovered that music critics existed because I was doing research for a comic book I wanted to write back in the early ’70s. I went to the library and got all the books about music that I could find, one of which was Amiri Baraka’s “Black Music.” And after that, I exchanged comic book superheroes for great Black music superheroes, because the way Baraka wrote about Sun Ra, Archie Shepp and Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane and Cecil Taylor elevated them to the level of superheroes to me.The way he was able to bring his poetics into writing about music and left these indelible lines — these things, they’ve formed my own critical perspective, my own critical understanding of the way in which the opportunity to talk about the music is of course the opportunity to bring our whole lives to who we are. And it’s also the reason that most of us who were writing in the ’80s and ’90s really became, or were, multidisciplinary artists. We never thought that criticism was the be all and end all of what we had to offer.Between I’d say 1977 and 2000, there was a community of Black writers in New York: The Voice first, but then The Source and then Vibe. So all of us come into the game thinking of Black criticism is something we do as a gang. And because you had the near instant gratification of response from the community, you knew what you were writing was having impact. With The Voice, if it came out on Wednesday, you knew by Saturday what people were thinking of it.WESLEY MORRIS At some point I figured out that there were definitely some gaps in terms of who was speaking and who was writing about what. I would spend hours on end watching BET, VH1 and MTV, and you start to see that there are people being put in boxes by these programmers. I mean Joan Armatrading? She was never on MTV. I could see that there were things that needed to be addressed, or redressed, in terms of who was being acknowledged, whose existences were being acknowledged. There are Black women who’ve made music that changed my life that have never received a review in any magazines. The thoroughest description I got was Vibe, when it showed up. Because I had been waiting for that. I had been waiting for people to acknowledge that there was some merit to this music.I’ve noticed in the last 10 years, say, but it’s probably even older than that, that there is a real reluctance to seriously engage with the work and the craft of the work and what pop music is doing, what it sounds like. I don’t know if that’s a fear of getting it wrong. I don’t know if that’s a fear of what Twitter might do to you if you do get it wrong. This is related to a question of ethics, which is what is falling in that lacuna between greatness and crap that only criticism can both explicate and reify in some way. To me, it feels like a crisis that nobody’s really acknowledging, but I think that’s because there still aren’t enough Black people to pick that work up and do something.DANYEL SMITH Listen, it’s the criticism that’s missing in action without question. I am consistently, constantly in a mild panic about the music that has been created over the last 15 to 20 years that has not been listened to like it’s real music. I am concerned about artists like Cardi B and Drake, who are literally the biggest stars in the entire world, and their music is not talked about with a lot of seriousness. Comparing it to what happened in the past, comparing it to what could happen in the future, the context of when it came out to when it didn’t. Again, as an editor, I say, what about the knowing, deeply reported stories and the profiles that are not being written? The columns?It has to do, I think with there being a generation of Black writers who have not really ever worked with Black editors. And I think, flawed as we were, at Vibe, XXL, The Source, Essence — there were hip-hop magazines all over — there has not been enough of “I’m a Black editor that knows a lot; and I’m a Black writer that wants to know more.” I don’t know where they’re happening. Not nearly enough, anyway.TATE Well, I’ll first say, and this is in response to Wesley: Internet killed the Black music journalist star or the Black music star publication. But that was a different world we existed in just in terms of the power that labels had, right? If you wanted your music, you had to get it in a CD form from a major label. So the work we did as independent writers, and as “Blacketty-Black” as we were in the writing, it was very much tied to the commercial life of those publications: the ads The Voice got, Vibe got, Source got from labels. So on just a base level, what we were doing was glorified consumer reporting. That’s why those voices mattered, but what also happened around 2000 and in the arts was that the published pool of writers on hip-hop shifted more from Black to white. Why? Most of our colleagues by that time had just moved out of doing music journalism at all. People grew up, they had marriages, they had kids, kids needed to be fed and properly clothed and sent to the right school. And hip-hop at that point blew up in the suburbs in a major way. But the thing was that notion of Black writing being essential to one’s understanding of the culture, where the culture was no longer the culture as we’d known it in ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.BROOKS: But let’s be real, right. We know historically that jazz and blues criticism has been the domain of white men.TATE Yeah and certainly, that’s the radical transformation that hip-hop criticism offers. It was the first time in the history of the music that Black writers were writing about it authoritatively as it was being created.THULANI DAVIS But I want to say there, you all are talking out of a wealth of information …. This is the moment to teach young people that they’re in a continuum, because I don’t know that they’re aware of that. The one thing about the ’60s and the ’70s was everybody got some education about what happened before them and what the continuum was like. This is a particularly good time to ask, “What is it that the critic needs to know?” Because any critic of anything needs to know something more than the last 25 years of their lives. They need to know everything you all have been talking about.I think also there’s this idea that everybody has a platform, everybody can be a platform …. I do think people have to think about working together, because one of the things about the culture right now, it’s one star at a time. The collective conversation would be useful. We need to keep asking how do we push awareness, taste, interesting writing styles? How do we push forward? I think it can’t be one at a time. I don’t think that’ll work in the way that information is disseminated now.TATE I just want to paraphrase Baldwin: “Ours is a story that must be told again and again and again, because the erasure goes on as the culture is emerging.” You can’t reboot the institutional access that we had in that particular moment because of how incendiary the culture was in that period. People were coming up with new paradigms for what hip-hop or rap was every week, it changed. There was just an understanding that there needed to be writers who were on the ground, who got it, who lived it, embodied it at a certain level.We haven’t even tracked the kind of self-making, cultural transformation of the landscape that got affected by all this writing, by these gangs of folks being at these institutions at that particular time. The conversation about hip-hop that is still sustained is the one that we created in the ’80s and ’90s. And it extended, of course, to what was happening in Black academia, what was happening in Black film.BROOKS So it means that at the point in which we’re writing about popular music, for instance, we’re asking questions that start with, “What are the conditions that created this music in the first place?” We need to start at that level. We need to start at 1619 before we can actually get to the place of critics being able to dissect and write really beautifully about the richness, the depth, the urgency and complexity of what our music is, why we made it, what it means to us. It’s a 400-year story. More

