{"id":1240,"date":"2016-11-20T23:07:39","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T07:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2016-11-22T08:59:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T16:59:47","slug":"this-weeks-aj-highlights-hamilton-teaches-the-art-of-protest-at-last-some-real-data-on-orchestras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/11\/this-weeks-aj-highlights-hamilton-teaches-the-art-of-protest-at-last-some-real-data-on-orchestras.html","title":{"rendered":"This Week’s AJ Highlights: “Hamilton” Teaches The Art Of Protest, At Last Some Real Data On Orchestras"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"hamilton-had-some-unscripted-lines-for-pence-trump-wasnt-happy-the-new-york-times\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This Week:<\/strong> That Mike Pence goes to “Hamilton” story? A textbook protest… Finally – some real data on the health of orchestras… Arts criticism is either being reborn or it’s in dire shape… Pop culture is getting to be only for the rich… The myth of the outsider is a standard pop culture meme…<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Arts And Our Next President:<\/strong> Many many many stories this week about artists reacting to the election of Donald Trump. Anger, sorrow, upset, denial. None got as much attention<\/a> as the curtain speech aimed at Vice President-elect Mike Pence at a Broadway performance of “Hamilton” Friday night. Headlines the next day screamed about Brandon Victor Dixon lecturing Pence from the stage and the audience booing Pence. Trump demanded an apology<\/a> and said theatre should be a “special” place. Trump supporters suggested a boycott of the show<\/a>\u00a0 but fans of the show reacted with glee that a boycott might free up hard-to-get tickets. But step back a minute and actually watch video<\/a> of the “lecture.” Dixon was about as polite and respectful as one could ask for, while expressing the concerns that many have about the new administration. Well done.<\/li>\n
  2. Some Actual Data About The Health Of Orchestras:<\/strong> One of the longstanding difficulties in reporting about the health of American symphony orchestras has been that it’s difficult to get dependable data. This week the League of American Orchestras released a study<\/a> with several years worth of data. The headline is that in 2013 orchestras for the first time made more of their revenue from single ticket sales than from subscriptions. Additionally – 43 percent of all income comes from philanthropy compared to 40 percent from ticket sales. So does that make orchestras “charities”? or is it that the balance between what orchestras can charge for tickets and what their expenses are has passed a milestone? A postscript: Is there some plce where classical music is growing? China, which has been welcoming Western orchestras for some time and which has been growing its homegrown orchestras, is flipping the script and finally exporting its orchestras <\/a>to the West.<\/li>\n
  3. Several Contradictory Stories on The Art Of Criticism This Week:<\/strong>\u00a0 A seminar in New York recently tried to make the case that we’re undergoing a renaissance in the art of cultural criticism.<\/a> Organizers cited several new cultural journals which they said give hope for the future.\u00a0Bill Marx, on the other hand, looks at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times\u2019 cutbacks in arts coverage: \u201cToo many of today\u2019s arts editors and reviewers embrace a lilliputian vision of arts criticism<\/a>, a crabbed sense of its possibilities. Nicholas Dames wonders if critics understand their role in today’s culture<\/a>: \u00a0“Today, many critics struggle to find a unified culture to interpret and criticize and a public to address. As A.O. Scott insists, the critic\u2019s role is ‘to disagree, to refuse to look at anything simply as what it is,’ and yet in an age in which critics often are forced to set their sights on films like Avengers: Age of Ultron<\/em>, it appears that the critic can be nothing other than ‘the vanguard of pointing out the obvious’.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. \n
    \u00a0Pop Culture Used To Be For Everyone. Now Only The Rich Can Afford The Experiences…<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cPop was a child of the 20th century, a form carried on gloriously uniform products that embodied their time just as perfectly as Henry Ford\u2019s Model T did. Those were the days when capitalism was as democratic and egalitarian as it has ever got, and the products \u2013 or rather phenomena \u2013 at its heart were all the better for it.\u201d No longer. Increasingly, pop culture experiences are only for the rich<\/a>, only if you can afford to pay great sums\u2026<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  5. The Victory Of The Outsider? Our Pop Culture Has Been Glorifying It Forever:<\/strong>\u00a0It’s a stock story – the outsider who comes along and shakes things up<\/a>. Such stories are “dark and bleak and often end in death. Some double as articulations of the political exceptionalism of ordinariness itself. Most, though, do something more basic, and more pessimistic: They assume the fundamental dirtiness of politics, and the related idea that any hope we\u2019ll have of purifying the system must come from outside of it. They leave very little room for optimism about the hulking beast that is ‘the establishment,’ very little room for hope that the system in place\u2014one populated by career politicians\u2014can take compassion and make it scale.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    Image: New York Times<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This Week: That Mike Pence goes to “Hamilton” story? A textbook protest… Finally – some real data on the health of orchestras… Arts criticism is either being reborn or it’s in dire shape… Pop culture is getting to be only for the rich… The myth of the outsider is a standard pop culture meme… The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-weekly-aj-top-stories","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/%E2%80%98Hamilton%E2%80%99-Had-Some-Unscripted-Lines-for-Pence.-Trump-Wasn%E2%80%99t-Happy.