Thanks to search engines, “[t]rue understanding (or skill or effort) has become bothersome – an unnecessary headache that impedes our ability to get on with our lives (and most likely skip to something else). Earning the endgame seems so yesterday, especially when we can know whatever we need to know whenever we need to know it.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Utah’s Ballet West Cuts $1.2M From Budget
“Ballet West will cut four positions, freeze salaries, request furloughs and reduce pension contributions for its 35-member administrative staff, as part of a plan to reduce $1.2 million from the dance company’s operating budget for the 2009-2010 season.”
UK Gov’t Plans To Create 10,000 Entry-Level Arts Jobs
“Culture secretary Andy Burnham and work and pensions secretary James Purnell have unveiled a scheme to create up to 10,000 entry-level jobs for young people looking to start work in the cultural industries. The positions … will primarily take the form of apprenticeships or on the job training for people aged between 18 to 24 who have been out of work for up to a year.”
Safety Regs Put Oxford Library’s Rare Volumes Out Of Reach
“Historic books in the Bodleian Library have been left out of reach after a health and safety directive banned ladders from a reading room. Students wanting to access works on the top shelf in the gallery section of the Duke Humfreys room have been unable to do so due to a low balcony and uneven floors … although ladders had been used for many years previously.”
How To Sing At The Bottom Of A Swimming Pool
Soprano Julianna Snapper, co-creator of the underwater “operella” You Who Will Emerge from the Flood: “It’s not that different from singing operatically on land. It uses the same basic process … with a little bit more care because at the end of the phrase you don’t want to pull any water in.”
The Law Of Supply-And-Demand Comes To The Contemporary Art Market
“Something much more subtle than a classic boom-bust cycle is going on. The art world is punishing the overly prolific, those artists who responded (in retrospect, perhaps too hastily) to stiff demand by upping supply.” And with demand going soft, auction houses and galleries are tending to avoid younger artists in favor of the tried-and-true.
For Next Season, Ballet San Jose Bucks The Downsizing Trend
The company “plans to increase the number of main-stage programs from five to six and to extend the runs of several productions, including the company’s popular version of The Nutcracker. … In addition, the entire season will be produced with live music by Symphony Silicon Valley. In the past, some productions have been done to recorded music to contain costs.”
OCPAC Settles Lawsuit Over Construction Of Segerstrom Concert Hall
“After tangling in court over nearly $40 million in cost overruns on the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, the Orange County Performing Arts Center has reached an undisclosed settlement with the project’s architects [Pelli Clarke Pelli] and builders [Fluor Corp.].”
Richard & Judy Show Cancelled, But Book Club Will Live On
The venerable British morning talk show, whose Oprah-like Book Club is a very big deal for the UK’s publishing industry, will go off the air in July, due to poor ratings on the for-pay digital channel to which it moved last fall. But production company Cactus TV says it’s in “advanced talks” with “media partners” to keep the Book Club going.
Is Digital TV The Savior Of Arts Programming?
“Not only do digital channels have many more hours to give over to such programmes, they also, arguably, can afford to be more niche and more highbrow in their choices than channels that depend upon mass appeal.” What’s more, “Arts organisations are becoming producers, he says, eager to open up access, and become production partners on shows available as video online, as well as on television.”