The Ashton Side Of Balanchine (Or…)

“The Lincoln Center Festival’s Ashton Celebration has reintroduced the British choreographer to the American audience for dance, an audience for whom Balanchine has long reigned supreme. This renewed interest in Ashton may spark a fruitful exploration of what the 20th century’s two foremost geniuses of classical dance choreography have in common—and what makes each distinctive.”

Contemp Theatre Fest Places American Character On The Table

The 14th annual Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia is all about character. “The menu at this year’s festival, one of the few across the nation devoted entirely to new work, offers a variety of perspectives on a country divided against itself. From the racially driven pessimism in Lee Blessing’s playlets to the terrorism-fueled paranoia of Stuart Flack’s “Homeland Security” to the lighthearted culture clash in Richard Dresser’s Little League comedy “Rounding Third,” the writers invited to the campus of Shepherd University find their voices by tracing the fault lines in the contemporary American character.”

A Caravaggio In Hiding?

“A painting sold at auction for £75,000 three years ago could be worth millions after experts authenticated it as a work by Italian master Caravaggio. It had been sold at Sotheby’s in New York in 2001, where the catalogue listed it as the possible work of 17th Century artist Carlo Magnone. But Sotheby’s remains “adamant” that the painting is not by Caravaggio.”

Flamboyant SF Arts Czar Resigns Arts Commission

Stanlee Gatti, the “irrepressible arts advocate and event designer to the rich and famous” has resigned as president of the San Francisco Arts Commission. “He steered the agency during the boom years of the 1990s, when an unprecedented number of public artworks, paid for by the 2 percent cut public art gets from the budget of every new civic project, appeared around the city: 57 permanent pieces, including installations at the airport by noted artists such as Vito Acconci and Ned Kahn, Robert Arneson heads along the Embarcadero and a score of temporary installations by big names like Bill Viola and the late Keith Haring.”

What Happened To The Summer Concert Business

It died, that’s what. “A midyear business analysis just released by the trade publication Pollstar concludes that “For reasons that are still unclear, the bottom seemed to fall out of the concert market in mid-April. All three major concert promotion companies and several prominent independents reported a sudden drop in sales of anywhere from 15 percent to 50 percent.”