“Nearly a decade after “The Producers” introduced the $480 ticket to Broadway, V.I.P. pricing has established itself in the ledgers of rock ‘n’ roll. This summer Justin Bieber fans can pay $350 to attend a pre-show soundcheck. For $800, Christina Aguilera will pose for a picture. (For $900, Eagles fans get dinner but no photo-op; most packages also include plenty of swag.)”
Tag: 05.23.10
In Search Of the Real African Dance
“Actually, the term is often applied to mean West African dance alone. That geographical area has a particular resonance: many slaves in America were taken from West Africa. Yet who thinks that everyone across West Africa dances alike? And what about the rest of Africa?”
Charleston Symphony Musicians Reject Contract
“Charleston Symphony Orchestra musicians have rejected the terms of an interim agreement meant to keep the symphony in business for the 2010-11 season, saying it would have decimated salaries and severely cut the number of scheduled performances.”
Is Twitter Wrecking The “Reality” Show?
“Instantaneous media are simultaneously building buzz and spoiling reality TV. The intentionally raw medium relies heavily on spontaneity, or at least something resembling spontaneity, and doesn’t pack the same punch without Never Before Seen Footage or the Most Shocking Elimination Ever.”
Giant Ship In A Bottle Sails On To Trafalgar’s Fourth Plinth
“The giant wax seal in the neck of the bottle ‑ large enough for the craft workers to crawl through to work on the model ‑ reveals the artist: YSMBE, Yinka Shonibare MBE. Although it looks like a giant playful joke on millions of seaside souvenirs, the ship is a surprisingly faithful tribute to the admiral whose monument overshadows it.”
Thai Film “Uncle Boonmee” Wins Cannes’s Top Prize
“A supernatural-laden drama about a dying man who takes a mystical journey, the film had won the hearts of many critics and festival-goers when it screened last week, but most experts believed the prize would go to one of a group of Cannes veterans, including Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Abbas Kiarostami and Mike Leigh, all of whom had well-received films.”
A Competition To Find Most Beautiful Tweet Ever
“The host of literary heavyweights to descend on the Guardian Hay festival may be more used to reviewing substantial literary works, but messages of 140 characters or fewer are set to share the festival stage this year in the search to find the most beautiful tweet ever written.”
Michael Kuchwara, 63, Longtime AP Theatre Critic
“A well-liked and stalwart presence on the New York theater scene, Kuchwara had reviewed for the AP since 1984. As more and more newspapers opted in recent years to cut on-staff theater critics and run reviews from wire services, Kuchwara’s notices, read in hundreds of publications, gained increasing prominence.”
Is Google Too Powerful?
Google is the “arbiter of every single thing on the Web, and it favors its properties over everyone else’s. “What it wants to do is control Internet traffic. Anything that undermines its ability to do that is threatening.”
Putting God In Ballet
“It wasn’t always this easy to find God at the ballet. Back in 1986, when Kathy Thibodeaux started Ballet Magnificat, the nation’s first Christian ballet company, people told her it was a big mistake. Two professional touring companies, a school and a growing international reputation later, the naysayers are forgiven.”