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Doing Britney One Better

Meanwhile, over in the world of pop music, the marketing of sex has never been questioned as a way to sell records, and a new teen-pop act from Russia is provoking howls the likes of which haven’t been heard since Britney Spears first donned a schoolgirl outfit to pout and kick at the camera. But really, hasn’t pop pushed teen sexuality as far as it can go? What’s left to shock us? Well, meet Tatu, the teenage exhibitionist lesbian pop duo. Oh, and they sing, too.

Changing The Way We View Art

Back in 1999, Malcolm Rogers made himself rather unpopular with his staff at Boston’s Museum of Fine Art, when he consolidated several departments, and even let a few long-tenured employees go. “The radical restructuring made international news in the art world as Rogers dismantled curatorial fiefdoms and folded decorative arts into American and European painting departments. Rogers’ rallying cry was ‘One Museum,’ where curators would work together to display artworks in different media and incorporate work from other cultures and historical periods that served as influences. Paintings, sculpture and decorative arts would be displayed together so that objects could ‘speak’ to each other. Now Rogers’ revolution is starting to evolve in the galleries.”

Martha Graham – Back From Hibernation

So had the Martha Graham Company survived its time away from the stage? “The good news is that the tremendous effort that’s gone into keeping the company together and bringing it to this level of performance has paid off: This is not yet great Graham, but it’s intelligent, ambitious and often satisfying. There’s a platoon of young dancers devoted to what they’re doing; you can see it in the expressive and energized corps. In certain works — Dark Meadow, for one — the corps is now the strongest element. But then the famous Dark Meadow, with its step-right-up-and-stroke-me phallic impedimenta, is looking dated these days.”

The Spacey Factor

Actor Kevin Spacey is to become “director of a new, permanent Old Vic theatre company, which will stage shows for eight months a year, leaving the theatre open to other groups, such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, for the summer months. The Oscar-winning actor, 43, will star in two productions a year, as well as directing shows and tempting stars keen to follow the growing Hollywood tradition of taking pay cuts for prestigious outings on the London stage.”

The Arts Of Protest

Increasingly, artists seem to be speaking up about politics and the looming war with Iraq. “I don’t think it’s an accident that in totalitarian societies they always arrest the artists first, though we don’t seem particularly dangerous. I think the responsibility of the artist, each of us in our way, is to tell the truth. And the truth generally involves a great deal of ambiguity, and in times of war ambiguity and paradox are the first things to go. People want simple black and white answers.”

Old Vic On The Rise

News that Kevin Spacey is going to help lead London’s Old Vic Theatre is just the latest of the theatre’s high-profile news. “The Old Vic now stands bang at the centre of the celebrity, glitz and charity nexus. Its board is an awesomely terrifying display of the new establishment. It is well connected, glitzy and hot. All it lacks are shows. This strange anomaly, a furious amount of excitement, spectacle and glittering noise around a peculiar emptiness, is not so surprising since it is so resonant of the age we live in. And the Old Vic, more than any of our theatres, has always reflected the age it lived in back to itself.”

A Yank In London

Kevin Spacey “has become such a fixture of London life that he felt compelled to reassure people that ‘in no way should this decision be viewed as abandonment of my own country.’ Asked whether his commitment to the Old Vic had limits, he said, ‘It could be 5 seasons, it could be 10, it could be 20’.”

No New Copyright Legislation Likely This Year?

Tech and entertainment industry leaders say they don’t expect new bills On copyright law to be introduced in Congress this year. It’s possible that copyright issues have become become so murky that they lack consensus among various industries and “would keep Congress from acting on significant mandates. Initiatives likely to stall include those requiring electronics firms to install controversial copy-protection devices, restricting peer-to-peer file sharing or expanding the rights of consumers to copy their favorite movies and music.”

A Virtual Culture Online (And It’s Evolving)

More than 500,000 people are paying $13 a month to participate in a virtual world role-playing game. They choose characters and interact with other players. An interesting thing has happened – a culture is evolving in the game, an economy is being built, and the complexity of the game system is such that anything a player does impacts others. “The intriguing part is that most players expand their assets and abilities not through violence or chicanery, the modus operandi of a typical single-player computer game, but through virtual market transactions.” Economists are fascinated…