“At a time when many cities are basing their long-term hope on exploiting their traditional dominance in arts-related industries, the suburbs are beginning to provide some serious competition for both patrons and donors. This evolution has its roots in basic demography and economic trends. Since 1960, more than 90% of all population growth in America’s metropolitan areas has taken place in suburbia. Today roughly two out of three people in large metropolitan areas live in the suburbs.”
Tag: 01.18.05
Dance In The Tube
Britain’s Rambert Dance Company takes to the London Underground to perform and stimulate interest in dance. “The response of tube passengers to yesterday’s performance was diverse. Some, clearly uncomfortable with their close encounter with cutting-edge choreography, stared intently at their knees. But most seemed delighted by what appeared, at first glance, to be a team of unusually graceful plumbers.”
Humana Chooses Festival Plays
The Humana Festival has chosen the six plays for this year’s festival. All the dramatists whose work appears in this year’s festival arrive with accolades already in hand, and many have NYC connections.
Record Russian Box Office
Russian movie box office was up 41 percent last year. “Russians spent 7.5bn roubles (£143.5m) at cinemas between November 2003 and November 2004. The most popular film was the Russian sci-fi thriller Night Watch, which became the highest-ever grossing Russian film with takings of £16m.”
Licitra On The Move
“Salvatore Licitra is one of several looking to fill the voids left by two of the Three Tenors, and he’s making it look easy. Though he’s still establishing himself in major opera companies, he’s already on his first recital tour. His commitments to the big opera companies of the world now go through 2009. Besides being one of the world’s most promising singers, he’s probably the most fun. He hasn’t been famous very long – for that matter, he hasn’t been singing all that long – and as hard as he tries, his lips stay only partly buttoned.”
Toronto’s Theatre Sound Like A Shopping Directory
Toronto’s theatres are taking on corporate names. The latest is the New Yorker Theatre, which is becoming the Panasonic Theatre. The company reportedly paid $4 million for the deal, spread out over 10 years. “The theatre’s lobby alone will be equipped with $250,000 worth of state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment from Panasonic, including its latest 65-inch high-definition plasma TV.”
Fox Censors Out Cartoon Butt (We’re Scared Of The FCC)
The Fox network is censoring out the butts of cartoon characters now. “Fox felt it had to pixelate the bare bottom of animated tot Stewie in an episode of “Family Guy” that aired a couple of weeks ago. When Fox ran the episode about four years ago, before Janet Jackson exposed her breast at the Super Bowl, endangering the moral fiber of American youth, it did not blur the shot of Baby Stewie’s behind. ‘FCC guidelines are not clear; we are now second- and third-guessing ourselves’.”
Rock Ruled (In The Past, But No More)
Once, rock music was the dominant format of American radio. Not any more. “With baby boomers switching to other formats and younger listeners increasingly bypassing radio altogether, once-dominant rock stations are withering and in some cities dying.”
Back To The 80s (We’re Talkin’ East Village)
New York’s East Village was an art phenomenon of the 1980s. But, writes Peter Schjeldahl, “there was something toxically facetious about the East Village versions of avant-gardism and la vie bohème which heralded a shift to arch self-consciousness in American culture. But the half-cooked epoch was significant in ways that merit closer consideration than it has received.”
Morocco Opens World’s Largest Movie Studio
Morocco now boasts the biggest film studio in the world. “Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and Rome’s famed Cinecitta Studios have teamed up to create CLA Studios, which stretches over 371 acres with two shooting stages of 19,380 square feet each. Bigger than any studio in Hollywood or Europe, the site will be able to accommodate two major movies a year.”