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Monday, October 18, 2010
current top story
Will Cunningham Technique Live On After Merce? Controversy and online protests have arisen over rumors of a plan by the Cunningham Trust to close, or drastically shrink, the Cunningham Studio next June, as the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. winds down its existence. Current and former Studio students argue that Cunningham technique is valuable in itself, whether or not there's a professional all-Cunningham company.
Dance Magazine 10/18/10
issues
UK's Arts-and-Sciences Endowment Severed From Government "The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts has been granted full independence from government
NESTA will move from the public to the voluntary sector and become a charitable company. It does not receive money from central government, but is funded by a Lottery endowment. This will continue."
The Stage (UK) 10/15/10
dance
Will Cunningham Technique Live On After Merce? Controversy and online protests have arisen over rumors of a plan by the Cunningham Trust to close, or drastically shrink, the Cunningham Studio next June, as the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. winds down its existence. Current and former Studio students argue that Cunningham technique is valuable in itself, whether or not there's a professional all-Cunningham company.
Dance Magazine 10/18/10
ideas
Do Today's Young Adults Have an Empathy Deficit? "Young Americans today live in a world of endless connections and up-to-the-minute information on one another, constantly updating friends, loved ones, and total strangers." But new research has "found that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were in 1979, with the steepest decline coming in the last 10 years."
Boston Globe 10/17/10
ideas
Brand Identity - The Badge of the Millennial Generation "Millennials - the generation born between 1980 and 1995 - relate to brands in deep and complicated ways, according to a new study
[B]rand identification is just about as important as religion and ethnicity when it comes to personal identifiers millennials share online."
Fast Company 10/14/10
visual
Chelsea Art Museum Repossessed by Lender "The survival of the Chelsea Art Museum is in doubt amid a battle over control of its home, with a lender and the owner each claiming the right to sell the property. The lender
took over the deed to the West 22nd Street building last week after the owner failed to meet a bankruptcy-court deadline, public property records show."
Wall Street Journal 10/18/10
people
Adonis, the Poet Who 'Ruined Arabic Poetry' While his name is unfamiliar in the US, in the Arab world he "is a renowned figure, if not everywhere a beloved one. He is an outspoken secularist
and a poetic revolutionary of sorts who has tried to liberate Arabic verse from its traditional forms and subject matter. Some of his poems are immensely long and immensely difficult and resemble Pound's
Cantos at their most impenetrable."
New York Times 10/18/10
people
Marzieh, Persian Music's Great Diva, Dead at 86 "A household name in prerevolutionary Iran, Marzieh was as closely identified with her country's music as the great Egyptian chanteuse Umm Kulthum was with hers.
[She] was silenced after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but who re-emerged years later outside Iran as a singer and a highly public supporter of the resistance."
New York Times 10/17/10
music
Fired Welsh Nat'l Opera Oboist Loses Lawsuit For 34 years the principal oboist of the opera company's orchestra, Murray Johnston "claimed he had been bullied and harassed by former musical director Carlo Rizzi." But a judicial panel in Cardiff agreed with WNO management that Johnston "was sacked because his [poor] playing risked the orchestra's reputation."
BBC 10/15/10
issues
New Jersey PAC Moves Into Urban Development The arts center's founding CEO is stepping down next June to head up a venture - wholly owned by NJPAC - to develop real estate immediately adjacent to the complex. The project's aim is to diversify sources of revenue for NJPAC and to act more directly in the renewal of the center's neighborhood in downtown Newark.
New York Times 10/16/10
ideas
When in Doubt, Stomp and Shout "Newly published research confirms and expands upon an insight first revealed in the 1950s: If confidence in one's core tenets becomes shaky, a common response is to proselytize all the more vigorously."
Miller-MCune 10/15/10
dance
Would-Be Assassin Posed as Liturgical Dancer During a Roman Catholic Mass in Khartoum, Sudan, a suspect named Hamdan Mohamed Abdurrahman infiltrated a group of liturgical dancers. He then worked his way in front of the altar and attempted to stab the city's Archbishop in front of the congregation.
Independent Catholic News 10/13/10
media
music
publishing
visual
NY's Museum of Arts & Design Plans Aroma-Only Exhibit "'The Art of Scent: 1889-2011' will present examples of more than a dozen perfumes that have helped to define the lucrative aroma industry. The scents will be wafted around the museum's second-floor galleries by atomizers" in a specially designed gallery space.
New York Times 10/18/10
people
Director Mike Leigh Stirs Argument Over Cancelled Israel Visit The English filmmaker, who is Jewish, has cancelled a series of workshops he was to lead in Jerusalem. Leigh's decision, made in protest over several recent Israeli government policies, has drawn a sharp public rebuke from the head of the film school that invited him.
