"Across the nation thousands of actors, musicians, dancers and other entertainment industry workers are losing their health insurance or being saddled with higher costs in the midst of a global health crisis. Some were simply unable to work enough hours last year to qualify for coverage. But others were in plans that made it harder to qualify for coverage...
"Too often, arts-based approaches undermine rather than support equity, as Richard Florida … now acknowledges. … How does one ensure arts-based development avoids this outcome and instead promotes equity?" One of the final reports from ArtPlace America (a ten-year, multi-institutional project researching creative placemaking that ran from 2010 to 2020) offers some promising case studies. - Nonprofit Quarterly
"Theatres, cinemas, museums and other cultural spaces have been shut since France's last full lockdown in October, and … thousands marched in cities across France last Thursday to demand they reopen with social distancing. The Paris march ended with around 50 people forcing their way into the shuttered Odeon Theatre and refusing to leave. Similar actions were seen on...
"A national culture secretary published the decree last week making clear that proposals under the Rouanet Law, which provides funding to cultural projects on a case-by-case basis, will only be considered if they involve in-person interactions and come from regions 'where there is no restriction on circulation, curfew, lockdown or other actions that prevent the realization of the project.'...
Following a consent decree from the Washington Sstate Attorney General's office, Seattle ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets has agreed to pay $9 million in restitution to an estimated 45,000 customers at both ends of the company's business model: ticket buyers owed refunds and event organizers owed box-office revenue." - The Seattle Times
Since U.S. schools began closing down roughly a year ago, the country’s children have been adapting, learning and getting creative with how they use technology. The realities of their day-to-day lives vary wildly, as have their relationships with screens. - Washington Post
The occupation began Thursday; on Saturday, Culture Minister Roselyne Bachot went to visit the out-of-work culture and tourism workers, who want to know when theatre can start up again. "Among their demands is another year of special government aid for seasonal theater workers, who often struggle to make ends meet but have been particularly crippled since the virus hit....
Does anyone believe them? Hm. The Time's Up Organization tweeted a reaction: "On behalf of the many artists who look to us to hold the HFPA’s feet to the fire on the racism, disrespect, misogyny and alleged corrupt financial dealings of the Golden Globes, we need to see specific details, timetables for change, and firm commitments. The right words...
It's not great. "COVID has led to a sort of existential crisis for me working in journalism. When some of your readers claim that any facts you present that are inconvenient to their personal narrative are proof that you’re embedded in a conspiracy, you can only take so much of that before you start to question whether or not...
"Critics no longer have the power to make or break an artist’s career. Rather, art critics depend more and more on maintaining friendly relationships with artists, galleries, and publicists in order to consistently secure paid work. In other words, art critics today seem less “in the middle” between artists, dealers, and public than tailing all three." - Hyperallergic
Now that the bans are reversed, immigration lawyers who work with artists, including Ashley Tucker, director of programs at the Artistic Freedom Initiative in New York, will turn their attention to applications for visas and refugee status by artists who were on their radar but stood no chance during the last four years. - Artnet
"We have evolved to be clever enough to create massive amounts of choice in every field, but I, for one, have yet to evolve enough to know how to best make the necessary choices." - The Guardian
Under the current Phase 4 of Gov. Pritzker's five-phase plan, indoor gatherings are limited to a maximum capacity of 50% or 50 people per room, whichever is lower. That makes sense for restaurants, bars, multiplex cinemas and possibly even Chicago's storefront theaters — but, Chris Jones points out, the Auditorium Theater, Orchestra Hall, the Civic Opera House, and other...
When the Brooklyn Academy of Music hired Katy Clark as its new CEO, the board wanted her to live in Brooklyn, where real estate prices were higher than in the upper Manhattan neighborhood she was moving from. So they gave her $968,000 toward the price of her new home — a figure well over 2½ times her $355,000 annual...
Adelaide’s festivals were luckier than most. On the final Friday of last year’s season it was announced gatherings of more than 500 would be banned the following Monday. The air that weekend was eerie. The crowds were small and uncertain. Being out was a risk – but no one knew how big or small. - The Guardian