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      in Movies

      The Artists We Lost in 2021, in Their Words

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      This year, as pandemic deaths ebbed and flowed, a distinctive, eternal beat — that of artist’s deaths — played on as usual, bringing its own waves of collective grief. Some, such as Cicely Tyson and Stephen Sondheim, held the spotlight for generations. Others, like Michael K. Williams and Nai-Ni Chen, left us lamenting careers cut short. Here is a tribute to just a small number of them, in their own words.Cicely TysonAssociated Press“I’m not scared of death. I don’t know what it is. How could I be afraid of something I don’t know anything about?”— Cicely Tyson, actress, born 1924 (Read the obituary.)Melvin Van PeeblesMichael Ochs Archives/Getty Images“I want people to be empowered and also have a damn good time.”— Melvin Van Peebles, filmmaker, born 1932 (Read the obituary.)“I want my steps to speak.”— Liam Scarlett, choreographer, born 1986 (Read the obituary.)“I remember my childhood often, I remember a lot of the past. But when it comes to music, I always look forward.”— Nelson Freire, pianist, born 1944 (Read the obituary.)Bob AvianKarsten Moran for The New York Times“When my parents went out, I would push back the furniture, clear an open space, turn on the record player and leap around the apartment.”— Bob Avian, choreographer, born 1937 (Read the obituary.)“School was a crashing bore and a terrible chore, until one day when I was cast as the girl with the mandolin in ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”— Carla Fracci, dancer, born 1936 (Read the obituary.)“As I grew up in Kyoto, the wood of the Buddhist statues, trees, the grain of the wooden pillars, the patterns on the floor, the stones in the gardens, the bamboo, trees and plants in Kyoto are all a part of me — and as I read a script, I borrow from all these things.”— Emi Wada, costume designer, born 1937“I still feel sky-deprived when in the forested places. Many, many people born to the skies of the plains feel that way.”— Larry McMurtry, novelist, born 1936 (Read the obituary.)Ed AsnerWally Fong/Associated Press“My father told me, ‘You didn’t make a success as a student, you’re not going to make a success as an actor.’ I said, ‘I’ll be the judge of that.’”— Ed Asner, actor, born 1929 (Read the obituary.)Olympia DukakisAbramorama“I came to New York with $57 in my pocket.”— Olympia Dukakis, actress, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)Charlie WattsEvening Standard/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images“When I first went to New York with the Stones, the first thing I did was to go to Birdland. And that was it. I’d seen America. I mean, I didn’t want to see anywhere else.”— Charlie Watts, drummer, born 1941 (Read the obituary.)Jacques D’AmboiseJohn Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images“Spread me in Times Square or the Belasco Theater.”— Jacques D’Amboise, dancer, born 1934 (Read the obituary.)“If you have a leading character, they should be in a hurry. You can slow it down when you’re shooting, but it helps in the writing: Even if they’re not moving, they’re thinking about moving on, or getting away from the scene they’re in.”— Robert Downey Sr., filmmaker, born 1936 (Read the obituary.)Joe AllenJim Cooper/Associated Press“I always said I lacked ambition — but that does not mean I was lazy.”— Joe Allen, theater district restaurateur, born 1933 (Read the obituary.)“I don’t assume an audience’s interest. I assume the opposite.”— Charles Grodin, actor, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)Jerry PinkneyJoyce Dopkeen/The New York Times“I solve problems — visual problems.”— Jerry Pinkney, children’s book illustrator, born 1939 (Read the obituary.)Larry KingAlberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images‘‘If you’re combative, you never learn.”— Larry King, TV host, born 1933 (Read the obituary.)Anna HalprinSam Falk/The New York Times“I started to teach people how the body actually works. I looked at the skeleton. I did human dissection. I did all these things to understand the nature of movement, not just my movement.”— Anna Halprin, choreographer, born 1920 (Read the obituary.)“I’m not interested in the intentions of artists; I’m interested in consequences.”— Dave Hickey, art critic, born 1938 (Read the obituary.)Nai-Ni ChenStephanie Berger for The New York Times“My thirst for expressing myself, both East and West, could only happen through creating my own company.”— Nai-Ni Chen, choreographer and dancer, born 1959 (Read the obituary.)Virgil AblohDavid Kasnic for The New York Times“When I studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, it was the humanities classes that I had put to the side that ultimately started me on this path of thinking about creativity in a much more cultural context — not designing for design’s sake, but connecting design to the rhythm of what’s happening in the world.”— Virgil Abloh, designer, born 1980 (Read the obituary.)Yolanda LópezAlexa Treviño“Those of us who make images must always be very conscious about the power of images — about how they function — especially in a society where we are not taught our own history.”