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Why Do People Go To Arts Events?

Two new studies seek answers: “For instance, 68 percent of theatergoers surveyed said they attended plays as a way of socializing. Only 36 percent said they went to the theater to gain knowledge. By contrast, 65 percent of those who went to museums said they did so because they strongly desired to learn something new. The study found that a large number of blacks and other minorities attended arts events to learn specifically about their own heritage. Only 15 percent of whites said the same thing.”

Image Overload?

“The average person sees tens of thousands of images in the course of a day. One sees images on television, in newspapers and magazines, on websites, and on the sides of buses. Images grace soda cans and t-shirts and billboards. Internet search engines can instantly procure images for practically any word you type. The question is not merely rhetorical. It points to something important about images in our culture: They have, by their sheer number and ease of replication, become less magical and less shocking—a situation unknown until fairly recently in human history.”

The Challenges Of NY’s Non-Profit Theatres

“The overarching challenge facing New York City’s not-for-profit theatres is the fact that available funding from government and institutional sectors has failed to keep pace with the incredible explosion of not-for-profit companies,” Louloudes stated. “This is a national problem, and the reasons behind it are far more complex than can be presented in a three-minute testimony.”

Nasty Ballroom

“Ballroom dancing has long been a political minefield. In the 1920s, dancing professionals tried to stamp out the ‘freakish’ steps of jazz-inspired crazes such as the Charleston and the Varsity Drag, which threatened to ‘turn the ballroom into a bear garden’. For the editor of the Dancing Times, excessive liberty on the dance floor had produced ‘artistic Bolshevism’. So the Official Board of Ballroom Dancing sanctioned only four official dances – waltz, foxtrot, quickstep and tango – and outlawed illegal steps, lifts and sidekicks.”

Wall Street Journal Editors Defend Tomlinson

Editors at the Wall Street Journal defend former Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Ken Tomlinson. The WSJ developed a new show during Tomlinson’s watch. “We knew Mr. Tomlinson was pushing for the program from his perch at CPB, but our job wasn’t to dissect the internal debates and politics of public broadcasting. That’s too opaque for any outsider, and even apparently for an insider like Mr. Konz, whose report is laced with such weaselly and inconclusive phrases as “the questions involve whether” Mr. Tomlinson “breached his fiduciary responsibilities.” Well, did he or not?”

Vancouver Candidates Won’t Promise Arts Funding

Vancouver’s mayoral candidates were on the hook this week to show their support for arts funding. But they declined to say they would provide for recommended arts budgets. “We are looking at a seven-percent [property] tax increase [if all the staff recommendations for next year are approved by the new council]…. In principle, I support it. But I cannot in advance tell you what the budget is going to be.”