An unusual village of ice and snow scultures has risen in northern Finland. Teams of architects and artists have created it, and the project’s curator “believes the show has spawned technical and artistic breakthroughs in what can be done with snow and ice. But more daringly, he hopes to demonstrate that artists and architects can work together in an environment, on a scale and with a material alien to most of them.”
Blog
The Sampling Debate – Legalities Aside…
Internet protests over Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album” last week show that “there’s really no way to resolve the legal issues surrounding sampling. It’s a subjective thing: It makes sense for Vanilla Ice or P. Diddy to cough up some cash and a co-writing credit when they appropriate “Under Pressure” or “Every Breath You Take” more or less in bulk to build another song, for example, but does a single snare loop or sampled “Yeah!” from an ancient funk record deserve to be treated the same? Where do you draw the line?”
The Weight Of Keeping Balanchine Alive
“Since Balanchine’s death in 1983, the company he founded has been run by Peter Martins, the former star who has been responsible for teaching a new generation of dancers the works of one of the 20th century’s greatest innovators. Beloved as he was onstage, Martins’s backstage role has made him a lightning rod for blame. Throughout his tenure, critics have complained that the Balanchine repertoire has faded, has lost its vitality. When the vibrancy of a performance appears to dim, it’s not as easy to renew as colors on silk and tulle.”
Dance Fans: The SF Chronicle Wants To Hear From You!
Since dance critic Octavio Roca left the San Francisco Chronicle a few months ago, the newspaper hasn’t had a staff dance critic. And it currently has no plans to hire one. This week one of the freelancers who’s been helping fill the beat raised an alarm on an online dance BB that the Chron was eliminating dance coverage altogether. Not so, writes Chron editor David Wiegand: We have no intention of cutting dance coverage. But “since Octavio left, I have received all of two letters about the fact we haven’t yet been authorized by the Hearst Corp. to hire a new dance critic. That’s rather sad, don’t you think?” Sounds like an invitation to me…
In RoadTrip: End Of The Tour
Sam Bergman on tour with the Minnesota Orchestra: “There are those who would say that it’s foolhardy to schedule back-to-back concerts in Scotland and Finland, that the odds of everything going right with the travel, the cargo, the instrument trunks, the time change, and the weather are just too slim. These cynics are unquestionably right, and we needed every ounce of good luck we could get today for this concert in Lahti to come off as planned…”
Iraqi Art To Go On Tour
Plans are being made for a world tour of Iraqi art treasures. “The travelling show, provisionally entitled ‘The gold of Nimrud’ is being planned as a blockbuster exhibition that will include hundreds of Assyrian objects from Iraqi museums. It will embark on a three- to five-year international tour beginning in early 2005. If all goes according to plan, the show will visit eight to 12 cities in Europe, the US, and Asia.”
The Barnes In Limbo
The judge considering whether or not the Barnes Collection should be allowed to move to Philadelphia has put the brakes on the proceedings. On January 29, “The judge said he was ‘hamstrung by the total lack of hard numbers in evaluating these proposals,’ calling the construction price only a ‘guesstimate.’ There had, he said, been no architectural plans, feasibility studies or proformas projecting the Philadelphia project’s success or the costs of maintaining three separate locations.”
Land Of The Free – US Government Warns Publishers About Books From Iran
Iran has a rich tradition of literature, yet Americans see little of it. If the American government has its way, they’ll see even less. The US government has “warned publishers they may face grave legal consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the enemy.”
Revising The Birth Of The Blues
In the popular mythology of the blues, Robert Johnson has been credited with a pivotal role in creating the music. Yet a new book suggests that Johnson was really a minor figure, and that his “primacy was largely a creation of white fans and music critics of the 1960’s. “Very little that happened in the decades following his death would have been affected if he had never played a note.”
An Attack On French Intelligence?
Members of France’s intelligentsia have risen up to complain that the French government is attacking the country’s “intelligence.” “Underneath the polemics, as usual, lie money and politics. The protesters say that President Jacques Chirac’s government has been trimming cultural, educational and scientific budgets to the detriment of the country’s ‘intelligence.’ While the government has a solid majority in parliament and the Socialist opposition is in disarray, the intellectuals are using next month’s nationwide regional elections to get attention.”