— Yolanda López, artist, born 1942 (Read the obituary.)“You’re more anarchic onstage than you are anywhere else.”— Helen McCrory, actress, born 1968 (Read the obituary.)Michael K. WilliamsDemetrius Freeman for The New York Times“The characters that mean the most to me are the ones that damn near kill me. It’s a sacrifice I’ve chosen to make.”— Michael K. Williams, actor, born 1966 (Read the obituary.)bell hooksKarjean Levine/Getty Images“We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humor.”— bell hooks, writer and scholar, born 1952 (Read the obituary.)Norm MacdonaldMargaret Norton/NBC, via Getty Images“Making people laugh is a gift. Preaching to them is not a gift. There are people who can do that better. Preachers.”— Norm Macdonald, comedian, born 1959 (Read the obituary.)“The thing that everybody thinks is going to work will not. The thing that nobody thinks will work will.”— Elizabeth McCann, theater producer, born 1931 (Read the obituary.)“The success of my books is not in the characters or the words or the colors, but in the simple, simple feelings.”— Eric Carle, author and artist, born 1929 (Read the obituary.)“I think children want to read about normal, everyday kids.”— Beverly Cleary, author, born 1916 (Read the obituary.)Young DolphPaul R. Giunta/Invision, via Associated Press“My whole thing is about giving these folks the real.”— Young Dolph, rapper, born 1985 (Read the obituary.)“I try to use words that fit a pattern, that are musical and expressive, but do not sound mechanical. Above all it should have a speech rhythm that is like the rhythms that the audience would speak.”— Carlisle Floyd, composer, born 1926 (Read the obituary.)“Birds were the first composers. They like to sing in spring. Purely serving of the beauty — that’s what we try to do.”— Louis Andriessen, composer, born 1939 (Read the obituary.)Cloris LeachmanAssociated Press“I don’t have a lot of trappings, I think, in my personality. I’m just a simple person, with a silly bone.”— Cloris Leachman, actress, born 1926 (Read the obituary.)“I’m a witness of my time, you know, of a history.”— Hung Liu, artist, born 1948 (Read the obituary.)“Technology is changing the way people work. With electronic mail, the internet, teleconferencing, people are starting to ask, ‘What is a headquarters or office environment?’”— Art Gensler, architect, born 1935 (Read the obituary.)Christopher PlummerTom Jamieson for The New York Times“I’ve made over 100 motion pictures, and some of them were even good. It’s nice to be reborn every few decades.”— Christopher Plummer, actor, born 1929 (Read the obituary.)“After you see your work, you always want to go right back and do it all over again.”— Lisa Banes, actress, born 1955 (Read the obituary.)“I think of the art as dead when it leaves my studio. I don’t even own it anymore. Installing in a museum or a show that’s coming up, I’m not allowed to touch my own work ever. It just seems strange to me. If somebody puts me in front of my drawings, I’d put more text in it. It’s never finished, but none of my work is ever finished.”— Kaari Upson, artist, born 1970 (Read the obituary.)SophieFrazer Harrison/Getty Images For Coachella“I don’t have the need to bring any more clutter into the physical world. And I like the fact that musical data is weightless and spaceless in that way.”— Sophie, pop producer and performer, born 1986 (Read the obituary.)Etel AdnanFabrice Gibert, via Galerie Lelong & Co.“My paintings are not usually titled. Art should make people dream, and when you have a title, you condition the vision.”— Etel Adnan, author and artist, born 1925 (Read the obituary.)Michael NesmithMichael Ochs Archives/Getty Images“We’re a couple of old men, but we sound the same when we play this music — and it nourishes us the way it nourishes you.”— Michael Nesmith, musician, born 1942 (Read the obituary.)“We always put music first and marriage second. One night after dinner, for instance, I was going to do the dishes and Jerry said, ‘Forget the dishes. Let’s practice. I’ll do the dishes later.’”— Dottie Dodgion, drummer, born 1929 (Read the obituary.)Jessica WalterDove and Express, via Hulton Archive/Getty Images“Even my ‘leading ladies’— you know, in air quotes — were characters. They were not Miss Vanilla Ice Cream. They weren’t holding the horse while John Wayne galloped into the sunset.”— Jessica Walter, actress, born 1941 (Read the obituary.)“The last note, the high last note — it must say something.”— Edita Gruberova, soprano, born 1946 (Read the obituary.)DMXChad Batka for The New York Times“I’m going to look back on my life, just before I go, and thank god for every moment.”— DMX, rapper, born 1970 (Read the obituary.)Stephen SondheimFred R. Conrad/The New York Times“Life is unpredictable. It is. There is no form. And making forms gives you solidity. I think that’s why people paint paintings and take photographs and write music and tell stories that have beginning, middles and ends — even when the middle is at the beginning and the beginning is at the end.”— Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist, born 1930 (Read the obituary.) More

