Category: issues

New York City Opera is among the arts groups in consideration for a new cultural center at the World Trade Center site. “Other groups competing to relocate to the site include the Joyce Theater Foundation, the Signature Theatre Co., the Children’s Museum of the Arts, the Drawing Center, the Museum of Freedom and the New York Hall of Science, the agency said. The list released Tuesday was narrowed from 113 interested institutions who responded to a worldwide invitation last summer.”

The Sacramento City Council votes to help the city’s opera and ballet companies financially. “Both the Sacramento City Council and county Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to grant the Sacramento Ballet a dollar for each dollar it pays of a $362,000 consolidated loan from 1989 and 1995, without interest. Over the next decade, the ballet will donate half that amount in tickets and arts programming to underprivileged audiences. The Sacramento Opera will pay half of a $76,781 loan from the city in the same manner over five years.”

The Sacramento Opera and Sacramento Ballet are asking their city to forvive loans to the companies. “The Sacramento Ballet will appear before the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors with a proposal to be forgiven a dollar for each dollar it pays on a $362,000 loan, without interest. The Sacramento Opera seeks to repay a $76,781 loan from the city in the same manner over five years.”

The US government is continuing to make it difficult for foreign artists to perform in the United States. Last week, visas were denied for Cuban musicians invited to the Grammy awards. And other musicians hired to perform in the US are finding they can’t get their visas sorted out in time. (second and third items – scroll down)

The editor of the Shreveport Times has some interesting ideas on how to “improve” his paper’s arts coverage: Starting immediately, “the Times will no longer do reviews of plays, symphonies, ballets and art shows. The Times will expand and improve its arts coverage during the coming year. These last two sentences are not mutually exclusive. Not running reviews does not mean The Times is cutting back on its arts coverage. We want to improve it.”

Arts groups in Toledo, Ohio are selling plenty of tickets these days. But that isn’t protecting the bottom line. “Some of Toledo’s best-known regional arts and community assets – from black-tie traditions to avant-garde artists – are working in a new medium: red ink. At least four of the area’s major venues have posted a string of deficit years, according to records they’ve filed with the IRS: the Toledo Opera, the Arts Commission, COSI, and Citifest.”

Iraq’s intellectuals are being targeted and killed. “By silencing urban professionals, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a spokesman for the occupation forces, the guerrillas are waging war on Iraq’s fledgling institutions and progress itself. The dead include doctors, lawyers and judges.”

Linda Winer was, like many arts lovers, stunned that George Bush wants to increase the National Endowment for the Arts’ budget by $18 million. “So why, when important segments of the GOP are complaining about Bush’s election-year spending spree, would the president dare to wave millions of NEA dollars at Congress? Sorry, but I cannot keep from fearing that the new elevated visibility of the NEA will put artists right back in the crosshairs…”

In Cleveland, county commissioners are trying to get more money for the arts. “The Cuyahoga County Commissioners resolved that half of the $20 million-per-year property-tax increase would go to arts groups and individuals to protect those jobs, encourage new arts enterprise and stabilize cultural assets that boost the county’s image, attracting visitors and investors. But state law prohibits the arts from being named as a beneficiary of an economic development tax. Because voters won’t see arts and culture mentioned on the ballot, campaign leaders want to make sure they understand that the levy is about both arts and general economic development, especially jobs.”

So arts supporters are cheering George Bush’s proposal to raise the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. Big deal, writes Dominic Papatola. “Even if Bush’s proposed boost isn’t the cynical political maneuver it appears to be — who wants to bet that congressional Republicans don’t have a backroom deal to nix the increase? — the NEA budget will still be $37 million less than its high-water mark. And that’s in nonadjusted dollars.”