-The-New-York-Times.jpg?fit=1262%2C638&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-k0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1201,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/10\/aj-week-in-review-two-big-orchestras-strike-two-others-report-record-success.html","url_meta":{"origin":1240,"position":0},"title":"AJ Week In Review: Two Big Orchestras Strike, Two Others Report Record Success","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"October 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This Week: Three orchestras now on strike as audience waits... Two other orchestras report record success... A museum raises $100 million in just three months... Bots are getting awfully good at making art... More links between being bored and being creative. A Bad Week For Three Orchestras: The audience was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weekly AJ Top Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Weekly AJ Top Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/weekly-aj-top-stories"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/PhiladelphiaOrchestrastrikecp.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/PhiladelphiaOrchestrastrikecp.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/PhiladelphiaOrchestrastrikecp.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/PhiladelphiaOrchestrastrikecp.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/PhiladelphiaOrchestrastrikecp.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":864,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/05\/five-stories-from-last-weeks-aj-likes-and-dislikes-edition.html","url_meta":{"origin":1240,"position":1},"title":"Five Stories From Last Week’s AJ: Likes And Dislikes Edition","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"May 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Why aren't the arts something we can all get behind? Maybe it's somewhere in the psychology of how we like what we like? Revealed: nobody reads arts reviews anymore (says an editor who hates to run them but wants to \"support\" the arts). Where the money is in music (hint:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weekly AJ Top Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Weekly AJ Top Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/weekly-aj-top-stories"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/theatre.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/theatre.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/theatre.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/theatre.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/theatre.jpg?fit=1200%2C720&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":541,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2014\/01\/british-orchestras-bigger-audiences-for-less-money.html","url_meta":{"origin":1240,"position":2},"title":"British Orchestras – Bigger Audiences For Less Money","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"January 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"British orchestras report an increase in attendees - a 16 percent increase no less - over an earlier three-year period: A survey by the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) has found attendances at concerts and performances between 2012 and 2013 were up 16 per cent on those\u00a0 three years earlier.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "culture business models"","block_context":{"text":"culture business models","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/culture-business-models"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/p17orchestraEPA.jpg?fit=620%2C465&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/p17orchestraEPA.jpg?fit=620%2C465&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/p17orchestraEPA.jpg?fit=620%2C465&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1222,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/11\/this-weeks-aj-highlights-ominous-orchestra-results-new-arts-journalism-accountable-algorithms.html","url_meta":{"origin":1240,"position":3},"title":"This Week’s AJ Highlights: Ominous Orchestra Results? New Arts Journalism? Accountable Algorithms?","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"November 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This Week: Record ticket sales at the Chicago Symphony but still a budget problem...Wall Street Journal cuts arts coverage and Boston Globe gets a subsidized critic...Why did Shakespeare's Globe fire its director?...Two cities on opposite sides of a border, share common arts culture... Who will hold intelligent machines accountable? An\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weekly AJ Top Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Weekly AJ Top Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/weekly-aj-top-stories"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/thompson.jpg?fit=500%2C271&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":799,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/02\/this-weeks-top-aj-stories-2-28-16.html","url_meta":{"origin":1240,"position":4},"title":"This Week’s Top AJ Stories 2.28.16","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"February 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Arguably, the dominant cultural issue of our time is the changes in how people are finding and getting culture. \u00a0In response, business models supporting culture and the kinds of culture being made are also changing. \u00a0It also underpins debates about diversity, engagement and power. Some broad themes this week: 1.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Weekly AJ Top Stories"","block_context":{"text":"Weekly AJ Top Stories","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/weekly-aj-top-stories"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/28mag-teams1-articleLarge.jpg?fit=600%2C924&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/28mag-teams1-articleLarge.jpg?fit=600%2C924&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/28mag-teams1-articleLarge.jpg?fit=600%2C924&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":47,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2007\/11\/the_rise_of_arts_culture.html","url_meta":{"origin":1240,"position":5},"title":"The Rise Of Arts Culture","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"November 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Today I want to make an argument about the rise of arts culture. In the 1950s, at the dawn of TV, the medium's pioneers believed that television would be the great democratizer - exposing culture to the masses. The best of the world's culture could be brought into the living\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "main"","block_context":{"text":"main","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/main"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1242,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/1242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}