Tag: 04.17.00

INDEPENDENCE DAY

Independent films are hot: “Suddenly the blockbuster culture, the belief that only big money thrown at big screens can work in a popcorn-eating world, feels threatened by the “indie” insurgents, massing on the skyline as if in a John Ford Western. Should the moguls offer battle or a peace pipe?” – Financial Times 04/17/00

A LUDDITE ART

“As theater artists ponder the future of their form, they return again and again to the idea of longing – and to language that seems to have more to do with the bedroom than the stage. Technology, which promises to bring drastic changes to the arts in terms of style and substance, will affect theater, too, of course. But at root, theater is a Luddite art, one that rests on the same equation as in the days of Sophocles: The theatrical relationship between performer and audience, like the relationship of lovers, depends on being in the same place at the same time.” – St. Louis Post-Dispatch

WE’RE SORRY, YOU’RE FIRED, NOW PLEASE GO AWAY

Alberta Ballet ended its season Friday in controversy. The company fired Barbara Moore its “most senior” dancer. “In what superficially looks like an uncanny replay of the now famous fight between the National Ballet and the soi-disant prima who won’t go away, Kimberly Glasco, Moore, 31, has launched a wrongful dismissal suit against the company that has been her dancing home for the past 15 years.” – National Post (Canada)

  • Also: A CHILLING EFFECT: Fifty prominent Canadian artists sign a letter protesting a judge’s ruling reinstating dancer Kimberly Glasco’s job at the National Ballet of Canada after she was fired. – CBC 04/17/00
  • Previously: WHO’S THE BOSS? A Canadian judge has ordered the National Ballet of Canada to reinstate principal dancer Kimberly Glasco, who was dismissed by the company earlier this season. James Kudelka, the ballet’s artistic director, said that Glasco wasn’t dancing as well as she once did and that she didn’t fit with his artistic vision. Glasco sued for wrongful dismissal, saying she’d been fired for criticizing Kudelka’s plans for a new “Swan Lake.” – CBC 04/10/00

MUSIC SALES UP

Sales of recorded music worldwide were up 1.5% last year to $38.5 billion, according to the annual report from the Int’l Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The number of recordings sold 3.8 billion – stayed the same however. The US – the world’s largest music market, accounting for 40% of the total – had its fifth straight year of growth, posting an 8% rise in value and a 5% increase in recordings sold, with online sales making up 2.4% of the total. – Variety

GOT A RIGHT TO STREAM?

A lawsuit being heard in New York this week could determine how consumers can access their personal music files over the internet. Paul McCartney and two other plaintiffs claim that “MP3.com created an illegal database by purchasing CDs and uploading that music onto MP3.com’s servers. Users who signed up for the service and who called my.mp3.com were then able to stream music from that database to any device that can access the Internet.” – Wired