DANCE
http://www.artsjournal.com/dance
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Ballet's Hot Choreographer Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is the 30-year-old "golden boy of international ballet". "I'm trying now to find ways to distill narrative so that it borders on the abstract. I want to create a world that is not specific to either the narrative or the abstract." The New York Times 05/23/03

Paul Taylor At 72 "Scan back through his career and you'll find that Paul Taylor has, across half a century of prolific choreography, managed to delight and infuriate almost every faction in the modern dance world. The 1950s found him hailed in avant-garde circles as a champion of radical ideas and unconventional work. A decade later and the establishment was triumphantly claiming him as a brave new standard bearer for traditional forms. In fact then, as now, Taylor was simply following his own inclinations; playing around with concepts as he pleased, ignoring trends, and thereby becoming one of America's most distinctive and distinguished dance-makers." Glasgow Herald 05/19/03
Posted: 05/22/2003 10:39 pm

Reinventing Scottish Ballet Scottish Ballet has a new director, new dancers and new choreography. "The dance world has moved on a lot in recent years, almost without Scotland, it seems, and we are now trying to close that gap. Not just catch up with the rest of the world but, I hope, be at the forefront of making interesting things happen." Glasgow Herald 05/19/03
Posted: 05/22/2003 10:31 pm

MEDIA
http://www.artsjournal.com/media
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American Idol Finale Outdraws Oscars On TV The finale of Fox's "American Idol" averaged 33.7 million views. "That was a bigger audience than the 33.1 million who watched the Academy Awards in March, traditionally the most-viewed entertainment event of the year, according to Nielsen Media Research. During the last half hour of the 8 to 10 p.m. special, when the winner was announced, viewership climbed to just under 40 million people." Philadelphia Inquirer 05/23/03
Posted: 05/23/2003 7:46 am

TV: What We Watched This Year The final numbers are in, and this season's TV ratings champs can be declared. Wanna play "who are the big winners?" Okay - a hint - that series about the guy who was supposed to be a millionaire looking for a wife, only he wasn't rich but the women didn't know it? He landed at No. 2 for the season. Need to know more? Didn't think so. Los Angeles Times 05/23/03
Posted: 05/22/2003 11:32 pm

FCC Traveling On Media Company Dimes "Over the past eight years, Federal Communications Commission officials have taken 2,500 business trips to global tourist spots, most of which were paid for by the media and telecommunications companies the agency oversees, according to a study to be released today. The report, released by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, comes as the FCC is poised to relax or eliminate key media ownership rules, a step that has been criticized by some as putting too much power in the hands of a few media giants." Washington Post 05/22/03

MUSIC
http://www.artsjournal.com/music
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Music Downloads Becoming Real Business A new study suggests that music fans are beginning to buy music legally online. But they're more likely to buy CDs online than to individual tracks. And still, by far, the free music swapping services remain the most popular music sites. BBC 05/23/03

Exploring The Meaning Of Beethoven's 9th The manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony sold for £2.133 million this week. So why is this music so valuable? "The work preoccupied the 19th century, and that is because it seems endlessly suggestive, to raise musical possibilities which even it could not entirely fulfil." The Spectator 05/24/03

Bad Writing - Not Racism - Is The Real Jazz Scandal Is jazz critic Stanley Crouch right about racism and jazz critics? The issure recently got him fired from JazzTimes. "The real scandal in jazz criticism isn't race - it's bad writing. Jazz, which arose at the same time as that other revolutionary twentieth-century art, film, has failed to generate a comparable body of criticism. Most jazz magazines are only slightly more readable than airline glossies, and serve roughly the same purpose. Whatever one thinks of Crouch's views, he is one of the few jazz critics worthy of the name. And this, sadly, is another reason why he no longer belongs in the pages of JazzTimes." The Nation 05/22/03

• Previously: Dear Stanley: You're Fired Stanley Crouch's last column in JazzTimes was blunt. In it he "accuses white critics of elevating white musicians 'far beyond their abilities' to 'make themselves feel more comfortable about . . . evaluating an art from which they feel substantially alienated.' Crouch also claims that white writers, who were born in 'middle-class china shops,' ensure 'the destruction of the Negro aesthetic' by advancing musicians who can't swing at the expense of those who can." And with that, the magazine fired Crouch... Village Voice 05/13/03

Florida Phil: We Tried Everything The chairman of the board of the now-bankrupt Florida Philharmonic says he's proud of the efforts his board made to save the orchestra. He said "the high-profile plea for donors to come forward to save the Philharmonic netted only $770,000, far short of the $4.5 million necessary to see the orchestra through the 2003-04 season. That amount was barely a fraction of the original $20 million requested as a sign of the community's willingness to support the orchestra. 'We didn't even get close to that figure, which made a bankruptcy filing inevitable'." The Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale) 05/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030522-23460.html

The Gay Side Of Opera "Gay and lesbian subtexts frequently hover beneath the surface of opera. The singer's sex may not be the same as the sex of the character he or she is playing, while cross-dressing within plots can lead to erotic mayhem. That there should be a disparity in the way gay and straight composers have had to approach erotic subjects is ultimately a sad reflection on the normative proscriptions that have dogged social history and continue to do so. Yet opera also asserts a communality of experience that both contains and bypasses gender and sexual orientation." The Guardian (UK) 05/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030522-23452.html

Bocelli Big Winner At Classical Brits Singer Andrea Bocelli Andrea Bocelli was the big winner at this year's Classical Brit Awards, beating out the quartet Bond. The Guardian (UK) 05/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/music/redir/20030522-23451.html

