An ugly, months-long saga that saw renowned dancer-choreographer Johan Kobborg – engaged as artistic director in 2014 to bring the ballet company at the Bucharest National Opera up to top international standards – demoted without warning to corps de ballet member, a theatened exodus of foreign dancers (whose Romanian colleagues yelled “Foreigners out! at them), Kobborg first brought back and then barred from the building, and the resignations of two opera house general managers (one after one day) and Romania’s culture minister, is now over. The house’s current (third) interim director, Beatrice Rancea, says that, regardless of what position her predecessors may have offered Kobborg, Romanian law does not permit a foreigner to hold the title of artistic director at the company and that Kobborg refused to stay on with a lesser title. His successor, now “artistic coordinator,” is Italian choreographer Renato Zanella – whose pay, Rancea pointed out, will not be as high as Kobborg’s was. (That was another point of conflict with Romanians in the company.) Another Italian, Marcello Mottadelli, has been appointed music director at the opera house. (in Romanian; Google Translate version here)
What Happens When Small Theaters Have To Start Paying People For Overtime?
“How are the soon-to-be-implemented rules” – requiring that any employee earning less than $47,476 per year be paid extra for working more than 40 per week – “affecting workers and theatres on the ground?” Diep Tran talks to the people in the proverbial trenches.
The Myth Of Millennials As Rebels
“The myth that underemployed, poorly housed young people are joyfully engaged in a project of creative destruction misrepresents our economic reality. But only if we can finally be said to have liberated ourselves from napkins, houses, and sex, will we have given the Boomers something to be proud of.”
Bitter Experience: Theatre Critic Finally Gets Why Regular Middle-Class Folks Don’t Go To Plays More Often
Andrzej Lukowski, theatre editor at Time Out London: “I [now] realise the essential reason theatres are so full of old people is that they don’t have to support their offspring. … There are no theatre access schemes to help out nice middle-class people who happen to be temporarily skint because of childcare, and quite right too. But … anybody who says theatre is for everyone is living in a fantasy land.”
The Pleasures Of Filming ‘Unfilmable’ Novels, By Someone Who’s Done It
Hossein Amini, who wrote the screenplays for The Wings of the Dove, and Drive: “The biggest advantage of adapting an impossible book is that no one expects you to be entirely slavish to the source material. They’re not expecting a filmic replica. … I flatter myself when I say they felt halfway between adaptations and original screenplays, but that’s really a testament to the greatness of the novels. They not only allow you to see something of yourself in them, they allow you to project.”
An Indie Revolution In Crossword Puzzles Gives The NYT Some Competition
A vibrant ecosystem of independent crosswords — “indies” — exists on the internet, its component puzzles multiplying and evolving, finding their niche and trying to find ways to survive. And some of them can outrate the gold standard over at the Times.
Robert Battle’s Been Taking Some Heat At The Ailey Company – And He’s Glad For It
He’s only the third artistic director that Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has ever had, and not everyone has been happy to see him add works like Hofesh Schechter’s bleak and aggressive Uprising to the repertoire of a company whose brand is so tied up with inspiration and uplift. Says Battle, “I can’t imagine living anywhere other than on the edge – that place where you’re understood and misunderstood with the same amount of passion.”
Edinburgh Festivals Boast Another Record Year For Ticket Sales
“The fringe issued 2,475,143 tickets for participating shows across Scotland’s capital, a 7.7% increase on 2015 despite the number of registered events and performances falling marginally on 2015 levels. The Edinburgh International Festival issued a record 169,300 tickets for paying events, posting £4.2 million in sales, marking the first time it has topped £4 million. The number of tickets issued is up from 163,500 in 2015, when the festival posted ticket sales of £3.9 million.”
No. 1 On The Music Charts? What Charts? Measuring Has Become A Mess!
“In recent years the task of tabulating a record’s success and popularity has grown more complicated. What used to be an album sale is now an “equivalent album sale.” Each component — that is a song — of a release — otherwise known as a project — is measured and weighted using industry-approved equations. Simple math? Far from it.”
That Crazy Woman Who Released Hundreds Of Crickets In A New York Subway Car? It Was Performance Art, And She’s Under Arrest
“In case you haven’t seen the viral video of the incident – which, it turns out, was filmed by [her] friends – it is 18 minutes of mayhem.” (And she had considered using cockroaches.) Now that she’s in trouble, she’s very, very sorry.
New Canadian TV Regulations Weaken Incentives To Make Canadian TV
“Canadians who grasp that their money, intended to support Canadian storytelling, is going into the pockets of non-Canadian writers and actors – for-hire players with no connection to Canada – should be infuriated and scandalized. Very few will be in a lather about it, though. The problem for the “creatives” affected by the CRTC decision is multifold.”
