Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel Gets (Mostly) Out Of The Covering-Culture Business

“With the exception of art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher, nearly the entire Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff responsible for covering arts and culture have decided to take the contract buyouts offered to them by the newspaper’s parent company Journal Communications Inc, including music and dance writer Tom Strini, theater critic Damien Jaques, books editor Geeta Sharma-Jensen, broadcast media columnist Tim Cuprisin, and pop music writer Dave Tianen.”

Bharatanatyam Boom: Indian Classical Dance Catches On

“It’s hard to think of anything less obviously appealing to your average primary school pupil than the exhausting and obscure art of bharatanatyam. Routines include separate movements for the eyes, eyebrows, neck, shoulders, wrists, arms, torso, thighs, knees and feet, to narrate the action and convey emotions.” With some similarities to ballet, it “is an ancient and integral part of southern India’s Carnatic classical music tradition.”

Oregon Symphony Loses Its Children’s Outreach Program

“The instruments that kids in small towns around Oregon used to hit, rub and scrape as part of the Oregon Symphony’s award-winning outreach effort went quiet this summer. … The Roseburg-based Ford Family Foundation, the program’s primary funder, suffered losses to its endowment and declined to continue paying the program’s $150,000 annual cost.”

A Second Portland Dance Institution Teeters On The Brink

Just a few months after Oregon Ballet Theatre staged an emergency fundraising campaign that saved it from bankruptcy, the downtown modern dance studio Conduit “has reached the same situation. … [The center] needs to raise $15,000 by Aug. 31 to keep its doors open. That doesn’t sound like much. But Conduit’s yearly budget is only around $45,000.”

O’Keeffe Museum Puts Elementary School On Notice

“Officials of The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe complained recently about a ‘GOK’ logo proposed for the [Albuquerque, N.M.,] school’s new facade, and about T-shirts that said ‘Georgia O’Keeffe Kindergarten.’ E-mails from the museum warned of possible trademark infringement and suggested that fees may be required for some uses of the name. … The school has borne O’Keeffe’s name since it opened in 1988.”

Why Music Mags Are Doomed

“I’m going to leave aside the question of whether Blender and Vibe somehow deserved their undoing, via editorial missteps or poor business-side decisions, and whether Rolling Stone and Spin deserve their present difficulties. Criticisms attach to every title, and while such factors play a part in the music-mag death march, they’re negligible when considered alongside three bigger problems that cut deep and wide across the medium.”

Awkward Timing For Merce’s ‘Legacy Plan’

“In June, the choreographer announced an initiative called the Living Legacy Plan that would safeguard his work and provide for a smooth transition of assets in the event that he should no longer be able to serve as leader of his New York-based dance company. It was an innovative move in a career marked by innovation. But with Cunningham’s death Sunday, his foundation finds itself in the difficult position of having to fund the $8-million plan as it simultaneously goes into effect.”