Last Week’s Don’t Miss Arts Stories: Brexit Edition

Clearly Brexit is a cultural decision, and it will have a big impact… A new jazz scene emerges and re-energizes the art form… There’s a practical reason there are so few women ballet choreographers… Christo’s simple idea wows the world… Has public radio figured out a compelling future?

1. Brexit Will Have Big Impact On Culture: The British vote to leave the European Union is a fundamentally a cultural decision, one which will touch every aspect of British life. All-star British artists spoke up for Britain staying, and now that voters chose to leave, artists fear that they will be isolated from their European colleagues. Visas and cross-border access may be small in comparison to the loss of funding and opportunities. “There is obviously now great financial uncertainty — the effect on European funding streams for the arts, for example — but quite as important is the potential effect on the spirit that drives a myriad of international partnerships in the arts.” In the first day after the vote, media companies saw $20 billion in stock value evaporate.
2. A Jazz Comeback? It’s tempting to write off industries and art forms as the world evolves and technologies and ideas move on. Jazz was once a thriving popular art form, but has struggled for decades. But there is fresh energy behind jazz again. “Welcome to the strange jazz resurgence of the new millennium. Jazz is definitely hot again … yet all of this is happening outside of the jazz world. This is a peculiar turn of events.” Then there is the new breed of young jazz musician: “They’re countercultural, as were their forebears during Charlie Parker’s and Dizzy Gillespie’s bebop revolution uptown at Minton’s in the Forties, or the Ornette Coleman–led free movement unleashed at the Five Spot in Cooper Square in 1959, or the post-Coltrane howls at Studio Rivbea during the loft era, in the decrepit streets of 1970s Soho. That heat and currency appears to be swirling around the jazz world once again.”
3. A Very Practical Reason There Are So Few Women Ballet Choreographers: Could it be as simple as lack of time? “Male dancers simply aren’t as busy as their female counterparts, who, on top of everything else, are trained from a young age to be obedient and to not step out of line. In modern dance, composition is part of the training, but in ballet there is a lack of structured choreographic training. Most ballet choreographers emerge from companies, and most — including today’s pre-eminent ballet-makers Alexei Ratmansky, Christopher Wheeldon and Justin Peck — begin creating works while still performing.” Prominent dance luminaries weigh in.
4. The Power Of A Simple Idea Well-Executed: Christo and Jeanne Claude do it again, creating a striking floating saffron walkway on a lake in northern Italy. Great visuals. Brilliant execution. And the public clamored to come.
5. Public Radio’s Existential Crisis Translated As Opportunity: NPR’s new app NPR One is a big hit – particularly among young people who don’t listen to radio. “The largest age group listening to NPR One is 25- to 34-year-olds, according to NPR, with 40 percent of listeners under 35. More than a third of users who answered NPR surveys said they never or only occasionally listen to broadcast radio.” The head of New York public radio station WNYC answers critics of the medium: “One person’s existential crisis is another’s opportunity; a period of expanding audiences, creative disruption, and greeting the future. From where I sit, at the helm of New York Public Radio, the news is overwhelmingly positive and the terrain is open for anyone bold enough to embrace what is undoubtedly radio’s next incarnation.”