“‘This is probably naiveté on my part,’ Piers Handling confessed the other day. But ‘there was a kind of feeling of ‘you build it, they will come.” Especially after 10 years of raising almost $200-million and especially with the brand of the Toronto International Film Festival … People have come. But not, it seems, in the numbers TIFF CEO and director Handling … might have been hoping.”
Month: April 2012
For An Online Synagogue, An Online Passover Seder
Cincinnati-based Rabbi Laura Baum’s seder “will be conducted in cyberspace, as her guests – from New York to New Zealand – join in at OurJewishCommunity.org, the online congregation she co-leads. … So far, the guest list is up to about 400 – although she need not worry about any last-minute crashers. ‘It is not as if we will run out of gefilte fish,’ she says.”
Malaysia Claims It Doesn’t Object To Tutus And Didn’t Ban Ballet
“Malaysia on Thursday denied reports that the Muslim-majority country blocked a performance by a Singapore ballet troupe due to squeamishness over tights-wearing dancers and said the show could go on. However, the Singapore Dance Theatre had earlier said it was too late to stage the performance.”
Women Writers Still At Disadvantage
“The place of women in the literary world is still as urgent an issue as it has ever been. I worry that other women of my generation, having taken their admission to this world as a natural right, have grown as complacent as I have been. But admission is not the same thing as acceptance. And what the reception of literature by women over the last few decades–longer, of course, but let’s keep to a manageable scope–shows us is that acceptance is a long way off.”
Electronic Dance Music Success Attracting Investment
“Having developed on the margins, electronic dance music — high-energy waves of mechanized sound that, at its best, creates a communal experience for a sea of strangers — is dominated by a network of independent promoters. Their success has attracted a clutch of potential investors from inside and outside the music world. The insiders include Live Nation and A.E.G. Live, the two biggest corporate promoters.”
Why So Few UK Movie Directors?
“Only 14 per cent of British films released in the UK are directed by women. If that seems oddly as well as infuriatingly low, it’s probably because so many of the brightest and boldest British film-makers of recent years, from Lynne Ramsay to Lucy Walker, are women – women who it seems are exceptions as well as being exceptional.”
US Museums Recover (But Confidence Still Isn’t High)
“Leading US museums are finally in recovery mode and their directors are much more optimistic about the financial outlook than a year ago, but few are feeling bullish.”
Why Are Blockbusters All-Male?
“Wait a moment. Yes, it is Everyman. After all the revolutions in art over the last couple of centuries, the gender bias is apparently as deep as ever.”
So What Happened When 500,000 Theatre Tickets Were Given Away?
“The independent report found 6,800 young people went to the theatre for the first time because of the project. But 37% of participants admitted they would have paid for their ticket without the subsidy.”
Ai Wei Wei Takes Down Live Webcams From His Home
“Mr. Ai had set up four webcams in his home and studio in Beijing this week as a critique of the government’s decision to put him under constant surveillance since releasing him last summer from secret detention, where he had been held for 81 days without charge.”