“Los Angeles schoolchildren learning drama from a professional actor or ballet from a skilled dancer might lose their teachers next semester if the Los Angeles Unified School District continues to freeze funding for programs employing outside contractors. District officials say the freeze will hold at least until the California Legislature reconvenes in mid-January.”
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
In A New Atmosphere, Chanel Mobile Art Is Asphyxiated
“Ahead of its scheduled visit to London, Chanel has cancelled its travelling Mobile Art tour, the fashion house announced over the weekend. Karl Lagerfeld’s ambitious art-meets-luxury project sees twenty artworks based on Chanel’s iconic 2.55 quilted handbag … displayed in a Space Age-inspired structure created by Zaha Hadid, which is currently in situ in New York’s Central Park.”
Next Up In Battered Art Market: Christie’s To ‘Reorganize’
“Christie’s International will announce a ‘reorganization’ in January, the auction house said yesterday in an e-mailed statement, as the financial crisis continued to dampen demand for art.”
Dallas Opera’s Steel: ‘I’m Not Interested’ In City Opera Gig
“George Steel, the general manager of the Dallas Opera, said he isn’t interested in the top job at New York City Opera — the 65-year-old company that’s homeless, leaderless and short of money. Steel said while he’s had discussions with board member Mary Sharp Cronson about the opera, they weren’t formal negotiations.”
E-Book Sales Have Soared At Simon & Schuster
“Simon & Schuster expects to have nearly quadrupled e-book sales by the end of 2008, according to its c.e.o. Carolyn Reidy. In her end-of-year letter to staff, Reidy said that in response to the growing demand the publisher was making an additional 5,000 titles available.”
Politics Off The Conductor’s Podium, Please
Music critic Jay Nordlinger, a conservative in Manhattan, is accustomed to being outnumbered by liberals. But he objects when a conductor rallies the audience with a partisan comment from the podium. “Politics aside, where are manners? Where is consideration for a minority of audience members? Where is a sense of public space, and what is appropriate and not?”
Borders Signs On To Publisher’s No-Returns Model
“Borders Group Inc … the second-largest U.S. bookseller, will accept books from publisher HarperStudio on a nonreturnable basis, departing from a decades-old publishing tradition, the Wall Street Journal reported. Industry practice dating from the 1930s allowed retailers to return unsold titles to publishers for full credit and without incurring shipping costs, the newspaper said.”
At Composers’ Disposal, Players With Gusto (But No Pulse)
“Bach had to wait 110 years before the first complete performance of his B minor Mass, by which time he had long since departed to the great choral extravaganza in the sky. For today’s composers, though, the elapsed time between composition and performance can be a matter of seconds – as long as you are willing to accept that your performers may not be entirely, you know, real.”
Theatre: Knife Incident Was An Accident, And Not Serious
The Burgtheater in Vienna “has denied reports that an actor suffered a life-threatening cut to his throat after a prop knife was reportedly replaced by one with a real blade. Daniel Hoevels, 30, was said to have had blood ‘pouring from his neck’ after he stabbed himself with the knife in a suicide scene. … The company admitted that a female prop manager had bought a knife for use on stage and forgotten to blunt it.”
Public Pans Bollywood’s Haste To Dramatize Attacks
“Bollywood may be famed for its relentless energy, but its rush to dramatise the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month has caused public outcry. In the days after the strikes, in which more than 170 died, 18 film titles on the theme of ‘Terror at the Taj’ were registered with the Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association.”