The Fort Wayne Symphony in Indiana has frozen wages for all its employees and is looking at restructuring to fight off budget problems. “A weak economy, lagging ticket sales and a decrease in foundation giving all have taken their toll. The new $4.3 million budget for fiscal year 2003-2004, which projects expenses exceeding income by $219,000, was passed by the Philharmonic board at its monthly meeting Tuesday.”
Blog
The NEA’s Gloomy Forecast For Dance
A new NEA report suggests that “not-for-profit dance companies may see as much as a 30% loss of earned income in the next few years, and even a heavier fall in contributions.”
Size Matters? The Saga Of The Large Bolshoi Ballerina
Volochkova weighs in at just under 110 pounds on a 5-foot-6 frame. How could Bolshoi Ballet star Anastasia Volochkova be too heavy at 110 pounds on a 5’6″ frame? The Bolshoi fired her this week for being too big. “In the anorexic world of ballet, that qualifies her as a virtual Amazon, as one U.S. reviewer called her after a performance at the Kennedy Center earlier this year. And in the conspiratorial world of Russian ballet, her abrupt dismissal qualifies as a scandal of major proportions, flavored by a lively debate over her physical shape, the mysterious public disappearance of her onetime dancing partner and dark hints of shadowy money men quietly pulling the strings from backstage.”
A Festival For The Anti-JLo’s
“In a postliterate age the New Yorker Festival stands as the maypole of a dedicated and ferocious demographic, fanatics who view the author Zadie Smith as far more dynamic and adorable than J.Lo…”
Protesting Scottish Ballet Move
“Scottish Ballet plans to move out of its historic home in Glasgow’s west end and into the Tramway venue in the city’s south side, provoking outrage among the visual arts community. It would mean the closure of the Tramway as an internationally renowned venue. Leading artists and gallery owners described the move as ‘vandalism’ and ‘a tragedy’, and promised a campaign to save it.”
Welcome To The TV Revolution
“Time-shifting has progressed to the point that millions of viewers rely not on a VCR but on a digital video recorder, which makes it easy to find anything on those hundreds of channels and watch it anytime while fast-forwarding through the ads. The revolution that started in analog is now exploding in digital, and suddenly everything about television is up for grabs – the way we watch it and the ads that pay for it, the kinds of programs we get and the future of the networks that carry them.”
Film Critics Just Wanna Have Fun
Rex Reed’s had it up to here with film festivals. “It used to be called entertainment—an element so sadly missing from film festivals that you couldn’t spot it with a telescope on loan from the Hayden Planetarium. This, according to hard-core festival mavens, is as it should be. You go to Cannes or Berlin or Toronto, they remind you, to see innovative visions of the world you will never see again, not the standard Hollywood fare coming soon to a shopping mall nearby. I’ll buy that, but doesn’t anybody have any fun anymore?”
Lining Up Against The FCC
The coalition opposing Michael Powell and the FCC’s new relaxation of media ownership rules is as broad as any issue’s ever seen in Washington. Yet despite a Senate vote to block the new rules and wide opposition, Powell is still intent on pushing ahead. But the battle’s not over yet…
Booker: A Surprising Year
This year’s Booker shortlist is something of a mystery, eschewing plenty of big names. “All but one of the big names in fiction, including that of Martin Amis, once the darling of literary London, were culled. Instead, the judges came up with one of the most surprising lists in the 35-year history of the prize. It includes the highest number of both first novelists – three – and women writers – four.”
US Congress Votes Insurance Increase For Museums
The US House of Representatives has voted to substantially increase the amount of insurance available to US museums to insure artwork borrowed from abroad. “The indemnity program, administered by the National Endowment for the Arts on behalf of the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities, was created in 1975 to minimize costs American museums pay to insure international exhibitions. Unlike standard commercial insurance, government indemnity covers the effects of terrorism both in transit and on site. The program has been flooded with requests from museums trying to organize ambitious international shows at a time when insurance costs have risen as much as 500 percent.”