As the entertainment industry grew into a national business, states and municipalities competed to lure productions out of Hollywood, and the balance of power among city governments, police departments and the entertainment industry seriously shifted over the past century.
For 50 Years, They’ve Loved Edward Albee In Bulgaria
An avant-garde production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at a tiny Sofia theater in 1996 led to a long period of popularity for the American playwright. Even the Communist censors liked his work.
Why Do Witches Ride Broomsticks?
“Before the Wicked Witch of the West or Harry Potter took flight on the spindly cleaning tool, the image first appeared in the 15th century.” You may not be surprised to read that the depiction was an attack on both sexuality and heresy.
Financier David Rubenstein Named Chair Of Smithsonian Board
“David M. Rubenstein has resuscitated some of this city’s icons with multimillion-dollar gifts to the Washington Monument and the National Archives. … With his newest duties, Rubenstein – whose day job as co-founder of the Carlyle Group has him steering one of the country’s largest private-equity firms – will oversee both of the city’s major cultural institutions.”
Turin’s Top Museum Official Forced Out By Maverick Reformist Mayor
Chiara Appendino, a member of the populiist Five Star Movement who took office this summer, demaded the resignation of Fondazione Torino Musei president Patrizia Asproni “after it was revealed that a major sponsor of a proposed Edouard Manet exhibition was backing out of a plan to host the show in Turin” – a show that Appendino herself had reportedly opposed.
Fort Worth Symphony, Amidst Strike, Cancels All Remaining Concerts In 2016
“Symphony management announced Monday it has canceled concerts through Dec. 31 as a result of the ongoing musicians’ strike. Management and the musicians union met Saturday for the first time in almost two months to try to reach a new contract agreement for the musicians. They were unsuccessful.”
Cities Fight Over Proposed Iconic Gehry Building Plans For Hollywood
“Since renderings were unveiled last year, the discussion has turned away from Gehry’s daring architecture to whether the 334,000-square-foot development is simply too large for the famed boulevard. The main tower, at 15 stories, would be the tallest building to be erected on the Sunset Strip in more than 30 years.”
Carlos Acosta’s Experimental New Hybrid Dance Company
“I think sometimes dance is very segregated,” Acosta said at the UK launch of his new company. “This is an experiment; not many people have done it before. When you create half the company from ballet and half from contemporary it creates an energy, it could be a bomb … it is like two different animals.”
Buckminster Fuller Believed Technology Is Mankind’s Salvation (Ah, It Was A Gentler Time, Then)
“Fuller put his faith in technology as a means to tame the messiness of humankind. ‘I would never try to reform man – that’s much too difficult,’ Fuller told The New Yorker in 1966. Appealing to people to remedy their behaviour was a folly, because they’d simply never do it. Far wiser, Fuller thought, to build technology that circumvents the flaws in human behaviour – that is, ‘to modify the environment in such a way as to get man moving in preferred directions’. Instead of human-led design, he sought design-led humans.”
How Police Pressure Shaped The Ways Hollywood Depicts Law Enforcement In America
“This is not a straightforward story about how police departments are bad and Hollywood is good, or vice versa. Nor is it a simple morality tale about how creative freedom made it possible for a liberal industry to critique a conservative profession. … But driven by the need for drama and excitement, Hollywood used genres such as action movies and reality shows to glamorize the very ideas about policing that have generated such division in the United States today.”
Columbus, Ohio Is Seeing A Mini-Boom In Small Dance Companies
“Movement Afoot is just one of several startup dance ensembles to emerge in the past five years in central Ohio. The groups – also including Oyo Dance Company (contemporary), New Vision Dance Co. (jazz), and Columbus Modern Dance Company and Columbus Moving Company (modern) – represent a variety of styles. Most have fewer than 10 dancers. Given the popularity of Columbus’ primary companies – BalletMet and Columbus Dance Theatre – the proliferation of ensembles raises an obvious question: Will the community support so many groups?”
Poet Lucia Perillo Dead At 58
“Known for her sense of humor and her writing about living with multiple sclerosis, … she received a MacArthur ‘Genius’ fellowship [in 2000] … {and] was a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her collection Inseminating the Elephant.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 10.24.16
When Is a Climax Not One?
The Yasmeen Godder Company from Israel mingles performers and spectators. … read more
AJBlog: Dancebeat Published 2016-10-24
Nobel Thoughts
Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year, and discussions ensued: why him? These discussions are understandable and mostly reasonable, and they are good discussions to have. But at the same time, it’s … read more
AJBlog: Infinite Curves Published 2016-10-24
Tom Hayden: Gone But Not Forgotten
Looking back: Mad Magazine + Tom Hayden = SDS. And before I forget. Meanwhile, the obits are pouring in for Tom Hayden, who died yesterday. … read more
AJBlog: Straight|Up Published 2016-10-24
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Report: The Biggest Arts Funding Continues To Go To The Largest Organizations. And So…
“The lion’s share (60%) of funding – grants, gifts and contributions – continue to go to the largest budget cultural institutions across the country (those with budgets over $5 million) and that, in fact, the funding to the smaller organizations, with budgets under $1 million has actually declined, and ‘that is a drearier future than we saw in 2011′.”
Report: Fear Is The Biggest Barrier To Diversity In the Arts
The third and final report on the survey, which was published this week, revealed that the sector is split on whether or not audiences actually resist ‘more diverse artistic product’, but this appears to be enough to put organisations off programming, producing and exhibiting it. Respondents indicated that these fears are compounded by ‘inadequate funding’. One respondent said: “When you are struggling to survive, your priorities and passions focus on playing to the paying gallery! We become risk-averse and for us, this means programming rich old white acts for a rich old white audience.”
Maintaining That Difficult Line Between Fiction And Literature
Judging fiction is easier said than done. Cyril Connolly, formerly of the Observer, once wrote that “the great difficulty in reviewing new novels is to maintain a double standard – one to judge novels as fiction and the other as literature. Luckily, very few novels pretend to be literature, but when they do it is necessary to slate them by one rule and praise them by another.” In recent memory, several Booker panels have given masterclasses in the fine art of making a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.
William Bowen, 83, Former President Of Princeton U And The Mellon Foundation
“Before leaving Mellon in 2006, Dr. Bowen was instrumental in creating global electronic archives of scholarly journals and artistic images, including JSTOR, ARTstor and also Ithaka, which provides digital services to academia.”