Haaretz (Israel) 10/18/10
visual
Court Says MFA-Boston May Keep Disputed Kokoschka "The federal Appeals Court in Boston has found that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston owns a valuable 1913 painting by expressionist Oskar Kokoschka, ruling that the statute of limitations had run out on an Austrian woman's assertion that she was the rightful owner."
Boston Globe 10/16/10
publishing
The Fading Line Between Blog Posts and Articles Farhad Manjoo: "While Gawker is dropping the blog format, sites of magazines like
Wired and
The Atlantic are embracing it. (At both outlets, all articles, other than those that first appeared in print, are published in a blog-like format.)
The design shifts - with blogs looking more like magazines, and magazines looking more like blogs - aren't just superficial."
Slate 10/18/10
dance
How Cuban Dancers Are Changing Ballet Octavio Roca: "As we speak, Cubans are very much in the same position that Russians were in the 70s and 80s. The Russians, when they left the Soviet empire and were going everywhere, they influenced dance tremendously with people like Makarova, and Nureyev and Baryshnikov.
Well, that's what's happening right now - it's happening with the Cubans.
[In] the front ranks, in the middle ranks, and more important as teachers, you find Cubans everywhere."
Poder360 10/16/10
music
NY Phil Sues Cheap Trick "The 1970s power pop group had the temerity to list the illustrious orchestra on the liner notes of its
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 40th Anniversary recording, a suit filed in Manhattan Federal Court says."
Daily News (New York) 10/15/10
music
people
Director Nicholas Hytner - A Life In The Theatre "Listening to Hytner describe his career, you'd think everything was accidental - or, at least, happened en route to somewhere else. The truth is that Hytner has packed more into the last 25 years than most directors accomplish in a lifetime."
The Guardian (UK) 10/18/10
publishing
Authors Head For The Schools It's no surprise that the rise of the touring children's author has come hand in hand with the reduction in space for children's books in the press. Author events are now a key marketing strategy. But rather than seeing this additional task as a chore, there's a whole generation of children's authors and illustrators who embrace it as a core part of what they do.
The Guardian (UK) 10/18/10
music
Opera In The Pubs (It Works) Ever since my company OperaUpClose announced that we were turning the King's Head into London's third full-time opera house, we've been inundated with feedback. Most of it has been extremely positive - ticket sales for the opening production of The Barber of Seville are more than encouraging - but some people are obviously dubious about the merits of "pub opera".
The Guardian (UK) 10/18/10
music
issues
Donations To Top 400 US Charities Down 11 Percent Last Year (And The Arts?) "There are just five arts groups on the list (Met, Lincoln Center, BSO, Kennedy Center, and San Francisco Opera). The Met, the largest on the list at No. 188 with $104.2 million, is down 35.1% from last year. The BSO, No. 339, is up 103.9% over last year with $52.3 million."
Chronicle of Philanthropy 10/17/10
media
Ditch PBS, Sure. But How Are You Making KCET Better? "KCET has to act on its long-discussed and only fitfully realized plans to produce more programs. It has to create something new and lively. Otherwise its dramatic decision to chuck PBS will result only in shifting its audience to competitors, led by Orange County-based KOCE, which will continue to carry PBS' national programs."
Los Angeles Times 10/16/10
media
Fox Channel Blocked From Cablevision Customers "Unable to strike a new deal, the signals of News Corp.'s Fox television stations in New York and Philadelphia disappeared from roughly 3 million Cablevision Systems Corp. homes at midnight on the East Coast."
Los Angeles Times 10/16/10
issues
Israeli City Rebrands With The Arts "With a dozen new museums, libraries, theaters and other cultural centers -- all focused on the city's unique rebranding around kids culture and digital arts -- Holon has become an international model for urban renewal, drawing 400,000 tourists last year."
Los Angeles Times 10/17/10
music
Who Will Be The Next Director Of The Colorado Symphony? "When choosing new music directors, orchestras tend to opt for different types of podium leaders from what they had before. Given that the Colorado Symphony's two previous leaders were American-born, it is a good bet that it will think internationally this time around."
Denver Post 10/16/10
theatre
"Billy Elliot" Closing Early In Chicago "The premature exit is a blow to Broadway in Chicago's long-running campaign to establish Chicago as a city that can support extended runs."
Chicago Tribune 10/15/10
theatre
New Website Aims To Teach Actors The Business Of Theatre "Each episode features industry guests--working actors, directors, writers, casting directors, producers, and agents--who talk about their experiences. The lineup so far includes director Mark Waters, actor Anna Vocino, agent Louise Ward, and actor-producer Mark Gantt."
Backstage 10/15/10
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