Scottish arts groups, looking for more funding, are unlikely to get it from the government. “The Scotsman has learned that the best-case scenario under the Executive’s three-year comprehensive spending review is a 2.5 per cent increase in arts funding, barely in line with inflation. The worst is said to be a cut of as much as 10 per cent.”
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Safire: The New Improved NEA
William Safire has had a change of heart about the National Endowment for the Arts: “Remember the hoo-ha a while back about the funding of edgy art, offensive to some taxpayers, by the National Endowment for the Arts? That controversy is over. The N.E.A. has raised a banner of education and accessibility to which liberal and conservative can repair.”
Kiddieporn Charge Shutters London Gallery
London’s Spitz Gallery was shut down on Sunday night after detectives from Scotland Yard showed up in response to concerns by some patrons that a photograph by American Betsy Schneider featured a child in a pornographic pose. The photograph in question is part of a series of shots Ms. Schneider had taken of her daughter, from infancy through the age of 5. The child is nude in most of the photos, but the artist insists that there is nothing pornographic about them. The gallery is reportedly considering its legal options.
Reconsidering the Big Box Approach
It’s been five years since the announcement of a new £22 million arts center for the city of Belfast, and very little progress seems to have been made. For one thing, not everyone in the arts community wants a big, unwieldy, centralized home for the city’s myriad groups, fearing that it will detract from neighborhood-based art. For another, the plans for the center seem as much about revitalizing a run-down section of the city as they do about promoting culture, and many prominent arts groups have already issued a polite “no, thank you” to the invitation.
Playing It Safe In Adelaide
“Stephen Page, the artistic director of the 2004 Adelaide Festival that began on February 27 and runs until March 14, has put together a program that, by importing plenty of foreign acts, is intent on making amends for Peter Sellars’ home-grown, half-baked fiasco of two years ago… Although he defends the American director’s festival as ‘the most cutting edge’ he has seen in its ambition of embracing community, social and regional concerns – ‘it was sloppy; it had no order’. So Page, charged with bringing the the festival back from the brink, which includes regaining corporate confidence and that of the politicians who ran a mile from the Sellars fall-out, has shaped a something-for-everyone program.”
Musical Max – Master Of Music
Composer Peter Maxwell Davies is the ideal choice as the new master of the Queen’s music. “He and Harrison Birtwistle are unquestionably the pre-eminent composers of their generation. Both have wide international recognition and both feel passionately about musical education. Max, in particular, is a wonderful animateur who loves working with children and non-professional musicians – a man of the community and one who galvanises people into action. It is brave of the Palace to go for that kind of distinction even if it risks having to deal with some outspoken comment.”
Should The BBC Lose Its Funding?
A strong majority of Britons would like to see a wholesale change in the way the BBC is funded, according to a new survey. The current system charges a license fee to anyone in the UK owning and using a television, and the funds from that tax go to support the government-backed broadcaster. But with the advent of cable and satellite networks, many of which target the same audience as the venerable BBC, the license fee has become increasingly controversial, and it no longer seems certain to continue in perpetuity.
The Bigger Soprano
Covent Garden’s sacking of Deborah Voigt once again brings up the issue of ample girth in opera. “It has become a cliche to say that we live in an era of ‘director’s opera’, and that it is the producer rather than the singer who now reigns supreme. This is only partly true. Although there is a growing demand for theatrical veracity in opera, any operatic performance that is poorly sung is simply a non-starter. But there was a time when none of this even mattered. Jokes about the disparity between voice and appearance have always abounded, even among opera’s most ardent admirers and practitioners.”
How To Do Shakespeare
As another round of Shakespeare gets underway on Broadway, the directors of this year’s installments share their vision of the Bard’s work through contemprary lenses. Jonathan Miller argues that King Lear is not remotely the “cosmic” play it is often mistaken for; Edward Hall makes the case for his all-male production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Bartlett Sher discusses the importance of establishing a common rhythmic pulse within the cast of any Shakespeare production.
Preservation Through Adulation
More than any other performing art, dance is dependent upon the memories of its practitioners to keep its history alive. There may be an extensive vocabulary used to define the basic positions and steps of classical ballet, but there is no perfect way to write down a dance in order that future generations might dance it again. “Even today, despite the advent of video, a choreographer without disciples is in constant danger of having his work fade away after his death. Video can capture the external form and movement, and notation the positions, but the philosophy and technique of the great choreographers is impossible to get down.”