“How did Barbie, history’s most popular doll, celebrating her 50th year as a beloved plaything for girls worldwide, become an object that females of all ages cut, burn, bend, spindle and mutilate? […] The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving.”
Author: Matthew Westphal
Lincoln Center Fest 2009 Concentrates On World Theatre, Music, Dance
Singers from Morocco, Algeria, Mali and New Orleans; dancers from Israel and China-via-New-York; stage companies from Poland, Hungary, Italy, France (Ariane Mnouchkine’s Théâtre du Soleil) and Russia (the Maly Theatre and Declan Donellan’s staging of the original Pushkin Boris Godunov) – all of these converge on Manhattan’s Upper West Side this July.
Pittsburgh Symphony Lays Off Nine Staff Members
By letting these administrative workers go and “eliminating two staff vacancies, the PSO expects to save approximately $150,000 this fiscal year and around $400,000 annually. Its budget is $30 million.” Orchestra CEO Lawrence Tamburri says, “This is our reaction to the economy, but it is not a traditional layoff.”
Grand Rapids Symphony Opts For Pay Cuts Over Staff Cuts
The western Michigan orchestra, “in an effort to cut costs and balance its budget, has imposed salary reductions of 3 percent for most of its administrative staff, and 5 percent for its senior staff for the remainder of its current fiscal year.”
Annenberg Fdn. Gives Louvre A Million Euros For Education
The grant is to establish at France’s flagship art museum some of the youth-oriented programs that are common in U.S. museums: multimedia and “hands-on” displays, “DVDs, online features and lessons-in-a-box or lessons-on-a-cart that can circulate in the schools.”
Benjamin Zander, Classical Music’s Crusading Evangelist
“On the podium and in preconcert talks and classroom lectures, he is an indefatigable advocate for the idea that anyone can appreciate classical music, and that appreciation can always be taken to a deeper level. His drive has extended into a busy side career giving leadership talks to corporations as well as a co-authored book, The Art of Possibility.”
Harrison Birtwistle Says Music Is Not Funny
Avers England’s most eminent modernist composer, “I don’t see it as my role to do humour. I don’t even know if it can be done in music. There may be a few musical jokes but I think Rossini did them all.”
Merce To Let Three Of His Principal Dancers Go
“Three of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company’s most senior dancers – and among the most respected artists in contemporary dance – were told two weeks ago that their contracts would not be renewed at the end of their current period of employment in May.”
Cutbacks, But No Layoffs, At ABT
“The 86 dancers at American Ballet Theater have agreed to accept a proposal by management that would eliminate the company’s pension contributions and the dancers’ vacation pay in 2009.”
Univ. Of Missouri Receives $1 Million To Support New Music
The gift from Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield “will provide funds for scholarships for student composers and a graduate-level new music ensemble, which will perform in non-traditional venues on campus and throughout the state… The money will also fund a summer composition festival… that will feature guest composers and professional ensembles-in-residence.”