“Three top Rose Art Museum benefactors are suing to stop Brandeis University from closing the Waltham cultural site and selling off more than $200 million of art. ‘We’re trying to say: “Look, Brandeis, (the museum’s artwork) is not yours to sell. It belongs to future generations of students and the public,” ‘ said Jonathan Lee, one of three donors who today sued Brandeis.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Steinberg On Bernstein, Back In 1964
Michael Steinberg, the former Boston Globe music critic who died yesterday at 80, on the premiere of Bernstein’s “Kaddish”: “There is something enviable about the utter lack of inhibition with which Leonard Bernstein carries on. His Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish) is a piece, in part, of such unashamed vulgarity, and it is so strongly derivative, that the hearing of it becomes as much as anything a strain on one’s credulity.”
Teaching Kids To Dance Teaches Them Healthy Living, Too
Michael Kaiser: “[D]ance is a powerful educational tool for several reasons,” among them that it “teaches a love of body. Children who dance are far more likely to appreciate their own physical selves. Dance training helps address the obesity problem currently facing our nation,” and it makes it less likely that children will endanger their bodies in other ways.
Zoe Wanamaker Joins Call For Equal Pay For Actresses
“Zoë Wanamaker, the actress, has joined the chorus of female performers demanding more money to match the pay packets of their male counterparts. Wanamaker, who stars in the popular BBC sitcom My Family, revealed she had to fight the Corporation for equal pay with her co-star Robert Lindsay and said women were ‘always at the bottom as far as pay is concerned.'”
Canadian Museums, Galleries Feel Uncertainty’s Impact
“The recession is forcing some Canadian art museums and galleries to cancel, reschedule, rejig or indefinitely postpone exhibitions – both new ones and those on tour from elsewhere…. And even where it isn’t a direct contributing factor, the sputtering economy is, in the words of one director, ‘making us rethink how we go about partnering, organizing and what we bring in.’ One silver lining: The impact has been less harsh here than in the United States.”
Stratford Fest Taps Board To Fund A Streamlined Season
“The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, squeezed by declining ticket sales and a vanishing pool of American tourists, is asking its board of governors to donate funds toward the 2010 season. … The board is believed to be close to approving a season of substantially fewer plays than the 14 on the 2009 playbill.”
Merce Cunningham Dies At 90
“Over a career of nearly seven decades, Mr. Cunningham went on posing ‘But’ and ‘What if?’ questions, making people rethink the essence of dance and choreography. He went on doing so almost to the last. … Even when it became known that he was fading, and friends began coming to bid farewell to him in recent days, he told one colleague that he was still creating dances in his head.”
Architectural Bookseller May Close — But Is It Inevitable?
The owners of the Prairie Avenue Bookshop, Chicago’s great architectural bookstore, “have discussed a sale with book dealers and even the Chicago Architecture Foundation,” hoping the store won’t have to close Sept. 1 after all. “But nothing has jelled. Which raises a broader question: Can architectural book stores succeed in this digital age?”
Now More Than Ever, We Need Cultural Entrepreneurs
“Our greatest playwright was a commercial playwright working for a commercial management. Yet the idea that commercial is a dirty word persists in the theatre. So, too, does the notion that somehow it is nobler for everyone to survive on crumbs of funding rather than nurturing the best possible environment for artists to create work.”
Forgotten Wodehouse Plays Shed Light On His Politics
“The discovery of four satirical ‘playlets’ by PG Wodehouse, seen by the public for the first time in 100 years this weekend, prove that the humorist – who is often viewed as apolitical – had a strong interest in public affairs from his youth.”