As part of ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, the orchestra management is asking for major changes in its residency agreement with the Kimmel: reduced rent at the very least; at most, arrangements that would give the orchestra more control over the box office, ushers and other points of interaction with customers.
Author: Matthew Westphal
London Cultural Olympiad Chairman Talks Up His Shindig
Tony Hall, writing in The Telegraph: “The Cultural Olympiad is a four-year project to encourage people (especially the young) to become involved in arts and culture. It also aims to enable community-led projects to take place that wouldn’t have happened without the spur of the Games. … You may not live in London, sport may or may not be your thing, but this is a way you still get a chance to enjoy the celebrations.”
Pilobolus Dances With Robots
The company’s summer season in New York includes a new work, created with MIT students, for one human dancer and two remote-controlled, T-shaped flying robots with helicopter blades.
Dances For An iPhone (It’s An Actual App)
The free app, by choreographer Richard Daniels and developer Samuel Toulouse, “features six modern dances, ranging from two to five minutes, performed by an accomplished bunch: Carmen de Lavallade, Deborah Jowitt, Regina Larkin, Christine Redpath and Megan Williams.”
The West Side Story Choreography Manual
Joey McKneely, dance director for the show’s recent Broadway revival: “West Side Story cannot be done without [Jerone Robbins’s] original choreography: It’s part of the structure … So this manual was created so that anybody who wanted to license West Side Story had a reference tool, with diagrams and choreography written out, in basic layman’s terms.”
Weinstein Bros. Kill Finding Neverland Musical
“Finding Neverland, a planned stage musical based on the popular 2004 movie, has been officially grounded. … The La Jolla Playhouse said Finding Neverland was canceled because Weinstein Co. withdrew from the project.”
Loving, Or Hating, Miranda July
“In one sense, July has been enjoying the Platonic ideal of creative success in the age of the hyphenate artist” with successes in film, literature and digital media as well as legions of fans. “Yet despite this (or perhaps because of it) she has also become the unwilling exemplar of an aggravating boho archetype: the dreamy, young hipster whose days are filled with coffee, curios and disposable enchantments.”
Chinese Government Holds Back Harry Potter, Pushes Communist Party Epic Instead
“The latest installments of Hollywood blockbusters like Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 have been delayed … In the meantime countless moviegoers have been driven into cinemas as part of a government campaign to promote a sprawling epic about the Chinese Communist Party.”
Illuminating California’s Prop 8 Trial, Onstage
“A new play based on the Proposition 8 trial over same-sex marriage in California, written by the Academy Award winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk), will be performed in a staged reading on Broadway in September and then produced at Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern, the University of Michigan, and elsewhere.”
Borders Faces Liquidation As Latest Bidder Withdraws
“Borders Group Inc., the bankrupt bookstore chain, faces a sale to liquidators after Najafi Cos. declined to bid. … Najafi had made an offer that would have kept some of the retailer’s remaining 400 stores open.”