Category: issues

Since the bombing last November of Pakistan’s Lahore International Arts Festival, “targets have included a cafe belonging to the Peerzada family who stage the festival, and theatres across the city in co-ordinated overnight raids.” Despite the sense that “every time people go out for the evening, there is a danger that was not there a couple of years ago,” the arts are persevering in Lahore, with both artists and audiences united against the fundamentalists who seek to stop them.

“British Columbia’s arts community is in a state of shock following comments made by the Minister for Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Kevin Krueger, that the community is not concerned about the provincial government’s projected 50-per-cent cuts to funding.” Krueger told a radio interviewer that he’s “not hearing complaints at all from the arts and cultural community,” but the community — and even the interviewer — beg to differ.

“The government is to pay a cash premium to help schools coach bright pupils from the poorest homes…. Every school will be invited to nominate pupils on free school meals who are academically gifted or have a talent in sports or the arts to qualify for a £250 annual payment per pupil.” The money is intended to provide students “the additional experiences that middle-class children take for granted, such as theatre trips or extra coaching.”

“Zoë Wanamaker, the actress, has joined the chorus of female performers demanding more money to match the pay packets of their male counterparts. Wanamaker, who stars in the popular BBC sitcom My Family, revealed she had to fight the Corporation for equal pay with her co-star Robert Lindsay and said women were ‘always at the bottom as far as pay is concerned.'”

“Six people were killed in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, on Sunday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a theater as a crowd gathered for a performance.” Prevented by police from entering the building, “the man exploded his explosives beside benches and a fountain in front of the theater.”

“It seems ludicrous to bring up Monet’s race, doesn’t it? Because it doesn’t really matter what his skin color was back in 1908, when, in 2009, we’re standing in front of a 42-foot canvas admiring those lilac and green brushstrokes.” So, asks Kristi York Wooten, “in the age of Obama, … do we need a National Black Arts Festival? Yes or no? If you’re wondering, my answer is ‘Yes’ (make that, ‘Hell, yes!’).”

“The Orange County Performing Arts Center saw “a decline of 43.1 percent in paid attendance, 53.1 percent in ticket revenue and 36.5 percent fewer performances compared to the previous season.” That said, the center “managed to show an operating surplus of $256,000. Still, it faces a deficit of about $744,000 because of last year’s bond market crisis.”

“The money-spinning power of ‘horlla-rü-di-ri, di-ri, di-ri’, the famous chorus of the Kufsteinlied, which is capable of making even the hardiest of lederhosen-clad Germans go weak at the knees, has been keenly felt this week in a Munich courtroom battle over who owns the copyright.”

“Certainly the economy, and the growing public anxiety about the deficit, may yet put a damper on arts financing. But political goodwill toward the endowment is clearly on the rise, and many in the arts world are wondering if Mr. Landesman will be able to lead it, finally, into a new era … Even if Mr. Landesman hopes to strike out on a new path … he may find himself looking to the tenures of [his predecessors Dana] Gioia and [Bill] Ivey.”