“The ballet world in France – and beyond – is still quivering with indignation about a report leaked last month on the ill-treatment of children at the dance school of the Opéra National de Paris. The report said that the boarding school, one of the oldest classical dance schools in the world, operated a regime of ‘psychological terror’. Injuries were ignored; anorexia was common and even, implicitly, encouraged. The pupils, aged from eight to 18, known affectionately as ‘little rats’, lived under a permanent threat of expulsion to goad them beyond their mental and physical limits. The report has provoked an interesting and passionate debate in France. Is the Paris Opéra school cruel to children? Or is it classical dance itself that is cruel?”
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The World’s Largest Contemporary Dance Center
“The Laban Centre for Movement and Dance – is the sort of building that forces a smile. It comes from the wonderful optimism of an organisation that, in the unprepossessing surroundings of New Cross, has grown to become the largest school for contemporary dance in the world, has found £22 million to create a new building, chosen to stay in Lewisham and had the nerve to commission one of the world’s most interesting architectural practices to design something that will be a beacon for south-east London.”
Scotland’s Arts Crisis
Scotland was supposed to be in the middle of a “Golden Age” for the arts now. And yes, theatres and concert halls are full. But underneath there’s a crisis. “Devolution was supposed to herald a golden age for the arts in Scotland, but there has been no cultural renaissance. Plans for a Scottish national theatre have stalled, numerous arts organisations are being forced to cut their creative output to make ends meet, and there are fears of a talent drain to England, where regional theatre is benefiting from £25m worth of government funding.”
Performers’ Unions Discuss Merger
The main American actors’ unions are discussing a merger. The Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists are metting to decide if a combined union would give them more clout. “Shifts in our business dramatically impact SAG and AFTRA’s strength at the negotiating table as well as their ability to protect and improve members’ interests.”
The Boat Has Sailed On Scottish Arts
“Scotland’s new government missed its historic chance to boost the arts; and now its error has been compounded by spectacular increases in arts spending in England – an 81 per cent cash increase since 1997, compared with 32 per cent in Scotland, further enhanced by the spending associated with the major push by Newcastle, Liverpool and other northern cities to be named European City of Culture 2008 – which in turn has led to fears of a new cultural exodus from Scotland to the south.”
Are People And Machines Cozying Up?
“A scan of recent academic titles reveals an abundance of books drawing on what might be called ‘the cyborg concept’ – the idea that people and technology are converging and merging, perhaps even already inextricably fused. What was once a speculative notion about the shape of things to come has become a normal part of the conversation, at least in some quadrants of scholarly life.”
American History In Sound
The first 50 recordings to be named to a new American National Registry of Sound have been chosen. “The registry, which began life yesterday with 50 inaugural inductions, is meant to call attention to the problems of preserving this country’s recorded legacy. The recordings chosen include significant troves of folk music, famous speeches, ethnographic recordings and a few representative classical, jazz and pop selections that are already widely familiar to audiences. The recordings were required to be more than 10 years old and be culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
The Oscar Pirates – For Your Consideration…
Police in the UK have seized tens of thousands of illegal copies of the latest Lord of the Rings movie. Where did the copies come from? From an Oscar voter. Copies of the film were sent to Oscar judges with strict warnings not to copy them. But the illegal copies include a “for your consideration” Academy Award message that pops up every 15 minutes, indicating it was a judge’s copy. “These direct digital copies were a much better quality than traditional pirated movies, which are usually made using a handheld video camera to record the film during a screening.”
The Sam Mendes Formula
Diretor Sam Mendes has earned cachet for the plays he directed at Donmar Warehouse, the “flashy and successful London theatre” he co-founded a decade ago. He “knows, in his post-Peter Brook way, that the play is not the thing; the star is, no matter how ill-equipped he or she may be for the exigencies of the stage. He knows, too, that the theatre nowadays is to movies what jazz is to pop music: it has a certain cachet, but few prefer it to the populist-minded alternative.”
America’s Hurting Libraries
American public libraries are in a funding crisis. “We can no longer afford to be silent about the drastic cuts forcing libraries to close early, lay off experienced staff, eliminate periodical and book budgets and reduce programs and services. Library services have gone up dramatically as the economic downturn has kicked in. That is creating a funding nightmare.”