Category: issues

The University of San Francisco has the first department in the US “to integrate performing arts curricula and social justice ideology. No, this is not some Left Coast, New Age, Jesuit-communist pedagogical scheme.” The program has teamed up with “the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, to develop Man. Alive. – a performance of stories based on the testimonies of four incarcerated men.”

“Over the last half-millennium, measures to defend creative property have repeatedly proved counterproductive — not just because individual pirates themselves escaped, but because those measures triggered public reactions against their own proponents.”

At the Ohio city’s DeYor Performing Arts Center last weekend, “a buildup of snow and ice on the roof led to a collapse of some of the building facade and the fire escape. The fire escape and loose bricks are considered a major concern.” Inspectors have found no structural or interior damage and have approved use by performers and audiences.

One proposal in a multi-pronged city council initiative “would excuse artists from having to pay the city’s annual business license fee unless their earnings topped a certain threshold.”

“[W]e should be asking why … 40% of graduates entering the cultural sector do so through working unpaid – not least because it has massive implications in terms of access. It immediately discounts all those who can’t afford to work unpaid, and particularly disadvantages those whose family home doesn’t happen to be near London….”

In this economy, “the list of US cultural casualties is large and growing,” while Irish arts have seen major cuts, and France’s “cultural powerhouses boomed” even as “lesser-known institutions, often outside Paris, had their funding slashed.”

Michael Billington: Jeremy Hunt’s “proposals for the arts, under a putative Tory government, leave me cold. They may look plausible on paper but they don’t stand up to close examination. First, there is the little matter of history.”

Jeremy Hunt’s two-year “charm offensive reaches its climax today – with the publication of the Conservatives’ arts manifesto. … So what of the contents of the Tory arts manifesto? In reality, the stated arts policies of all three major parties are strikingly close.”

Once upon a time, artists competed for Olympic medals. “The animating idea was to award the prizes to work directly inspired by sport — a limitation that may have helped lead to their eventual demise. How many statues of muscle-bound athletes, how many paeans to the glory of manly competition, can the world really be expected to celebrate?”