PEOPLE
http://www.artsjournal.com/people
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Tate Modern's New Man Vincente Todoli is the new director of the Tate Modern. He's a "Catalan by birth and the latest in a growing line of international curators heading Britain's museums. Aged 45, fast talking, fast moving, fast thinking, he shoots from the heart and smiles winningly. Stamina seeps from every pore. His strong accent, a year in New York as a Fulbright scholar notwithstanding, introduces an element of enigma to what he is saying (we spend several moments disentangling the sibilants of 'thresholds')." London Evening Standard 05/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/people/redir/20030522-23455.html

PUBLISHING
http://www.artsjournal.com/publishing
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Oooh, I'm Sooo Bad (Now Buy My Book) "Performing shameful, humiliating acts and then writing about it for profit are not new, perhaps, but the trend seems to be accelerating with the recent crop of sinners clutching book contracts. Such books seem to revel in their authors' surpassing badness, in an unashamed -- indeed, almost gleeful - recitation of sins. The public, presumably, goes tsk-tsk - and then turns the page for more." Chicago Tribune 05/23/03
Posted: 05/23/2003 6:23 am

Poetry Magazine Sues As $100 Million Gift Shrinks By A Third That $100 million that Ruth Lilly left to Poetry Magazine has turned out to be about a third less than promised. And the magazine is suing the bank that was managing the money. "Court documents show that when the fund was created, Lilly stock was selling for about $75 a share. By the time the bank unloaded most of it, it was about $48 a share. According to papers filed in Probate Court in Indianapolis, attorneys for the Poetry Foundation said the $102 million 'is a significant financial loss to Poetry and the other beneficiaries . . . and is a direct and proximate result of the bank's wrongful conduct'." Chicago Sun-Times 05/22/03
Posted: 05/22/2003 4:53 pm

THEATRE
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre
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Secrets To Good Children's Theatre? Here are some rules: "The first rule would be to decide what story you?re telling and then get on with it; adults may enjoy the odd interesting digression, children simply lose interest and start eating crisps. The second would be to avoid irony and political point scoring at all costs; children can sense the strident negative energy a mile off and are bored by it. The third rule is to avoid deliberate artiness in design and to make things look like what they are supposed to be. And the fourth is to keep it simple and remember that less is more; children come to the theatre to be told a story, not to admire someone?s fancy set design or hard-won clowning skills." The Scotsman 05/22/03
http://www.artsjournal.com/theatre/redir/20030522-23457.html

VISUAL ARTS
http://www.artsjournal.com/visualarts
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The Great American Art Scam "In the clubby art world where priceless works are entrusted to dealers and brokers on a promise and a handshake, Michael Cohen, a highly regarded art broker, borrowed millions from prestigious art dealers such as Sotheby's and was handed a Picasso from another prominent dealer. But according to a complaint filed in US District Court in Manhattan, Cohen fled two years ago, swindling the dealers of millions of dollars and taking a valuable piece of art, as well." Boston Globe 05/22/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030522-23461.html

Looters Stripping Bare Iraqi Archaeological Sites "Mobs of treasure hunters are tearing into Iraqi archaeological sites, stealing urns, statues, vases and cuneiform tablets that often date back 3,000 years and more to Babylon and Sumer, archaeologists say." The New York Times 05/23/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030522-23456.html

Fake Van Gogh Proves Wildly Popular The self-portrait of van Gogh hanging in Oslo's National Gallery is now considered a fake. But the news hasn't proved to be a liability. "The painting of a troubled face on a blue-green background is the only portrait of van Gogh after he cut off his left ear. Visits have nearly tripled at the National since the van Gogh came home, and it had the same effect in Italy where it was on loan when the controversy over the painting's origin erupted." Aftenposten (Norway) 05/22/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030522-23450.html

Can'tLive Without His Anna Nicole Seattle artist Jeff Hengst put two paintings outside his studio - an oversized Arnold Schwarzeneger and an oversized Anna Nicole Smith. He woke up this week to find that Nicole had been taken overnight. "Arnold's useless to me without Nicole," he said. He called the police immediately. Although he wasn't expecting them to rush over and dust for prints, he was somewhat taken aback when they declined to come. They took his story over the phone and sent him a form to fill out." Seattle Post-Intelligencer 05/22/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030522-23458.html

Ashen Tribute? A British artist is offering portraits of dead spouses painted with their cremated ashes as a tribute to the dead. "Why not use a fraction of the ashes from an urn sitting on a mantelpiece for a portrait, so you can have that person physically there with you. Some people may think it is a macabre idea, but personally I do not think so, as long as the portrait is done with loving care." SkyNews (UK) 05/22/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030522-23448.html

'Ten Chimneys' Finally Opened To The Public For whatever reason, rural Wisconsin is jam-packed with architecturally significant houses built by unbalanced geniuses and wealthy stars looking for an escape from the masses. One of the most remote and interesting structures of the bunch is known as "Ten Chimneys," the sprawling hideaway of Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, once known as America's premier acting couple. From humble beginnings, "the compound grew to include a small hunting lodge moved piece by piece from Sweden, a chicken coop converted to a charming house, a swimming pool and fanciful changing house topped by a weathervane that was a gift from fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, an 18-room great house and other structures." The house opened to the public for the first time this week.
Chicago Tribune 05/22/03
http://artsjournal.com/visualarts/redir/20030522-23391.html