A National Endowment for the Arts Study measures arts participation in the US. “The study found that 76 percent of adults, or 157 million people, participated in the arts in some form during the one-year study period that ended in August 2002. Most adults participated by watching or listening to music, plays or dance on television, radio, audio recording or the Internet. Since the study was last conducted in 1992, there has been a drop in this kind of participation; however, rates still exceeded those of live attendance.”
Month: August 2003
Donors – Who Calls The Tune?
How much influence do donors to arts institutions have on artistic decisions or management of the institution? “Does he who pays the piper call the tunes? Equally relevant, how do the not-for-profits negotiate these treacherous (or, perhaps not-so-treacherous) waters in straitened economic times? For their spin, Back Stage talked with half a dozen theatre administrators, who oversee fundraising, in major not-for-profit theatres nationwide.”
Lev Kerbel, 85
“Lev Kerbel, one of the premier sculptors of Socialist realist works whose statues of Lenin once graced city squares across the Eastern bloc, has died, NTV television reported Thursday. He was 85.”
Cultural Imperative In Rural Australia
Rural Australia needs an influx of investment in culture. “Cultural policy can easily smack of Big Brother (the political concept, not the TV show), but there are valid reasons why we need to keep culture high on the national agenda. It has nothing to do with opening nights, and everything to do with what Australia needs for a sustainable future. In 2000, the economic value of arts and related industries was about $8 billion. For indigenous Australians, the arts are their single biggest source of non-government income. The arts can provide jobs through flow-on effects such as tourism, but like any other investment, the money tends to gather where the people are.”
LA’s Theatre Entrepreneurs
A couple of California investors sink millions of their own money into building their own new theatres in Los Angeles. The question is why?
Where Are London’s Playwrights?
Playwrights are all but invisible in London’s West End. Now it takes celebrities to sell anything. “The author is dead in the West End. Particularly, as it were, the living author. In a talk at the Edinburgh book festival on Monday, Alan Ayckbourn railed against the dominance of celebrities – picking out Madonna and Ewan McGregor for particular bile – in theatreland, and the now near-impossibility of staging good plays with decent actors, without a Matthew Perry or a Jason Priestley to jolly the whole thing along.”
Hooligans Hack Up Public Art In Belgium
Vandals have been destroying public arts this summer in Belgium. “Vandals have wrought destruction upon some of Belgium’s biggest summer open air art exhibitions, and replacing the damaged exhibits is beyond the funds of many of the organisers of the displays.”
Minnesota Fringe Busts Records
While many arts organizations are struggling to keep audiences and cash flowing, this year’s Minnesota Fringe Festival – America’s biggest fringe – turned out record numbers. “Marking its 10th anniversary this year, the Fringe sold a total of 40,500 tickets to the 162 shows staged during the festival, which concluded Sunday. The box office figure is 27 percent higher than last year’s festival.”
Mickey And Donald Are Back
For two years Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and his pals have been off the comic book shelves. Now a comics enthusiast is bringing them back. “It’s always been a bit of a mystery why the Disney Comics are huge in Europe and Latin America but have languished in the North American market. Mickey Mouse, after all, is the ultimate American icon. Disney comics have had such a huge influence outside North America that they have been the subject of political rants arguing that they were thinly veiled American propaganda designed to spread capitalism and counter the spread of communism.”
Poetry (And Poets) Explained
“Being a poet in America makes as much sense as a butt full of pennies. That’s one of the pleasures of being a poet in America. There’s something wonderful, something perversely subversive about being disconnected from the world of goods and services and John Maynard Keynes, if only for an hour or two every now and again. It’s freedom. Poetry is an uncharted wilderness along whose margins capitalism wilts like arugula in the Wedge parking lot on the Fourth of July.”