The Royal Opera House, which includes the Royal Ballet, got the biggest cut (9%), while English National Ballet, Rambert, and Sadler's Wells saw their grants reduced as well. Meanwhile, many regional and smaller-scale companies received more money, and the funding pool for dance as a whole rose by 12%. - Bachtrack
Yes, that means — for now — no Tchaikovsky or Tolstoy, no Shostakovich or Chekhov or Pushkin. "The context for this rejection has to be understood, though: Ukrainians are emerging from a history in which the Russian empire, and then the Soviet Union, actively and often violently suppressed Ukrainian art." - The Guardian
"Though most museums don't share details about security matters as a policy, some of the measures being enforced will be immediately obvious to the visiting public." - Artnet
"On Friday, three activists for Ultima Generazione threw pea soup at Van Gogh's The Sower (1888) at the Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome. ... Just a day later, two activists taped themselves to the frames of two works by Goya at the Prado in Madrid. ... The pair wore t-shirts reading 'Futuro Vegetal'." - Artnet
In London, three of the four non-BBC orchestras had their grants cut, with only the Royal Philharmonic seeing no change. The major orchestras beyond the capital had funding maintained or increased, the Aurora Orchestra got a 53% boost, and grants to the National Youth Orchestra and Choir nearly doubled. - Bachtrack
"Firstly, there is a substantial transfer of funding away from opera (11% down), most of which has gone to dance (12% up). In addition, The Royal Opera, which does both, is 13% down." Two companies which do a lot of regional touring got big cuts; others got small increases. - Bachtrack
The Manchester-based ensemble Psappha and the Cambridge-based Britten Sinfonia were defunded, while the London Sinfonietta and the service organisation Sound and Music saw cuts of one-third or more. Other groups, including the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the Manchester Collective, and the record label NMC, got new or increased funding. - Bachtrack
Arts Council England has cut 100% of its grant to the company, which is known for small-scale productions that often go on to successful runs in the West End and on Broadway and for launching the careers of leading directors and actors. - WhatsOnStage (London)
"The Calgary-based Mayr won for her novel ..., which follows a queer, Black sleeping car porter making a treacherous trip from Montreal to Vancouver in 1929." - Toronto Star
The overriding focus on the algorithm—and the content it delivers—has caused us to overlook a central part of TikTok’s operating logic: the phone. A failure to fully explore the role of this device in TikTok’s powers of transmission has resulted in a limited appreciation of how the platform works. - Wired
By attacking a famous and high-value cultural target like Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring — it even starred in its own movie — the protesters are asking us to examine our values. - The Conversation
Balanchine is an unusual subject for what critics like to call, and I’ll go there, a magisterial biography. He was a shy, somewhat receding figure. He had a facial tic, a nervous fluttering under one eye, that got him called “the rat” as a child. - The New York Times
I read and write about books for fun. And yet, time and again, my mind goes blank during book discussions, and all I can muster up is “Er, I thought the book was good, because …” - LA Review of Books
Art is now viewed as a pretext for collective discourse, raising “issues” that provide the raw material for op-eds, Twitter threads, college seminars, and conference panels, not to mention (dreaded word) post-performance “talkbacks.” But not just any kind of collective discourse. - Salmagundi
With the museum, designed by Thom Mayne, obviously the headliner, OCMA might have shown off its collection as the main exhibition, with perhaps a tangy traveling topical show as an enlivener. Instead, it went with staging a new edition of one of the institution’s heretofore well-regarded series. - The Wall Street Journal