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      N.Y.C. Arts Organizations Awarded $51.4 Million Dollars in Grants

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      The Department of Cultural Affairs is awarding $51.4 million in grants to more than 1,000 nonprofit arts and cultural groups that are seeking to rebound from the pandemic.As New York City’s arts and culture sector seeks to rebound from the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic, the Department of Cultural Affairs announced on Thursday that it would award $51.4 million in grants to more than 1,000 nonprofit arts organizations.The grants, for the 2022 fiscal year, represent the largest-ever allocation for what is known as the Cultural Development Fund. Some of the grants will broadly increase funding for organizations that need a financial shot in the arm; other grants will offer more targeted support of disability arts, language access, arts education and more.Officials also said that a chunk of the money — about $5.1 million — is being sent to more than 650 groups working in underserved communities that were hard hit by the pandemic.“This improved funding will encourage artists, creators and producers across the city to continue to express their insights and stories on their own terms,” Vicki Been, the deputy mayor for housing and economic development, said in a statement.A survey of the effects of the coronavirus commissioned by the Department of Cultural Affairs in the spring of 2020 found that overall, about one in 10 arts organizations thought they would not survive the pandemic. Smaller organizations in particular were some of the hardest hit, according to the survey.Some of the grants, of less than $10,000, have been awarded to small theater companies, choirs and museums. And to further help ensure that modestly sized groups and even individual artists receive a share of the funding, almost $3 million will be given to five local arts councils serving each borough. Those councils, in turn, will distribute the money to local constituents, city officials said.But large organizations will also benefit. Some of the city’s most recognizable arts institutions like the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the 92nd Street Y are among the organizations that will receive some of the largest grants, in excess of $100,000 each.The grants — $45.5 million in mayoral funds and $5.9 million in City Council member items — are part of what officials said was a roughly $230 million annual budget for the Department of Cultural Affairs.“Culture is essential to healthy, vibrant neighborhoods, and there is no recovery for New York City without our cultural community,” Gonzalo Casals, the city’s cultural affairs commissioner, said.Sarah Bahr More

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      Interest in Stephen Sondheim's Music, Books and Shows Soar After His Death

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      Fans have been streaming his music, buying his books, and trying to get in to see his shows, with a new revival of “Company” opening this week on Broadway.Streams of Stephen Sondheim’s music are up more than 500 percent. New York’s Drama Book Shop sold out the first volume of his collected lyrics. And close to 5,000 people have been entering a lottery to win tickets to weekend performances for a sold-out run of “Assassins.”In the days since the unexpected death of one of the most important writers in the history of musical theater, interest in his work has surged.“There’s even greater demand to see the work of Sondheim, and we’ve been feeling the benefit,” said Chris Harper, a lead producer of the revival of “Company,” one of Sondheim’s most acclaimed musicals, which opens on Broadway on Thursday. “What has also been pretty extraordinary to watch is that audiences are listening much more intently, and it feels like a much richer and deeper experience.”Sondheim died, unexpectedly, on Nov. 26, at the age of 91; the cause of death was cardiovascular disease, according to his death certificate. Broadway theaters decided to dim their lights Wednesday night for one minute in his honor.Sondheim’s popularity had its peaks and valleys during his lifetime, and many of his shows were not commercially successful. But much of his work is now frequently performed, and his importance to the art form is undisputed; on Sunday he was hailed by President Biden, who said, “Stephen was in a class of his own as a composer and a lyricist.”The evidence of a spike in appetite for work by Sondheim is everywhere.Look, for example, to the Off Broadway revival of “Assassins,” directed by John Doyle and now running at the Classic Stage Company in Lower Manhattan. The production was fully sold out before Sondheim’s death, but now the number of people regularly entering a digital lottery hoping to score $15 tickets is ballooning. And the roughly 5,000 people seeking tickets to weekend shows face long odds: the theater seats just 196 people..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“We’re definitely seeing an uptick in interest since his passing,” said Phil Haas, the nonprofit’s director of marketing and communications. “It’s hard to judge the exact amount, because the show is sold out and has been sold out for some time, but we have seen increased numbers of people joining our lottery, more people waiting on the cancellation line, and people waiting for longer.”Then there is the Drama Book Shop, a specialty store in Midtown that stocks scripts and other theater-related publications. Needless to say, Sondheim was always popular there, but now, even more so.“We almost immediately sold out, and had to reorder, ‘Finishing the Hat,’” said Pete Milano, who oversees the store’s operations, referring to the first volume of Sondheim’s collected lyrics. After Sondheim’s death, the store assembled much of its Sondheim material for a display near the entrance, and now the second volume of Sondheim’s lyrics, “Look, I Made a Hat,” is selling strongly, as are the texts for the musicals he co-authored..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“It’s not just one, but across the board, which was nice to see,” Milano said. “Plus, a lot of people are talking about him when they come in.”Online, streams of Sondheim’s music soared 523 percent in the U.S. during the week after his death, according to MRC Data, a tracking service that powers the Billboard charts.Sondheim was cheered last month when he attended the first preview of the new revival of “Company,” which opens Thursday.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesAt the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, a new display of Sondheim memorabilia — letters he wrote to prominent artists as well as set models and sketches from some of his shows — was mounted in response to his death. And on Instagram, a new account called @sondheimletters has sprung up to collect and display letters Sondheim wrote to fans as well as collaborators.The “Company” opening, for a re-gendered production directed by Marianne Elliott that stars Katrina Lenk and Patti LuPone, is proving to be a hot ticket — among those expected to attend are Meryl Streep and Lin-Manuel Miranda.And there are other productions of Sondheim shows in the works. The Encores! program at New York City Center had already announced it was planning a two-week run of “Into the Woods” next May, with public school students and older adults joining Sara Bareilles, Christian Borle, Heather Hedley and Ashley Park in the cast; last week Encores! announced that the production will now be dedicated to Sondheim, who wrote the music and lyrics. “I’ve been hearing from some of the performers that are in it, who are weeping as they relisten to his music and prepare for their roles,” said the Encores! artistic director, Lear deBessonet, who is directing the “Into the Woods” production. “This is a moment of grace, to celebrate Steve and all he brought to this world.”MasterVoices, a New York based chorus, is planning a concert version of the rarely staged “Anyone Can Whistle” in March at Carnegie Hall, starring Vanessa Williams. Barrington Stage Company, in the Berkshires, announced Tuesday that it would produce “A Little Night Music” next summer, directed by Julianne Boyd in her final season as that theater’s artistic director.And New York Theater Workshop, an Off Broadway nonprofit, is close to confirming plans for a production of “Merrily We Roll Along,” directed by Maria Friedman, for late next year.Plus, of course, the Steven Spielberg-directed movie remake of “West Side Story,” which Sondheim wrote the lyrics for, is already generating awards buzz in advance of its release on Friday. (“I think it’s just great,” Sondheim said of the film in an interview a few days before he died. He added, “The great thing about it is people who think they know the musical are going to have surprises.”)A film version of “Follies” is also in the works; the script is “in active development,” according to a spokesman for the production company, Heyday Films.Ben Sisario More

