Chicago is teeming with theater groups, and in recent years, a lively subculture of theaters performing in semi-converted grocery stores and abandoned warehouses has sprung up, to the delight of audiences and critics. But many of the performance spaces are not even remotely up to city building codes, and “2003 may be remembered as a year not unlike 1999, a year in which the city cracked down, hard, on small theaters operating without a license… Unless the city streamlines the process by which a small theater can open its doors legally and affordably, 2003 may be remembered as the year the pendulum swung too far – and Chicago theater never quite recovered in full.”
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Melbourne’s Building Boom – Slums In Waiting?
Melbourne has been on a building boom, luring thousands of new residents downtown with a wave of new apartment construction. This is slowing growth of the suburbs. But there’s a downside. “We are building what will become ghettos of poor quality, cheap, badly built, high-maintenance houses in the sky. These towers will form an urban and social blight within 10 years that will scar the tissue of the city. They are badly built and unsuited for renovation. They will most likely be demolished when their investment use-by date is up.”
Dancing For Two
Dancers are more or less expected to exhibit a flawless body type at all times, and dancers who do not conform to the classic “look” are frequently nudged out of the spotlight, or out of the profession entirely. So when a star dancer at a major American ballet company chooses to continue performing while pregnant, as Julie Kent of the American Ballet Theater did this fall, it is a big story. Kent says it was an easy decision: “If I had chosen not to dance, I think I would have been wondering why — you’re not injured, you’re not sick, and there’s nothing that different about you except your waistline’s growing.”
A ‘Pocket Of Classical Resistance’ In The Deep South
“The defensive posture of classical music these days has been much argued. But in the face of folding orchestras, diminishing finances, vanishing record sales and retracting audiences, there exist stubborn and imaginative pockets of resistance determined, for example, to put string instruments into the hands and ears of children. The University of South Carolina, now a model for the rest of the country, is doing work here that may at best keep the violin a mainstream instrument and at worst provide it a permanent niche. It will not be allowed to become an antique.”
Good Marketing, Or A Legacy Diminished?
The Montreal Symphony Orchestra is currently marketing the heck out of a new Christmas CD it recorded with Quebec singer Bruno Pelletier. To date, the disc has sold over 100,000 copies, which has Arthur Kaptainis despairing for the orchestra’s reputation. “Pelletier is a voiceless wonder in the Helmut Lotti tradition. Splashy arrangements by Simon Leclerc cannot disguise the ghastly mediocrity of Pelletier’s singing, which is not even reliably in tune… If there is a musical equivalent of blasphemy in Quebec, this is surely it.”
Human Creativity vs. Human Crisis
“Are we as a species really on the razor’s edge between salvation and destruction? How does this impact the creative spirit of our generation?” Ben Tripp has had these and other fairly weighty questions on his mind of late, especially as the world appears to have settled into a near-permanent state of Global Crisis, which makes it fairly hard to concentrate on such niceties as Art. Still, we know from past experience that “the springs and freshets of Art will bubble up to wet the stoniest ground, if you must put it that way. But are all great works accomplished in the face of hardship, or can I get a massage?”
Whatever Happened To Using A Couple of AAs?
Apple iPod users are, let’s face it, a bit over-the-top in their love of the device, which is, let’s face it, just a jukebox with a long memory. Still, many iPod users claim they couldn’t live without theirs, which has caused some consternation of late, because as it turns out, the rechargable battery packs that power the little boxes of joy can run down after a year or so. No problem, you say? Just pick up a replacement pack, you say? Good thought, but Apple doesn’t actually sell replacements, and the company has been telling users to shell out $300-$500 for a whole new iPod when their batteries run down. One jilted user was so angry that he’s made a film about Apple’s betrayal.
Is The Pen Mightier Than The Playstation?
You can hardly turn around these days without encountering some public scold decrying the influence of violent movies, video games, and television shows on the behavior of the public at large. At the same time, you rarely hear anyone threatening to slap warning labels on books, lest any susceptible souls take them seriously. But literature has long influenced some of the world’s most notorious crackpots, (the Aum Shinrikyo cult took some of its ideas from an Isaac Asimov novel,) and such notorious terrorists as Timothy McVeigh are known to have worshipped at the altar of a terrifying book of hate called The Turner Diaries, not at the game console of Grand Theft Auto.
Pop Opera Comes Full Circle
When Bugs Bunny first appeared in a cartoon as the protagonist of a spoof of The Barber of Seville, the public roared with laughter, but classical purists rolled their eyes at what they saw as the bastardization of Great Art. Decades later, with classical music becoming an endangered art form, and pop culture occupying an ever more important role in society, the Vancouver Opera is using the cartoon to promote their more traditional performances. “You might call this missionary work. From a company with a million-dollar debt, teetering a few years ago on the brink of bankruptcy, Vancouver Opera has transformed itself into a debt-free, community-conscious, grassroots purveyor of an art form once associated with social elitism and a disdain for everything Bugs Bunny stood for.”
The Once And Future Toronto?
There was a time when Toronto was one of the world’s intellectual centers, writes Philip Marchand, a gathering place for the study of what used to be called “arts and letters,” and there are those who believe it can be again. But as Canada embarks on a supposed ‘new direction’ under Prime Minister Paul Martin, one has to wonder about the priorities of the new PM and his countrymen. With the University of Toronto deemphasizing many of its less ‘glamorous’ departments and the country as a whole seemingly under-interested in the pursuit of studied thought for its own sake, can Toronto really be on the intellectual comeback trail?