In a recent article in The Atlantic, David Brooks pointed out the hypocritical tendency of Americans to pay lip service to the ideal of ‘diversity’ from inside the safety of our completely homogenous self-styled social circles. That type of human narrowness is hardly news to the TV industry, which has been increasingly focused on the splintering of the American audience. ‘Niche programming’ is truly the wave of the future, and where once a network had to appeal to a broad cross-section of the country to be successful, today’s strategy is to group viewers into tiny genre boxes, where they can be easily catered to by programmers and, more importantly, advertisers.
Month: August 2003
fFIDA Looks To The fFuture
Toronto’s Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists (fFIDA) is expanding its lineup and revamping its image this year, in an effort to draw a wider variety of performers and raise the festival’s international profile. This year’s fFIDA features multiple programs running at the same time in different venues, and a far higher concentration of non-Canadian dancers than usual. “Another change this year is the deliberate linking of choreographers to create interesting programs, rather than letting serendipity rule, even though fFIDA participants are still selected by lottery.”
Libeskind’s Ground Zero Vision May Be Delayed
Groundbreaking on the massive rebuilding project at Ground Zero in New York may be delayed by a peripheral fight over money. There had already been reports that architect Daniel Libeskind and developer Larry Silverstein had been at odds over various details of the project. Now, Silverstein’s personal financial battles with the Port Authority and his mortgage company are putting the construction timetable in doubt. “Each of the three warring parties has significant say over how insurance proceeds from the twin towers are used. But Silverstein is insisting that the timetable for the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower will be delayed unless his lender – GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corp. – is bought out, sources said.”
The Flash Mob: Art, Politics, Or Silliness?
The new phenomenon of the ‘flash mob’ – a planned gathering of random individuals who proceed to do something bizarre but harmless in a public place – is certainly a sign of the times. But is it art? Certainly, the activities of most flash mobs are no stranger than the work of some performance artists. Or maybe it’s the most basic form of political organizing – after all, the mobs are organized by e-mail, and bring together like-minded people from disparate walks of life. Or, is the flash mob nothing more than this era’s obnoxious public fad, like streaking, or running onto a baseball field during the game?
Reach Out And Touch Someone
The phenomenon of ‘contact improvisation’ is going strong in the modern dance world, despite having been dismissed by many serious dancers as a fad when it was invented in the 1970s. In fact, many modern choreographers say that the improvisational technique has been crucial to their development. “A product of its time, [contact improv] emphasizes spontaneity, togetherness, body/mind integration and other Age of Aquarius values.” Call it the dance equivalent of free-association literature.
Those Cranky Austrians
A new German television show, which allows viewers to vote on the “greatest Germans” of all time, has incurred the wrath of Austrians for including several Austrian-born individuals on the list. Chief among the disputed candidates is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who was actually from Salzburg and spent the bulk of his career there and in Vienna. Other great Germans of dubious Germanic heritage include Joseph Haydn, Sigmund Freud, and Copernicus. The Germans say that there were bound to be compaints, because, as the show’s producers tactfully put it, “Germany’s borders had changed so often.”
The Searchable Composer
A new web site based in Canada is attempting to provide a much-needed resource for the classical music world: “a fully searchable Web site of home grown contemporary music. The slick, bilingual site, www.musiccentre.ca, includes comprehensive biographies and sound samples of about 580 composers, living and dead… Holding the country’s largest collection of Canadian classical works, the Toronto-based centre, around since 1959, has re-organized its library resources so the general public can access the materials. Previously the centre’s 15,000 scores were only available through five regional lending libraries.”
Moving Fast In Colorado
Less than a year after the Colorado Springs Symphony folded up shop and joined the ranks of defunct North American orchestras, a new ensemble made up of the same musicians has risen from the ashes and announced its first season. The Colorado Springs Philharmonic will play ten sets of classical concerts, and four sets of pops in 2003-04, and will perform under the baton of Lawrence Leighton Smith, the same conductor who led the old symphony. In another interesting twist, Philharmonic executive director Susan Greene is the same manager who was unceremoniously dismissed by the symphony board a year before its demise.
New Meaning For Underground Dance
“On Saturday night the Canadian-owned Inmet mining company set a cultural record by hosting a dance performance – 1,410 metres down its copper and zinc mine in Pyhäsalmi, 475 kilometres north of Helsinki. According to organizers, the 45-minute performance, which went off without a hitch, set a new record for physical profundity in dance.”
The Fading History
Few students are studying history these days. And those that do seem to have an aversion to history books. “Instead, there is a preference for more bite-sized, experiential media, like TV history programmes or websites. Apparently, TV provides a model for what students expect from their university courses, as something involving ‘colour, action, biography and narrative’. There are complaints that students see history as ‘basically a narrative, descriptive subject’, and ‘expect to be told stories rather than acquire the skills of the historian’. A number of reasons have been offered to explain these trends.”