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      in Television

      Meg Stalter Rejoices With Dolly Parton and a Loyal Chihuahua

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      The comedian talks about banishing the worst of 2021 in Amazon’s “Yearly Departed,” while celebrating the best in real life.Meg Stalter is famously her own biggest fan — if not you, then who? — but even she has been a little awed by her recent success.Her live comedy shows sell out in minutes. She stole scenes in her first acting gig as an ebulliently inept assistant to a talent agent on HBO Max’s “Hacks.”Now she is laying the worst of 2021 to rest. On Dec. 23 she’ll bid farewell to “hot vaxx summer” in a flirty-girl get-up, in the second edition of the Amazon annual special “Yearly Departed.”The hyperchatty Stalter was star-struck by a lineup of fellow comics that included Yvonne Orji, Chelsea Peretti and Dulcé Sloan. Then Jane Fonda walked onto the set to shoot her segment.“No one could talk,” she said. “We were all drooling and I think she thought we were weird because at first we couldn’t speak. And she was like, ‘Is everything OK?’”In a word, very.But after paying her dues in comedy for eight years, Stalter sees her ascent during the pandemic as bittersweet.“Everything is starting to happen now and it’s really strange to be so worried about other people — we’ve experienced so much devastation — and also to stop and be like, ‘How lucky am I to be living my dream right now?’” she said. “I guess that’s what life is. You have to just embrace the good parts, even when it’s scary and hard.”Calling from London, where she was making her British stand-up debut at the Soho Theater, Stalter did an impromptu riff on her own Top 10 of 2021, from Dolly Parton’s inclusiveness to the joy of private karaoke rooms. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Dolly PartonI’ve listened to her every year, but especially this last year. She is the best celebrity because she feels, to me at least, that she just supports everyone. She’s the true meaning of a Christian because she loves God, and then she loves people, and she accepts everyone for who they are — which is what we should have all learned this year, just to love each other and take care of each other.I’m somebody who grew up in church and doesn’t go now. I’m this bisexual person who still believes in God. Dolly doesn’t have any judgment on anyone else’s life, but still keeps some of the beliefs that she grew up with.2. The “Free Britney” MovementMy friends and I are so happy for her. Everyone always knew that she didn’t have control over her life, so it was really powerful and exciting to see her now get control. We’re celebrating — and it’s her birthday today! I bet she’s somewhere strange with her boyfriend, like dancing on a boat.3. TakeoutI’d love to cook more, but I am addicted to ordering takeout or Grubhub or Postmates. In London, I haven’t been able to figure out their ordering food apps. It’s like moving to a different planet.4. Instagram LiveWhen the pandemic started, I did a bunch. Every night I would do a different crazy-themed one. I’d be like, “OK, we’re going to Paris tonight.” And then I’d decorate my apartment with stuff that I could find that made it look like Paris. It was a way for me to connect to other people. I was in New York alone, really scared, and I felt like the only thing keeping me sane was doing that at night.5. High-Waisted JeansThere’s something really classic about wearing a good pair of high-waisted jeans. I like a plain shirt and jeans during the day, and then wearing this beautiful gown at night for a show. That’s really appealing to me. I think both are a little bit of structure that we didn’t have during quarantine, because we were wearing sweatpants.6. Time With FamilyMy family is truly everything to me. When would we ever have spent this much time in the same house as when we quarantined together? It was really lifesaving to be laughing in the same house again.7. “The Office”It’s one of my comfort shows. I watched it a lot this year. It still holds up. The dinner party episode is my favorite. The boss invites people to come to dinner at his house and he’s being very passive-aggressive with his girlfriend. Either people think it’s the funniest episode of TV or they’re like, “I can’t even watch it.” It’s kind of my sense of humor.8. Dining in Restaurants AgainSomething I really was missing in quarantine was the feeling of being at a table with all of your friends and everyone’s laughing and you don’t even remember why and everyone’s talking over each other. It’s exciting that we are experiencing that again slowly. Every hangout feels precious and thrilling.9. Private Karaoke RoomsLast night I did a private karaoke room with a couple of friends, and we had the best time. It felt safe. We just sang for hours. It makes sense for it to be more popular now than it was. My friend was on a trip and he did a solo karaoke room. I don’t know if I would like that or not. I like to be in front of an audience, even if it’s three friends.10. Quarantine AnimalsI feel like everyone should have a pet now. I think it’s lifesaving. I have a Chihuahua who’s 15 years old. She was a family dog, but she came to live with me during quarantine and I am attached to her. Animals are so empathetic and they can tell when you’re sad and they just really calm you down. I’m afraid of when she passes because she’s so old. My sister is begging me to get another animal, but I feel like my dog doesn’t want me to get another dog. She likes to be alone with me. More

