If states are slashing their discretionary spending on the arts, maybe the way to save arts funding is to use dedicated taxes for the arts. “There is a variety of indirect taxes for the arts, which are more prevalent than we realize and have proven quiet successes. These taxes bring consistent funding for the arts through the back door and are not as much subject to the fate of appropriations-based government support, which can be a real roller-coaster ride.”
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Foundation Spending On Arts Decreases
A new report describes trends in foundation spending on the arts. Last year foundation spending on the arts decreased 3/5 percent to just over $4 billion. “Arts funding accounted for 11.8 percent of overall foundation grant dollars in 2001; nearly nine out of ten foundations in the sample supported the arts in 2001; and museum activities received the largest share of grant dollars in the 2001 sample (34 percent), followed by performing arts (30 percent).”
Lesbian Impact On NY Dance?
There was a time not long ago when New York’s dance scene was not hospitable to lesbians. That’s all changed, though “identifying a lesbian in dance can be harder than finding a heterosexual man. While anecdotal estimates of the number of gay men working in the Manhattan dance scene hover between 80 and 85 percent, the idea of coming up with an equivalent percentage of dykes seems laughable. But despite their dearth in numbers, lesbians impact the field in lasting ways.”
Brazil’s Flourishing Culture In A Times Of Political Challenge
Brazil is a country much occupied by political challenges. Yet the country’s culture is vibrant and diverse and challenging. “In the city’s 80-odd venues, you find international commercial hits – what Araujo calls ‘fast-food theatre’ – such as Beauty and the Beast and Grease. But there is also a wide range of alternative theatre at amazingly low prices. The most intriguing venues come under the acronymic title of SESC. There are six of these scattered around Sao Paulo; they are multi-purpose arts and leisure centres housing theatres, galleries, sports facilities, internet cafes and meeting places. They are financed by a small tax levied on workers in retail trades, and are available to the general public.”
Crossover Christian
The new Christian music doesn’t conform to a particular style. “A new crop of bands on Christian-owned labels, many playing Christian-owned clubs, has appeared. Unlike their forebears, who made weak imitations of already-popular music as a way to spread the Gospel, these new bands are making original, high-quality music and attracting fans for their sound, not their message. The Christian-rock underground is now as much a steppingstone to mainstream success as any other music scene.”
Gotta Dance! (But It’s Getting Tougher)
Dance companies in New York are suffering as money gets tighter. “Ticket sales are down. Tour bookings – the lifeblood of many companies – are even weaker. Even large arts presenters and the spaces they control have been asking companies to lower their engagement fees.”
Numero Uno In New York
What’s the top-rated radio show in New York? Howard Stern you say? That’s sooo yesterday. No, the city’s No. 1 show is on Spanish-language radio – Luis Jimenez on ‘La Mega’ (WSKQ/97.9-FM), whose ‘El Vacilón de la Mañana’ (which roughly translates to ‘The Morning Party’) beats Stern at his own style. “What gets me is that people think that just because the show is in Spanish, [our ratings] somehow don’t count. But we see it as an even bigger victory for a Spanish show to be No. 1 over a Howard Stern.”
Poetic Hospitality
Where’s the real action at a literary festival, asks Lynn Coady? In the hospitality suite provided for writers. “The really big writers never let themselves be lured by the corn nuts and beer, but the place is always seething with poets, who understandably live for (and sometimes because of) these events. This makes the hospitality suite one of the more interesting places to be at the festival, countless times more interesting than the ersatz discussion panels promising penetrating accounts into The Writing Life or illuminating and in-depth discussions among Writers in Conversation.”
Toronto: It Takes Money To Get To The Next Level
If Toronto wants to get to the next cultural level, says a new government report, the city must increase its per capita spending on the arts to $25 from its current $14.64. “Culture Plan for the Creative City, commissioned from the city’s culture division 18 months after the province created the amalgamated city of Toronto, contains 60 recommendations designed to push the Ontario capital “to the next level” following last year’s commitment of almost $240-million from the federal and provincial governments to capital works for the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Canadian Opera Company, among others.”
Genius Or Buffoon Con Man?
Two of the hottest opera tickets this summer are Peter Sellars productions. Sellars is a high concept guy. “Much of Sellars’s talk tends to abstract generalisations. ‘I am more interested in the periphery than the centre. Places with no centre, like Los Angeles, are both more chaotic and more democratic’ is typical. When I asked him about what happened in Adelaide, all he said was, ‘People flip out about the fires in Australia, but the Aborigine tradition is that you have to burn off the land to regenerate’.”