Tag: 02.27..04

Dance Fans: The SF Chronicle Wants To Hear From You!

Since dance critic Octavio Roca left the San Francisco Chronicle a few months ago, the newspaper hasn’t had a staff dance critic. And it currently has no plans to hire one. This week one of the freelancers who’s been helping fill the beat raised an alarm on an online dance BB that the Chron was eliminating dance coverage altogether. Not so, writes Chron editor David Wiegand: We have no intention of cutting dance coverage. But “since Octavio left, I have received all of two letters about the fact we haven’t yet been authorized by the Hearst Corp. to hire a new dance critic. That’s rather sad, don’t you think?” Sounds like an invitation to me…

Iraqi Art To Go On Tour

Plans are being made for a world tour of Iraqi art treasures. “The travelling show, provisionally entitled ‘The gold of Nimrud’ is being planned as a blockbuster exhibition that will include hundreds of Assyrian objects from Iraqi museums. It will embark on a three- to five-year international tour beginning in early 2005. If all goes according to plan, the show will visit eight to 12 cities in Europe, the US, and Asia.”

Alexander: Jerry Seinfeld Has Made $1 Billion In Residuals For “Seinfeld”

The stars of Seinfeld have made a deal that will allow the release of DVDs of the series. Jerry Seinfeld’s three costars had been complaining because they had been cut out of royalty payments for the series. “I’m not ashamed to talk numbers. I would say in the years that we’ve been in syndication, Julia, Michael and I have probably individually seen about a quarter of a million dollars out of residuals, whereas our brethren have seen hundreds of millions of dollars. Seinfeld has a profit of over a billion dollars.”

Monty Python’s Spamalot Headed To Chicago, Then Broadway

A musical is being made of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The movie, a spoof of the legend of King Arthur, did have a few songs — most notably ‘The Camelot Song,’ which contained such famously dubious rhymes as ‘We’re Knights of the Round Table/We Dance Whene’r We’re Able,’ as well as the line that inspired the title of the musical spinoff: ‘We Eat Ham and Jam and Spam a Lot’.”

The Media “Indecency” Wars Heat Up

A Florida radio host is fired and his station might be fined $750,000 for “indecent” programming. Howard Stern’s show is pulled off the air by six Clear Channel stations. “Cultural conservatives have cheered the moves. But the Stern suspension arrived with little cost to Clear Channel: The often-raunchy show was being carried on just six of its 1,200 radio stations, all in mid-level markets. And some observers say the San Antonio, Texas, company’s moves are politically driven, in direct response to the anti-indecency rhetoric streaming from public officials.”

A String Quartet That Records Everything (And Sells It Too)

For about a year, the Borromeo String Quartet has been recording all its live preformances and making them available for sale over the internet. “We had done enough recording that I had started to learn about the techniques and some of the issues involved. I began to carry around a little suitcase of equipment, a mobile recording unit, to take down our concerts because I thought it was too bad that so many just vanish into thin air. If something went wonderfully, we love to study just how and why it happened. It is also important for us to study what didn’t go so well.”

The Da Vinci Blockbuster (uh…Shouldn’t That Be Leonardo?)

“The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, has been on sale for nearly a year now, and—assuming no unexpected plot twists—it should become the fastest-selling adult fiction title ever by March 18, when its publication anniversary rolls around. Apologies to all the religious-thriller, art-history-driven reading groups out there, but, uh, how the hell did an unknown author writing on an obscure subject make publishing history?”

Moore Selected To Run ABT

Rachel Moore has been named the new executive director of American Ballet Theatre. “Moore arrives at a time when there has been high turnover among the company’s executive directors and questions have been raised by former trustees about the company’s financial health. Ballet Theater’s auditor and company officials say the company is in good shape. This week, the company announced three new corporate sponsors and a challenge grant of $400,000.”

Kennicott: Something “Refreshing” About Sam’s RoadTrip Blog

Along with many ArtsJournal readers, the Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott has been following violist Sam Bergman’s RoadTrip blog. “There is something that is remarkably refreshing, given the sadly hamstrung public relations front that the professional orchestra community presents to the world. There are signs of intelligent life and unselfconscious candor. Bergman found a voice that spoke articulately from inside a world that has become all too reticent, nervous and polished in its nonmusical communication with the public. That his blog, which made the facts of a musician’s life fascinating, should be so successful suggests that the professional orchestral world has become so self-absorbed that it no longer knows what is interesting about its own microcosm.”