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      in Movies

      10 Works of Art That Evaded the Algorithm This Year

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      Contemplation, not clicks: Our critic looks back on marble sculptures in Rome, songs of “atmospheric anxiety” and the Frick Collection in a new light.From left: A performer in “Catasterism in Three Movements”; one of the Torlonia Marbles; a detail from the refurbished Hôtel de la Marine in Paris. Schaulager, Laurenz Foundation, Tom Bisig, Basel; Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times; James Hill for The New York TimesThe coronavirus pandemic is a health crisis with so many cultural sequelae: above all, the absorption of all facets of our lives deeper into networks and phone screens. Even more than last year, I’ve been drawn to art, music and movies that, in one way or another, evade the workings of likes and shares — and carve out a place for human creativity in a world too governed by algorithmic logic.‘Cézanne Drawing’The apple of my eye. The Museum of Modern Art’s meticulous, almost overwhelming summer exhibition distilled modernism’s father figure to his essence, revealing the day-by-day, stroke-by-stroke scrutiny needed to make a piece of fruit as weighty as the Holy Family. Those bottom-heavy pears, those clumpy bathers. Those short daubs of green and blue in his views of Mont-Sainte-Victoire. Those Provençal rock formations — rocks of air and watercolor, Cézanne as geologist! What these hundreds of sheets reconfirmed, right on time, was that your art will never change another person’s life if it merely shows what you think. You need the distinction, the seriousness, that can only come from form. (Read our review of “Cézanne Drawing.”)“Bathers,” an 1890 pencil and watercolor work by Paul Cézanne, was featured in a Museum of Modern Art show.Metropolitan Museum of ArtRyusuke HamaguchiI’d call the 42-year-old Japanese film director the most exciting in years if he weren’t so … calm. “Drive My Car,” Hamaguchi’s unfailingly precise tale of a widowed actor sublimating his grief through his chauffeur and Chekhov, has virtues one fears have gone missing from cinema: long takes, guillotine-crisp editing, an unhurried faith in the importance of images. Like Jacques Rivette and Mike Leigh before him, Hamaguchi contrasts his unobtrusive camerawork with the conventions of theater — in this case, a multilingual “Uncle Vanya” production that builds to a silent, heart-stopping finale, when the troupe’s Sonya sighs “We shall rest!” in Korean sign language. Add to that “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy,” Hamaguchi’s three-part fugue of love and intuition also released this year, and you have the emergence of a stunning talent who finds the romance in rigor. (Read our review of “Drive My Car.”)Barney & FriendsTwo decades ago his world-making was mistaken for American Wagnerism; but Matthew Barney is more collaborative and more relaxed than you’d think, and he’s doing the best work of his career in the lighter register first seen in his 2019 film “Redoubt.”For the performance “Catasterism in Three Movements,” this September at the Schaulager in Switzerland, he ceded more than half the evening to the Basel Sinfonietta, who performed Jonathan Bepler’s churning music alongside a Berniniesque sculpture of copper, brass and scorched pine. Three women brought the remainder of “Catasterism” to life: the contact improvisation pioneer K.J. Holmes, the Cree hoop dancer Sandra Lamouche, and the athlete Jill Bettonvil as a sharpshooting Diana who pumped a dense-as-flesh Barney sculpture full of lead. (Read our review of Matthew Barney’s “Redoubt.”)K.J. Holmes, a Cree hoop dancer, was featured in “Catasterism in Three Movements,” a collaboration between the artist Matthew Barney and the composer Jonathan Bepler.Schaulager, Laurenz Foundation; Tom Bisig, Basel‘The Torlonia Marbles’Alone in Rome this spring, at the nearly empty Capitoline Museums, I saw the first public display in half a century of the greatest collection of ancient art in private hands. Travel restrictions made an accidental sleeper of the Torlonia family’s Greek and Roman sculptures: dozens of portrait busts, a hirsute billy goat reclining like a love god, a shattered Hercules recomposed from a hundred shards. Rome was my first trip abroad since the pandemic, and I’d submit to a dozen P.C.R. tests to see this actually legendary collection before it disappears again on Jan. 9. (Read our report on the Torlonia Marbles.)More than 90 rarely exhibited sculptures were on display in the “Torlonia Marbles” exhibition at Rome’s Capitoline Museum.Nadia Shira Cohen for The New York Times‘Promises’Astral but never spacey, architectural yet also boundless, this nine-movement, album-length composition deserved every one of the rave reviews that rained down upon its release in March. As Pharoah Sanders’s subdued tenor sax (and occasional vocalizations) weave around the London Symphony Orchestra’s strings and the synths and celesta of Sam Shepherd — a.k.a. Floating Points, a British electronic musician nearly five decades Sanders’s junior — “Promises” comes to feel like a self-regulating ecosystem, an ever denser net of music and motion. These guys knew what they were doing when they chose, for the album’s cover, a painting by Julie Mehretu, whose retrospective this year at the Whitney Museum of American Art had the same accumulating grandeur. (Read our review of “Promises.”)Frick MadisonThe secret to good decorating: just buy the best stuff and do nothing! The Frick’s down-to-the-pith reinstallation in the Whitney’s vacated building refiltered the Vermeers and Velázquezes we thought we knew, and isolated Bellini’s “St. Francis in the Desert” in a sublime Brutalist cell illuminated by one of Marcel Breuer’s trapezoid windows. What Frick Madison has proved, more subtly, is that we can give art context in a hundred digital formats; museums’ bigger challenge is carving time and space to really look. (Read our story on the making of Frick Madison.)Bellini’s “St. Francis in the Desert” is illuminated by one of the architect Marcel Breuer’s trapezoid windows while on display at the Frick Madison.Gus Powell for The New York TimesThe Weather Station, ‘Ignorance’I feel as useless / As a tree in a city park / Standing as a symbol of what / We have blown apart …. As forests burned in B.C. and diplomats dithered in Glasgow, the Toronto singer-songwriter Tamara Lindeman, who performs as the Weather Station, turned in an unreserved, openhearted album of atmospheric anxiety, in which guitars mingle with greenhouse gases and loss is measured in metric tons. She knows we don’t need artists to tell us the climate has changed; we need them to tell us how we have. (Read our interview with the singer.)Parisian RenovationsParis had a quartet of major cultural openings this year. The Bourse de Commerce, renovated by Tadao Ando for the contemporary art collection of François Pinault, drew the most Instagram shares, but it was two renovated historical sites — the Musée Carnavalet, the museum of Parisian history, and the Hôtel de la Marine, the stupefyingly grand naval headquarters — that best married old and new. The city’s sweetest surprise is the old Samaritaine department store, reopened after 16 years, its Art Nouveau expanses renewed with the undulating glass of the Japanese firm Sanaa. (Read our story on the restoration of the Hôtel de la Marine.)The Hôtel de la Marine, the former headquarters of France’s Ministry of the Navy, has reopened as a museum.James Hill for The New York TimesBooks Are Back!Closer to home, the New York Public Library re-emerged from a far too long pandemic closure with a sweet new home: the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, formerly the decrepit Mid-Manhattan Library, rethought and revived by the Dutch firm Mecanoo with Beyer Blinder Belle. Its clean white expanses have computers galore (there’s even a Bloomberg terminal for budding teen traders), but the core remains its 400,000-strong circulating book collection, open for free browsing. A few years ago, the N.Y.P.L. was planning to sell this place, and to exile the books in its main research branch to New Jersey. The Niarchos — as well as Toshiko Mori’s renovation of the Brooklyn Public Library — is an affirmation that cities need readers, and readers need print. (Read our review of the new library.)Daniil Medvedev’s MockeryThe year’s finest and funniest performance art took place at Arthur Ashe Stadium, when the lanky young Russian smacked his last serve, won the U.S. Open title — and dumped his whole body onto to the court, miming a PlayStation move as he lolled like a dead fish. As arrogant as it was ridiculous, Medvedev’s side flop has stuck with me all this fall as a Gen-Z master class in how to stay human in a world of memes. If you must dive into the algorithm, then do it with total contempt. (Read our profile of the “octopus” Daniil Medvedev.) More

