George Bush’s proposed $2.77 trillion budget doesn’t include any big increases for culture. “The modest boost will most likely offset inflation but not give enough cushion to try new things. On the other hand, none of the agencies received sizable cuts.”
Blog
Prize Portents
“In the fields of literature, movies and music, prize scandals prompt people to pay attention to awards, if only to see what gauche lapse in taste happens next. And debates about the credibility of a prize, by their very existence, benefit the concept of art and artistic value by implying that they exist in a realm separate from politics and compromise. Clearly, questions about prizes’ credibility haven’t hampered their proliferation: ours is a culture beset by and obsessed with prizes, even if we disagree about their meaning. So what do they mean?”
Toronto Radio Station Refuses Theatre Ad Because Of The “V” Word
“Toronto radio station CHFI has refused to run a series of promotional spots for Eve Ensler’s play The Good Body, which opens next month at the newly refurbished Music Hall on the Danforth. The reason? The commercials use the word ‘vagina’.”
The Neuroscience Of Dance Improv
Neuroscientists are studying improvisation in dance. Is there some similarity with how birds move in flocks? “There’s no lead bird who dictates, ‘Now we’ll be in this V.’ They’re forming patterns by sensing where they all are in space, by wind currents, all the different variables. They’re self-organizing themselves into a pattern. That’s what the dancers are experiencing, they’re forming their own patterns from within.”
Largest Mexican Music Festival Is A Free For All
“Once on the verge of extinction, the fast-paced and irresistibly rhythmic son jarocho (pronounced ha-RO-cho) is undergoing a revival. The genre is being fueled by a new generation of jaraneros, a name derived from the genre’s typically small guitar, or jarana. This evolution of son jarocho doesn’t have a new name yet, but it definitely has a new energy and fresh sound.”
Producers Pedal Fast As Two Networks Become One
“The future is always precarious in the ruthless world of television. But this fall, when CBS and Warner Bros. launch the CW, a new youth-oriented network, and shut down the WB and UPN, there will be one less network renewing shows and buying new ones.” That has producers scrambling.
Knight: New Director Lands In America’s Most Interesting City For New Art
That’s what Los Angeles has become, claims Christopher Knight: “Los Angeles has emerged as America’s most interesting and exciting production center for new art. Meanwhile, New York has consolidated its position as art’s primary consumption center. What this dichotomy means for art museums is significant. New York’s museums are ruled by patterns of consumption. Because of it, their contemporary art programming is a shambles — mostly safe, conservative, star-driven, geared toward cultural tourists, oriented toward the bottom line. It’s the art equivalent of popular entertainment, with the museum as Hollywood movie studio. By contrast the most consistently vivifying contemporary art programming will be found in LA, which reflects the city’s prominence as a production center.”
Read The Book, See The Movie (Together)
Publishers are experimenting with pairing classic books with DVD copies of the movies. So far sales have been mixed (and for various reasons). Still, putting books and movie together seems like a smart idea. “Academics used to heap disdain on movie versions of great literature, but no longer. In contrast to their predecessors, many college literature professors today routinely bring films into the classroom to complement the reading of the classics.”
Hermitage Working On $100 Million Expansion
The Hermitage Museum says it will complete a $100 million expansion within three years. The new complex “is a state-of- the-art museum space that will allow us to experiment with different methods of exhibiting art works.”
Oda Named Canada’s New Culture Minister
Canada’s new Conservative government has named Beverley Oda, the first Japanese Canadian elected to parliament as the country’s new minister of culture. “In addition to working at Global Television and CTV, Oda helped launch Canada’s First Multilingual Television station (CFMT), which is now Omni 1. A winner of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal, Oda was also inducted into Canada’s Broadcast Hall of Fame in 2003.”