Category: issues

The Department of Education’s arts budget was $21.5 million in the last school year. The line item pays cultural organizations that find and pay artists to go into classrooms and teach kids how to dance, act, sing, paint, write, and learn all kinds of other creative skills. The arrangement works pretty well because New York City has two things in abundance: public school students and artists with both creative expertise and rent coming due. So business was booming for the city’s 4,500 teaching artists. Then Covid struck. – Gothamist

Volunteer members of an AFTA advisory council on Friday publicly called for Robert Lynch and his senior executives to resign, saying that after three months of working behind the scenes for reform, they realize AFTA is an “organization with no desire to change.” At the same time, current and former staff have alleged that senior leaders “created and condoned a hostile work environment . . . rife with bullying, intimidation, retaliation, and harassment.” – Washington Post

“In an effort to combat cultural displacement and gentrification, the city is taking the rare step of creating a “mission-driven” real estate development company so that it can create, purchase, manage and lease property for arts and cultural spaces — which could include a wide range of venues and organizations, including galleries, bookstores, nonprofit dance companies and cultural community centers. The new entity would likely also develop and manage a new “Creative Economy Hub” on the second floor of the city-owned King Street Station.” – Crosscut

“Cinemas, theatres, museums and concert halls had been set to reopen, but days in advance Prime Minister Jean Castex announced a change of heart in response to France’s stubbornly high infection rate. No reopening will take place now until at least 7 January. … Holding slogans like ‘we’re going to die, and not even on stage’, some of the demonstrators told the BBC of their anger and distress at the lockdown.” – BBC

By harnessing the very technology that once threatened to erase it, the group is renewing interest in the language. Gitxsan communities also have a mobile app, available on both the Google play store and the Apple App store, which they use as a resource for learning the language by listening to stories and spoken words. – Global Voices

In a letter released December 11, members of the Arts Education Advisory Council, an elected advisory board representing arts educators from across the country, outlined a series of demands for Americans for the Arts, including the immediate removal of its most senior leaders. – Hyperallergic

“The City Council passed legislation on Thursday that allows any [city- or borough-] funded artist and cultural organizations, venues or institutions to be able to utilize public outdoor spaces for ticketed events and performances. And any artist and venue can partner with an eligible organization for permits as well.” The program, called Open Culture, begins March 1. – Gothamist