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      in Music

      A Kennedy Center Honors With the Presidential Box Used as Intended

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      Former President Donald J. Trump did not attend the tribute, but President Biden was on hand as Bette Midler, Joni Mitchell, Berry Gordy, Justino Díaz and Lorne Michaels were honored.WASHINGTON — The orchestra cycled through an early homage to the latest class of honorees: an excerpt from the opera “Carmen,” a tribute to the sounds of Motown, the chorus of “Wind Beneath My Wings.”But the 44th Kennedy Center Honors did not begin in earnest on Sunday night until President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden, the first lady, arrived to their seats in the presidential box in the opera house, and were introduced to a standing ovation from a crowd of thousands wearing masks and black tie.Mr. Biden’s presence — the first time a president has attended the event since 2016 — heralded the restoration of tradition for the Honors, a star-studded event that recognizes lifetime achievements in the arts, including music, dance, theater, film and comedy, and helps raise money for the arts complex. The event had been rattled in recent years by former President Donald Trump’s decision to skip the festivities altogether after some recipients had announced in 2017 that they would not attend a gala event at the White House. Then in 2020 it was derailed, or at least delayed, by the coronavirus pandemic.“It is quite nice — very nice — to see the presidential box once again being occupied,” David Letterman, the comedian, declared in opening remarks, prompting a standing ovation from the crowd as Mr. Biden and Dr. Jill Biden waved. They were joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Douglas Emhoff, the Second Gentleman.Just six months after an abbreviated celebration of the 2020 nominees, there were glimmers of both political and artistic normalcy. The show returned to its annual December slot, providing nearly four hours of tribute performances and speeches to more than 2,000 guests, who packed the opera house in shimmering gowns and tuxedos.President Biden spoke at a reception for the honorees at the White House. This year’s honorees were Justino Díaz, Lorne Michaels, Bette Midler, Berry Gordy and Joni Mitchell.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesAnd in addition to attending the event, Mr. Biden revived the practice of hosting a White House reception for the five honorees: Bette Midler, the screen and stage actress; Joni Mitchell, the singer-songwriter; Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown; the opera singer Justino Díaz; and Lorne Michaels, the creator of “Saturday Night Live.”“For this pandemic of profound loss and pain, as we move forward toward repair and renewal, the artist vision is important as it ever has been — I would argue more important,” Mr. Biden told the honorees in the East Room. “We’ve seen the power of art in every form to heal, to comfort, and recover.”He lavished praise on the honorees, calling Ms. Midler “a performer without peer,” and praising Mr. Díaz for bestowing “the sound of soul” on audiences. He thanked Mr. Gordy for helping to create “music that lifted us higher” and told Ms. Mitchell, “You sing poetry, it seems to me.”And he called Mr. Michaels “Mr. Wise Guy,” joking about the number of actors tapped to play the president on “S.N.L.” over the years, and noting, “If you can’t laugh at yourself, we’re in real trouble —- and you make me laugh at myself a lot.”Echoes of the pandemic still reverberated. Attendees had to repeatedly show proof of vaccination, an existing policy for all performances at the Kennedy Center. Masks — an array of medical, satin and sequined — were required, but removed for photos, performances and food.The medallion ceremony on Saturday evening, a traditionally more intimate dinner where the honorees receive the rainbow-ribboned awards, was held at the Library of Congress in order to host just over 200 people and accommodate coronavirus protocols.Seated at library desks with the lamps on, the honorees were feted under the gaze of statues of Shakespeare and Plato, after guests perused exhibits dedicated to their work. As he received his medallion, Mr. Díaz, allured by the acoustics, burst into an excerpt from “Otello,” his deep voice reverberating throughout the room.Ms. Mitchell, who spoke briefly with reporters after receiving her medallion, said that “there was a lot of heart to the whole thing.”The Honors event is a key fund-raiser for the Kennedy Center, which is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its opening in 1971. The event raised nearly $6.5 million, a spokeswoman said, with the cost of tickets to the Sunday gala ranging between $600 and $10,000.But for the honorees and the menagerie of lawmakers, donors, artists, colleagues and family members arriving to pay tribute, it was a celebration of not just their legacy, but of the return of their communities and live performances after the pandemic devastated arts industries around the world.