Chris Jones: "There's real evidence now of pent-up demand. Consider what is happening in Las Vegas. Cirque du Soleil, which has emerged from bankruptcy protection and put its famous productions of both Mystère and O on sale last week …, has seen colossal demand for tickets. … Comedian Dave Chappelle sold 13,000 tickets for his July 2 concert. The...
"The 2021-22 budget plan agreed to by the Florida House and Senate and sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis includes $26.7 million in two of the four budget categories that provide allocations for arts and cultural organizations and individual artists. That marks a 24 percent boost over 2020, when the Legislature approved $20.2 million in three categories." - Sarasota Herald-Tribune
The event, a rock concert at an arena in Barcelona on March 27, required attendees to have an antigen test beforehand and to wear masks throughout, but no social distancing was required. Two weeks later, only six audience members (four of whom say they were exposed elsewhere) tested positive for COVID, which extrapolates to half the current infection rate...
"After six months of rotating on-again, off-again closures, restaurants, bars, museums and cinemas opened to the public in most of the country under a gradual reopening plan that is seen as too cautious for some, too hasty for others." - AP
For a supposedly capitalist industry, what the heck? A study found that "America’s film industry is the country’s least diverse business sector and that its systemic anti-Black biases cost it at least $10 billion in annual revenue. Black content is undervalued, underdistributed and underfunded, the analysis found. It also found that Black talent has been systematically shut out of creator,...
At the crux of the matter, there are hints at rottenness that extends far beyond Rudin and his protegés: "Many wondered how artists who consider themselves politically enlightened could be so eager to work with Mr. Rudin, knowing how badly he treated his employees. 'People are acting like the industry is changing, but the fact that someone like Scott...
The Small Business Administration oversees the $16 billion portion that will offer grants to concert halls, theaters and museums. But soon after the process began on April 8, the application portal shut down. The apparent cause? Technical glitches — as in plural. The SBA has said it hopes to reopen the portal by the end of the week. -...
While the "Combating Public Disorder Act" just signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis is most notorious for its provisions aimed at street protests (classifying blocking cars during a demonstration as rioting, protecting drivers who plow into a crowd of protestors from civil liability), it also makes the damaging of any "memorial" (defined as a marker that "honors or recounts the...
"The budget earmarks $300-million over two years to Canadian Heritage to create a recovery fund to combat that drop in employment and support the recovery of those industries. … There's an investment of $200-million through regional development agencies for major Canadian festivals, and an additional $200-million through Canadian Heritage for local festivals and cultural events, including outdoor theatre." There's...
"Last week, City Manager Marcus Jones recommended that the city take over arts funding from the Arts & Science Council, which has managed the funding process for decades. Jones's plan would see the arts and cultural groups receive $12 million per year from the public and private sectors — a 50% hike from a proposal the council has been...
That view is to see the rise of Substack and podcasting and Bandcamp for musicians who want to escape the tyranny of the record labels and streaming platforms—supported and enabled by other services like Stripe and Patreon and Kickstarter—as a kind of Distributism for artists and knowledge workers. - Hedgehog Review
"How do you support artist relief, raise money, how do you help people still feel like they haven’t disappeared? It has been a huge effort. When I posited the idea of how best to create continuity with what we have in a rapid economic decline, , “Why don’t we just stop because everything stopped?” No, we have a moral...
The initiative, called Arts 77 (referring to Chicago's 77 neighborhoods), takes in multiple programs spread over several departments of the municipal government. Along with plans to bring performance and visual work to parks, libraries, and other neighborhood locations, Arts 77 will see the annual budget for public art rise from $100,000 to $3 million — with an extra $3.5...
Since Raúl Castro's government had recently had another period of censoring art and arresting artists, there's some hope — off the island, at least — that there might be a Khrushchev-style cultural thaw coming. In Cuba itself, not so much: "Nothing has changed," says one artist, "nor does there seem to be a will for change within the new...
Struggle without class analysis results in the many empty institutional statements and surface-level concessions we’ve seen across the United States this past year. Class politics is less concerned with pushing for that first Black or female artistic director as it is in asking why we have to constantly fight so hard to include those people in the first place....
