The Sacramento City Council votes to help the city’s opera and ballet companies financially. “Both the Sacramento City Council and county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to grant the Sacramento Ballet a dollar for each dollar it pays of a $362,000 consolidated loan from 1989 and 1995, without interest. Over the next decade, the ballet will donate half that amount in tickets and arts programming to underprivileged audiences. The Sacramento Opera will pay half of a $76,781 loan from the city in the same manner over five years.”
Blog
Nazi Expose Suddenly Canceled By Publisher
“The latest novel of Germany’s hot young writer Thor Kunkel exposes the Nazis’ previously unknown trade in pornographic films. Sounds like a guaranteed bestseller. So why has the book’s publisher cancelled it and kicked up a literary storm?”
Surge In UK Preservationists
Britain’s National Trust heritage preservation organization is seeing a surge in membership. “New members joined the trust at a rate of one every 46 seconds last summer, faster than the British birth rate of one every 55 seconds. It now has 3.3 million members, making it the largest organisation in Europe.”
Christ And The Publicity Machine
The stir over Mel Gison’s The Passion of Christ has been prodigious. Christian journalist Lorna Dueck is skeptical: “I’m not sure who’s using whom more, the profit-makers in Hollywood or those with an interest in conversion, but there is unparalleled church energy over this movie, and as a reporter with an ear on the evangelical beat, I’m about to pray “deliver us from e-mail” because I can’t keep up with the buzz that’s hitting my inbox over this film.”
Comcast Makes Bid For Disney
Comcast is making a hostile bid to take over Disney. “The takeover attempt, if successful, would create one of the world’s largest media conglomerates, along with Viacom, Time Warner and News Corp. Disney owns its film studio, ABC television, the ESPN sports network and the Disney theme parks. Comcast has 21 million cable customers and 7 million Internet broadband customers, half of them acquired when it took over AT&T Broadband 15 months ago.”
Pacific Northwest Ballet Directors To Retire
After 25 years at the helm, Francia Russell and Kent Stowell are retiring as directors of Pacific Northwest Ballet. “Arriving from Germany in the fall of 1977, Stowell and Russell found an unhappy, disorganized company, barely more than a school, plagued by internecine warfare.” They turned PNB into one of America’s top ballet companies.
Boston Film Org Calls It Quits
After 28 years of helping local filmmakers, the Boston Film and Video Foundation announced yesterday that it is closing its doors and dissolving the nonprofit organization. The organization had been struggling with funding for some time.
LAX Public Art Roils Protests
A large tapestry with a theme of the 9/11 attack hung at Los Angeles International Airport in late January has sparked waves of protest. “The exhibit, titled ‘Eye-Speak,’ includes images inspired by the attacks, such as a bare-breasted woman holding a bleeding heart with the World Trade Center’s twin towers on fire behind her.”
Sacramento Arts Groups Ask City To Forgive Loans
The Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Ballet are asking their city to forvive loans to the companies. “The Sacramento Ballet will appear before the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors with a proposal to be forgiven a dollar for each dollar it pays on a $362,000 loan, without interest. The Sacramento Opera seeks to repay a $76,781 loan from the city in the same manner over five years.”
British, Swiss Call For Tighter Enforcement On Stolen Art
Britain and Switzerland get together to talk about the traffic of stolen cultural goods. “Governments need to raise the profile of cultural goods to the same level of priority as tobacco, arms and alcohol,” and greater enforcement of borders is key.