The National Endowment for the Arts seems to be politically free of trouble these days. “NEA Chairman Dana Gioia gives the NEA’s foes a challenge they’ve never encountered before: a cultural traditionalist running the agency. (Gioia is a poet who has written for publications such as the New Criterion.) ‘I don’t know how you create art unless you love the past.’ Many conservative regard Gioia as one of Bush’s finest appointments.”
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London – Politically Yours
London theatre has turned into a labratory for political ideas. “In the subsidized London theater, where a lengthy, big-cast political opus on global governmental affairs still can pack the house and get the British blood up, talky playwrights David Edgar, Michael Frayn and David Hare get paid to dream how governments would work if they were in charge.”
In Dallas – Ensemble Becomes Ad Hoc
The Dallas Theatre Center was once an ensemble company and the theatre was successful. But in recent years it has abandoned the ensemble model and hired from out of town. “Truth is, for economic and other reasons, the ensemble model has been slowly evolving at many regional theater companies into a looser collection of regular and guest artists. But the ensemble ideal remains near and dear to many actors’ and directors’ hearts.”
What Happened To Dallas Theatre?
There was a time when Dallas was known nationally for its thriving theatre scene. “Sure, there currently is — and has been for decades — lively theatrical activity in the Metroplex. But as the theater communities in cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Seattle grew in the years after World War II, Dallas and Fort Worth stagnated.” The question is why…
In Praise Of London – Cultural Capital of the World
Today’s London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world. “Perhaps the secret of London’s success as a home to so many different nationalities is that is almost impossible to feel foreign in a city where you are likely to hear Cantonese at one street corner and Italian at the next, where your corner shop is run by Sri Lankans and where your minicab late at night is driven by a Nigerian.”
The Morality Police Are Out In Force
What’s up with the puritanical morality that seems now to be guiding American TV execs (and politicians)? “A return to the wholesome, old days when married sitcom couples slept in separate beds, Elvis could only be shot from the waist up and Liberace was merely a flamboyant performer who, for some reason, never married is surely upon us. And indeed, American broadcasters have already taken the hint and begun hastily trimming or rewriting any programming that could be construed as triple-X smut stuff.”
Pittsburgh’s Pioneering Public TV Turns 50
Pittsburgh’s WQED was a pioneering experimental TV station infused with loads of community pride when it went on the air in 1954. In a half century the station has enjoyed premiere status as one of the country’s best public broadcasters and sunk to underfunded depths.
Leipzig Is For Booklovers
The Leipzig Book Fair opens with 1,200 readings. “Readings are what differentiate this booklover’s book fair from its big brother held in Frankfurt each year. Almost 2,000 publishers and editors from 28 countries are presenting their latest spring program. Because the fair’s literary readings are closely followed by literature fans and scouts from publishing houses on the lookout for new talent, authors will be seeking contact with publishers and the reading public.”
Bands: The Internet For Fun And Profit
More and more bands are discovering that the internet is their friend and that digital downloading can help promote sales of recordings and concert tickets. “Whereas once the record industry sold 90 percent of its records to 15 percent of the U.S. population, digital distribution has paved the way for more people to participate in music than ever before, whether making, distributing or consuming it.”
Mark Morris – Of Dance And Music
It’s impossible to separate Mark Morris’s choreography from music. “His extraordinary dance vocabulary is arguably matched only by his breadth of musical tastes. He began, in a way, in two different dance and musical worlds, simultaneously studying Spanish folk arts (after he saw a Jose Greco concert at age 8) and classical ballet. Thus began an eclecticism so vital to his eventual role as versatile post-modern experimentalist, though he, not surprisingly, rejects labels.”