Category: issues

“Roughly two months after a board was named to create a performing-arts center at the World Trade Center, the institution has passed two important milestones: It has been granted nonprofit status and hired its first staffer to help bring the institution into being. The new hire is Maggie Boepple, a former president of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.”

“A theatre chair designed for multi-use venues was unveiled this week which its creator claims will ‘revolutionise retractable seating’. The Recital Chair has been launched by theatre seating specialist Audience Systems and aims to combine the comfort levels of a large, padded auditorium seat, with the ability to be stacked away on a telescopic platform.”

“Telling the future can be a risky business. When French seer Nostradamus published his prophecies in the 16th century, he wrote in obscure verses apparently to prevent anybody calling him a heretic. Thai soothsayer Thongbai Khamsri has a more humdrum problem: Lawyers.”

“An unprecedented coalition of 68 groups representing visual artists, performers, writers, composers, musicians and publishers has presented a parliamentary committee with 20 possible technical amendments to Bill C-11, the government’s proposed copyright law, the Canadian Conference of the Arts said on Tuesday.”

“In the next 3 years, the National Arts Centre will lose its heads of English and French theatre and its music director, maybe even its CEO. How will it weather the change?”

“It’s indisputable that the Anglosphere no longer enjoys the overwhelming global dominance that it once had. What was once a globe-spanning empire is now best understood as a union of language, culture, and shared values.”

“The planned museum at ground zero in Lower Manhattan has hit yet another stumbling block as families of some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks have voiced opposition to a plan for storing human remains below the museum.”

“Let’s be clear – booing is not pleasant … And yet booing is also a sign of caring, honest: it’s a sign of direct and passionate engagement that returns us to art’s roots. … Likewise, it’s our responsibility as an audience to appraise, not merely soak up. Applause must be earned.”

The city of Chicago invited its citizens to speak out about the city’s cultural plan – and then stood in shock as thousands of people with ideas both crazy and brilliant packed the open meetings.

“Why do we continue to have so many layers through which the simplest of decisions must pass? Why are more of our trained managers with potentially game changing ideas not empowered to make critical decisions on the spot? Is it because of egos and people “deceived into thinking they have something to protect”? (line from Bob Dylan song: To Ramona). Is it because we really don’t trust the people we have hired and trained? Is it because we are so afraid of failure? Or are we just basically stupid?”