• Home
  • About
    • About this Blog
    • About Andrew Taylor
    • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Other AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture

But how do you REALLY feel about ballet?

August 7, 2006 by Andrew Taylor

Lewis Segal at the LA Times is fed up with ballet, and isn’t afraid to say why in his recent opinion column.


Most ballet is every bit as bad as audiences secretly suspect — and it’s not going to improve until companies stop conning or shaming us into accepting damaged goods. In the meantime, guilt-free hatred of ballet is reasonable, maybe even necessary.

Ouch. Let the letters to the editor begin.

Thanks to Trevor and ArtsJournal for the link.

Filed Under: main

Comments

  1. Hope Dougherty says

    January 24, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    Ballet is a beautiful art. You may think it is stupid but it really isn’t. Ballet to me is a hard sport, and it is amazing to dance. I love ballet because whenever I dance it onstage, it feels so good. I don’t feel this feeling dancing any other kind of dance.

About Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor is a faculty member in American University's Arts Management Program in Washington, DC. [Read More …]

ArtsManaged Field Notes

#ArtsManaged logoAndrew Taylor also publishes a weekly email newsletter, ArtsManaged Field Notes, on Arts Management practice. The most recent notes are listed below.

RSS ArtsManaged Field Notes

  • The line(s) between board and staff September 9, 2025
    Some nonprofit boards rubber stamp, others micromanage. How do you find the sweet spot in between?
  • Two jobs of a governing board September 2, 2025
    Nonprofit governance can be strange and sprawling, making clarity a core requirement of the job.
  • The choreography of cash August 26, 2025
    A thriving arts enterprise gives every dollar a job. But dollars arrive at different times.
  • You can't manage emergence August 19, 2025
    Most desired outcomes of an arts organization cannot be directly controlled.
  • Beware the destabilizing donation August 12, 2025
    How to recognize and avoid the gift that keeps on taking.

Artful Manager: The Book!

The Artful Manager BookFifty provocations, inquiries, and insights on the business of arts and culture, available in
paperback, Kindle, or Apple Books formats.

Recent Comments

  • Barry Hessenius on Business in service of beauty: “An enormous loss. Diane changed the discourse on culture – its aspirations, its modus operandi, its assumptions. A brilliant thought…” Jan 19, 18:58
  • Sunil Iyengar on Business in service of beauty: “Thank you, Andrew. The loss is immense. Back when Diane was teaching a course called “Approaching Beauty,” to business majors…” Jan 16, 18:36
  • Michael J Rushton on Business in service of beauty: “A wonderful person and a creative thinker, this is a terrible loss. – thank you for posting this.” Jan 16, 13:18
  • Andrew Taylor on Two goals to rule them all: “Absolutely, borrow and build to your heart’s content! The idea that cultural practice BOTH reduces and samples surprise is really…” Jun 2, 18:01
  • Heather Good on Two goals to rule them all: “To “actively sample novel experiences (in safe ways) to build more resilient perception and prediction” is about as useful a…” Jun 2, 15:05

Archives

Creative Commons License
The written content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images are not covered under this license, but are linked (whenever possible) to their original author.

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in