Category: issues

After burning down (for the third time) in the 1850s, “the theatre was reopened in time for the coronation of Tsar Alexander II in 1856 – and [had] not been renovated since.” (Filling in the space under the auditorium with concrete in the 1950s did ruin the acoustics, though.) By 2005, “there were fears the building would collapse completely.”

“Things that were once available only to the biggest customers are made available to the masses. In the case of ticketing it was Madison Square Garden or the New York Yankees, but today any event large or small can have just as robust an offering for selling and managing tickets.”

Orange County’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts “presented 359 performances in its four venues from July 1, 2010 to June 30, with total paid admissions of 470,853. That compares to 273 performances in 2009-10 and paid attendance totaling 414,418 – increases of 31.5 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively.”

“Brooklyn’s old Bushwick neighborhood has quickly become a new world-class arts mecca — with music, dance, sculpture and theater bursting from defunct warehouses and desolate streets where gangs still roam. That hasn’t kept artists away from the affordable, industrial spaces — ever more rare in a pricey city.”

“What’s changed is the definition of ‘middlebrow’. In the 1970s and 1980s, people were eager to see touring ballet companies and Martha Graham, lighter orchestral concerts and well-known classical stars: Yehudi Menuhin, Jessye Norman, composer Aaron Copland conducting programs of his own works. Today, there’s no longer much of a market for ballet and opera company tours. And orchestra concerts are not the draw they once were.”

“If arts and creativity are crucial to the city’s evolving identity and economic growth, some local arts leaders question why the city eliminated the independent Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, or DOCA, in June, merging it into a new city agency known as Arts & Venues Denver.”

“The journalist and writer Anya Kamenetz once said that graduate students are ‘really smart suckers,’ and I – as a Ph.D. who teaches at a liberal arts college – couldn’t agree more. … Now I’d like to suggest a plan for reforming higher education in the humanities that could, someday, make graduate education a responsible, ethical option for … students everywhere.”

Remember when Brazilian president Lula Da Silva appointed superstar Gilberto Gil minister of culture? Peru’s new leader, Ollanta Humala, has followed suit, selecting Latin Grammy-winner Susana Baca for that nation’s culture ministry. Baca will be Peru’s first-ever black cabinet member.

“Despite the fact that the vast majority of Haitian children grow up hearing and speaking exclusively Haitian Creole … the minute they start school they are forced to start all over in a language they don’t know [i.e., French].” Says MIT professor Michel DeGraff, “Haiti will never be able to rise to its potential if you have 90 percent of Haitians who cannot be instructed properly.”

“The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009.”