World music artists are cancelling U.S. tours left and right, in part because of the difficulty of obtaining visas in the post-9/11 world, but also out of fear of how they will be received in a newly isolationist and paranoid America. The fact that many world music artists have been active in anti-war movements at home is adding to the pressure to cancel, and musicians are increasingly aware of “rumblings from arts presenters… who [feel] that a newfound xenophobia might be on the rise.”
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Fighting Numbers With Numbers
The Detroit Institute of the Arts, facing an uncertain financial future in the wake of a proposed 72% cut to Michigan arts funding, has released a study designed to hammer home the point that the arts give back more to the community than they take out in tax dollars. The study claims that the recent DIA exhibit “Degas and the Dance” brought $15 million into the local economy, but some economists are already saying that the study uses a flawed formula. Such arguments are commonplace among arts organizations facing governmental cuts, but few seem to think the economic-stimulus argument will cut much ice at the state legislature.
Public TV Exec Leaps to BBC
“In a major disappointment to management at [Boston public broadcasting powerhouse] WGBH-TV, John Willis – the station’s vice president of national programming – announced yesterday that he is stepping down in June for a senior position at the BBC. Willis, a celebrated British filmmaker and former television executive in Britain, is leaving WGBH after just a year on the job.” WGBH produces many of the programs which air nationally on the PBS network, including This Old House and Evening at Pops, but the station has struggled in recent years to compete with a growing universe of specialty cable channels.
FCC Debates Media Dereg
Top figures at the Federal Communications Commission are sparring over the right way to approach further deregulation of the American media industry. Both sides agree that further loosening of the rules regarding media ownership is desirable, but there is disagreement over the extent of the deregulation, and the formulas which would be used to calculate ownership limits in a given market. Still, the debate is largely over small sub-issues, and nowhere in the upper echelons of the FCC is anyone giving any credence to the notion (generally accepted by press and public) that media deregulation has been disastrous from the point of view of the consumer.
Music, The International Peacemaker
In Rome, hundreds of student protesters calling for an end to the war in Iraq tried to disrupt a university performance by the famed La Scala Opera Orchestra, under the direction of Riccardo Muti. Rather than cancel the concert or forcibly remove the protesters, Muti addressed them directly, saying “The musicians you see seated here have been touring the world since 1996 in the name of peace.” The protesters apparently conceded the point, sitting quietly for the first part of the performance before leaving the premises.
Global CD Slump Gathers Steam
Consumers worldwide are buying less music, according to industry representatives, with CDs particularly hard hit. “Sales dropped by 7% around the world last year after a 5% dip in 2001, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).” Naturally, the industry says that the number one reason for the slump is the proliferation of illegal downloading sites and the inability of the industry to stay ahead of the pirates. In particular, the U.S. “suffered a 10% drop in album sales in 2002, mainly because fans were getting the music from the internet instead, the IFPI said.” Of course, it’s worth noting that the severe economic slump in the U.S. may also be contributing to the problem.
SARS Fears Cancel Tour
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, one of the UK’s most prestigious ensembles, has cancelled a long-planned tour of China scheduled for next month, due to health concerns surrounding the global outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. SARS is believed to have originated in China, and there is still much uncertainty surrounding the size of the outbreak there, due to information which was withheld by Chinese medical authorities. The BBC-SSO’s tour “would have been one of the most extensive Chinese tours undertaken by a western orchestra.”
Paul Taylor/Mark Morris Explained
Joan Acocella looks at two modern masters. Paul Taylor is seventy-two, “and he has made more than a hundred dances, but one dance keeps reappearing. It goes like this: The dancers are a kind of community (we’re not sure what kind), and they perform maneuvers that they are very earnest about, and which look like rituals. This is somewhat comic—they think they’ve found an explanation of life. It is somewhat tragic, too, for the same reason. Mark Morris, on the other hand, is more abstract. “It has always been something of a mystery how Morris, who is a very sophisticated artist, and largely an abstractionist, became such a favorite with the public. One reason is that he’s often funny. Another is that he’s clear.”
Movie Flight To Canada Hurts Cities Like Chicago
“While it has been much publicized that the loss of the commercial film business to Canada and other countries, known as ‘runaway production,’ has hurt movie production in Los Angeles and New York, a recent study by the United States Commerce Department found that it had been devastating to the much-smaller film markets in Chicago and other cities between the coasts. Since 1985, 57 feature films with Chicago backdrops have been shot in Canada. The director of the Chicago film office estimates his city has lost $1.9 billion and 17,000 jobs from the local economy.
Milo Cruz’s Excellent Week
Playwright Nilo Cruz has had a good week. “Over the weekend, at the Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky., Mr. Cruz, a 42-year-old Cuban-born New Yorker, was awarded $15,000 by the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for his play ‘Anna in the Tropics,’ which had been anointed by the American Theater Critics Association as the best play of last year not to have been produced in New York City. Then on Monday Cruz won this year’s Drama Pulitzer – in a “rather large surprise in the theater world.”