Category: issues

Michigan arts groups will be getting less money from the state than they were promised a year ago. But after initially proposing huge cuts in cultural spending, the state legislature reconsidered and put back some of the money. So is it a cut or an increase? Depends on who you’re asking.

In Philadelphia, “there are literally no music or art teachers in the city’s middle and high schools – even though music and art are core curriculum subjects with minimum standards for instruction.” As in so many American school districts, the withering of Philly arts education comes down to money.

“Lack of sponsorship, commitment and infrastructure in some Southern African countries contributed to the demise of the arts festival meant to create a mutual understanding among the people of the region.”

“Lack of sponsorship, commitment and infrastructure in some Southern African countries contributed to the demise of the arts festival meant to create a mutual understanding among the people of the region… The cost of holding these festivals was unbearable to most member states, while the idea of accommodating the private sector in funding the festivals was not taken up by the corporate world.”

“Affiliates will be able to create online alerts about upcoming events, directing visitors to ticketmaster.com. Affils will have access to the company’s search buttons, banners and link engines.”

For years, St. Paul, Minnesota arts groups clashed over use of the city’s Ordway Center for the Performing Arts. Now there’s peace and cooperation in the air…

“The China Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe features dancers who cannot hear, others who cannot see. There are blind singers and musicians as well as performers with physical deformities: a vocalist with spina bifida. A dancer without arms. The group has performed worldwide, including in New York and Los Angeles, often to standing ovations.”

“Brett Sheehy, 49, now running the Adelaide arts festival, and a former director of the Sydney festival, will lead the 2009 and 2010 Melbourne festivals. MIAF’s current artistic director, Kristy Edmunds, presided over two festivals deemed not highbrow enough by some critics, not mass-market enough by others. Her third, which included more world-famous artists, was more kindly received.”

“The productivity of the recent talks between the opera and the ballet signals a decisive shift in relations between the tenants, which alternate seasons at the State Theater.”

“While both the Department of Education and the federal government identify the arts as vital to a good education, the grades — and the standardized testing approach — fail to acknowledge the central role subjects beyond reading and math play in a child’s education. Arts education may very well be the ‘incomplete’ in these report cards.”