Even Ancient Egyptian Mothers Punished Their Rotten, Ungrateful Children In Their Wills, 3,000-Year-Old Document Shows
“The document, called The Will of Naunakht, tells the story of a woman who decided only some of her eight children should be recipients of her estate and clearly disinherits others for not taking care of her in her old age. … Those who contested the will in the future could be recipients of a severe punishment – ‘a hundred blows’ and [confiscation of] his property.”
How The Principles Of Dance Apply To The Corporate World
“I think of the choreographic practice as the embodied movement of ideas through space and time, a definition that holds equally well if you’re making dances for stages (which we do frequently) or if you’re facilitating a difficult meeting. We’re superattuned to how folks perform in organizations, and I mean “perform” on all registers. How folks speak, who interrupts whom, that nobody seems to like sitting next to Ted – these are all important data points for us.”
A Sign Language That Developed On Its Own In A Desert Village, And The Race To Study It Before It Vanishes
“In al-Sayyid, a Bedouin village in a remote corner of Israel’s Negev desert, … out of 4,000 residents, some 150 are deaf … Both hearing and deaf members of the community speak al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, a local language that developed in the village as its deaf population grew.”
President Obama To Guest-Edit Wired Magazine
“[This will be] the first time Wired (or any other magazine) has been guest-edited by a sitting president. The theme of the issue: Frontiers. … For this completely bespoke issue, he wants to focus on the future – on the next hurdles that humanity will need to overcome to move forward.”
Top Posts From AJBlogs 08.30.16
TV Dying, Video Streaming Surging – So This Is How People Are Getting Their News (Uh-Oh)
A flood of stories this week show how TV is dying and video is on the rise. You think changing audience behavior is tough on arts organizations? Try it when you’re a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate like NBCUniversal Comcast or Verizon. … read more
AJBlog: diacritical/Douglas McLennan Published 2016-08-30
The Revelation in Four “Women Modernists”
The Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach has, under director Hope Alswang, strived to increase the exposure to art by women. It is, for example, known for … read more
AJBlog: Real Clear Arts Published 2016-08-30
Thomas Chapin on film, with Trombari in Normal IL
Glenn Wilson, a terrificbaritone saxophonist and flutistbased in Normal, IL, is also a major mensch. … read more
AJBlog: Jazz Beyond Jazz Published 2016-08-30
Tasty details
And so, about Wagner’s orchestration … read more
AJBlog: Sandow Published 2016-08-30
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Competition Director: Music Competitions Are Evil
“The idea of a string quartet competing against another string quartet is perverse, and we go into this knowing it’s a strange paradigm. Like carbon credits in the energy sector, we offset what is inherently problematic with a range of programming and events that make it worthwhile.”
Data Show That MFA’s Might Not Be Worth The Cost
“There is hope for those who hate school: Despite the widespread perception that contemporary art is dominated by an MFA mafia, nearly half of the figures on our list of 500 successful early-career artists either did not have an MFA, or didn’t study art academically at all.”
This Week In Hollywood History: “Wizard Of Oz” Munchkins Were Paid Less Than Toto The Dog
“In 1938, the Munchkins were paid US$50 per week, about US$900 in 2016. Meanwhile, Toto and her trainer earned US$125 per week, which would now equate to about US$2,100 per week. The Munchkin cast never even saw their names in the credits.”
John Cage’s Lifelong Struggle To Earn Money
Frustration is present in Cage’s missives to orchestral and museum directors around the world as he struggles to earn a living and be taken seriously as a composer. For decades, he was his own booking agent and asked people to help underwrite concerts. As well, he pleaded valiantly trying to establish a center for new music at Cornish School, Bennington College, and Mills College—all for naught. Tellingly, he wrote to young composer, “I never made enough money (from my music) to live on until I was fifty. Interrupted my music in order to do odd jobs in order to eat, etc.”
Mounting Losses: Almost One Million Viewers Cut Pay Cable TV In The Latest Quarter
All told, 812,000 pay TV subscribers cut the cord from April through June of this year, according to research firm SNL Kagan. That’s up from the industry’s loss of 625,000 in the same quarter a year ago.
Six Tips For Surefire Creative Success
“As far as I’m concerned, what you create in a 30-seat, hole-in-the-wall improv theater in Phoenix can be far more meaningful than a mediocre sitcom being half-watched by seven million people. America doesn’t need more stuff. We need more great stuff. You could make that.”
An Enormous New Museum Near The Great Pyramids
“The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), a gateway to the history of the pharaohs under construction outside Cairo, is attempting to do the impossible: hold its own next to the pyramids of Giza. Egypt’s ministry of antiquities hopes the gargantuan complex, designed by architects Heneghan Peng, will be built by the end of 2016, paving the way for a 2017 ‘partial opening’.”
‘At A Critical Crossroad’, Pittsburgh Symphony Posts $1.5 Million Deficit
The phrase came from PSO president Malia Tourangeau, “[who] expressed confidence the symphony could get back to black ink, [although] she said it faces two challenges this season that will cost it $1.2 million