“It’s very special and it’s a different perspective — I get to enjoy, not suffer with nerves,” said Mr. Díaz, who performed during the Kennedy Center’s inaugural year in Ginastera’s “Beatrix Cenci” (and who sang in the first performance at the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in 1966).“It’s like coming home again, except a different part of the house.”Members of the cast of “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of The Temptations,” the Broadway musical, sang a cappella on the red carpet in between interviews, before performing in character onstage as part of a tribute to Mr. Gordy. For Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation secretary, and his husband, Chasten, the evening was their first date night since their twins were born. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and a host of bipartisan lawmakers could be seen applauding and dancing in their seats before the end of the night.“I think I’m in a dream,” Mr. Gordy proclaimed. “And it’s a wonderful dream.”To honor Ms. Mitchell, the ceremony included Brandi Carlile, a friend and collaborator, performing “River,” Ellie Goulding singing “Big Yellow Taxi,” and Norah Jones performing both “The Circle Game” and “A Case of You.”Mr. Díaz grew emotional as his daughters, Natascia Díaz and Katya Díaz, sang “En Mi Viejo San Juan,” before excerpts from “Carmen” and “Faust” were performed. Ms. Midler cheered as a trio of her “Hello, Dolly!” castmates performed “Friends,” before Billy Porter, the actor and singer, emerged from a clam shell to lead a medley of her songs.A parade of comedic veterans from S.N.L. alternated between gently ribbing Mr. Michaels, their former — or current —  boss, and thanking him for his influence on their careers. It was punctuated by a trio of mock “Weekend Update” segments hosted by Kevin Nealon, Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler, and Colin Jost and Michael Che. Paul Simon concluded the tribute to Mr. Michaels with a performance of “America.”During the tribute to Mr. Gordy, the show paused to restart after an apparent technical mishap. But when the set parted to reveal Stevie Wonder at the piano, breaking into a medley that included “My Cherie Amour,” “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” and “Superstition,” the crowd erupted into raucous applause.By the finale, “Higher Ground,” the audience was on its feet.“To be part of this sort of lineage and this long line of people who have contributed so much to the culture, it’s just staggering to me,” Ms. Midler said. “I am so thrilled.”The Kennedy Center Honors will be broadcast on CBS on Dec. 22. More

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      Cultural Center Opens in Chelsea, Aiming to Help Artists in Pandemic

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      Chelsea Factory will offer residencies in music, dance, theater and film at its 14,000-square-foot space in Manhattan.The pandemic has disrupted the lives of scores of artists across New York City, leaving many struggling to find steady work.Now a performing arts space in Manhattan is hoping to help.Chelsea Factory, a 14,000-square-foot cultural center on the West Side of Manhattan, announced on Tuesday it would offer performance and rehearsal space to artists trying to pursue ambitious projects in the changed coronavirus landscape. The center, backed by philanthropists and real estate executives, will operate as a “pop-up initiative” for five years and offer residencies to artists in music, dance, theater and film.James H. Herbert II, a banking executive who is behind the project, said the aim of the center was “to accelerate post-pandemic recovery” for artists.“Artists and partners can pursue ambitious ideas with financial and creative freedom,” Herbert, who is the founder, chairman and co-chief executive of First Republic Bank, said in a statement.Chelsea Factory’s first cohort of resident artists was chosen by the center’s staff with input from artistic communities. It includes, among others, the choreographers Hope Boykin and Andrea Miller; the composer Troy Anthony; and the filmmaker Luis G. Santos. They will each receive stipends of $10,000 and be given studio space as well as production support for projects.The center also plans collaborations with local organizations such as the dance-dedicated Joyce Theater and National Black Theater.Donald Borror, managing director of the center, said the center hoped to help artists “finish that piece that was never finished” because of the pandemic.“We just see the ability to really move people forward in their careers,” he said in an interview.Lauren Kiel, the center’s executive director, said its five-year timeline would allow it to be flexible.“Bringing these resources on the scene right now in such a nimble way is a unique offering that can quickly respond to whatever is going to happen as the art sector moves through these next quite uneven, unpredictable and unprecedented few years,” she said.Chelsea Factory occupies the space formerly held by Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet, which closed in 2015. It will offer heavily subsidized rentals to independent artists and community groups.Public performances are set to begin in January. More