Category: issues

The announcement follows a study comparing arts in London, Shanghai and New York. “Figures reveal that London has 55 major theatres, compared to New York’s 39 and Shangai’s 19, and stages 17,285 theatrical performances annually – nearly 5,000 more than New York. The capital also presents 10,000 more music performances each year than the American city, with a total of 32,292, and hosts 200 annual festivals.”

The National Association of Youth Theatres was set up in 1982 as a development agency for youth theatre practice in England. Officials at the organisation claim the cut could not come at a worse time, considering that only last month culture secretary Andy Burnham pledged to ensure that children participated in five hours of arts each week.”

“For the English, Eric Weiner claims, happiness is an American import based on silly, infantile drivel. What the British like to be is grumpy, and they derive a perverse pleasure from their grumpiness. British life is not about happiness; it’s about getting by, he says.”

The have been “several recent incidents involving controversial art in the higher education setting. In all of the cases, issues of safety or security or politics are raised by those questioning or limiting art — while others are in turn raising concerns about academic and artistic freedom.”

Among the findings: “An interest in a performing art leads to a high state of motivation that produces the sustained attention necessary to improve performance and the training of attention that leads to improvement in other domains of cognition.”

The good news in Virginia is that, in a tough budget year, the state Commission for the Arts isn’t expecting to see its allocation cut. But Virginia arts groups have come to depend on a separate system of grants from the state that may soon be barely funded or zeroed out entirely.

Arts leaders in Tampa Bay have big plans for an arts center that would stabilize local institutions and hopefully boost the area’s national profile. But two years after organizers conjured a vision of a Floridian cultural mecca, “that vision is seemingly coming apart at the seams.”

“Nineteen of St. Louis’ largest theaters and museums will share information about their audiences in hopes of boosting tickets sales and memberships. The database of the arts, called DART, is the brainchild of the Regional Arts Commission and is similar to the cross-sell model that has worked so well for Amazon.”

Fisk University “tried to break up and sell part of the Alfred Stieglitz Collection of modern art, given to the university by Stieglitz’s widow, renowned painter Georgia O’Keeffe,” but a judge ruled that O’Keefe’s rules prohibited such a transaction. Now, some are hoping that the ruling might actually bring Fisk together with Nashville’s wealthy elite to put the school on firmer fiscal footing, without selling a bunch of art.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg defends the city. “We are moving in the right direction. We will hold them accountable for teaching the arts just as we have established holding them accountable for English and math.”