“The New York City Opera has commissioned Charles Wuorinen to compose an opera based on Brokeback Mountain, the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx that became the basis for a 2005 movie that won three Academy Awards.”
Tag: 06.08.08
Kennedy Center Reaches Out For Nine Regional Dance Companies
“With all the big international groups we bring in, it’s getting harder for us to sell the regional companies of America. It’s important to see these wonderful companies; some of them have never been here before, like my alma mater, the Kansas City Ballet. I wanted to have them all, but I couldn’t give them each a full week; this is a way that made sense for them and for us.”
Orchestras Adopt A New Recording Model
“The era of the commercial classical record label is past. These days, if you are an orchestra and want to record, you do it yourself.”
A Plea To Preserve Movie History
The fire at Universal Studios las week “I hope, will prompt Universal and its fellow majors to better preserve not just key titles but also the other 90 percent of their inventories, the less famous and therefore more vulnerable titles that the studio may not feel justify spending thousands to save. These are exquisite samples of 20th-century American culture and deserve to always be seen in their extravagant, sensual, big-screen glory.”
Two Climbers Use Architecture As A Jungle Gym
by climbing the New York Times building Friday. “The pair of incidents also introduced a new word to the pop-culture lexicon: “buildering,” which means to scale a piece of architecture without any equipment. (It’s adapted from the rock-climbing term “bouldering.”) There is, not surprisingly, a whole series of websites devoted to the obscure hobby, including buildering.net, on which by Thursday night the message boards were buzzing with news of Robert’s latest conquest.”
Misunderstanding The “Butterfly Effect”
“Translated into mass culture, the butterfly effect has become a metaphor for the existence of seemingly insignificant moments that alter history and shape destinies. Typically unrecognized at first, they create threads of cause and effect that appear obvious in retrospect, changing the course of a human life or rippling through the global economy.” But “the larger meaning of the butterfly effect is not that we can readily track such connections, but that we can’t.”
Canadian Funder: Reward Hit TV Shows
“Canadian broadcasters that meet certain targets – which have yet to be determined, but would likely be based on TV ratings – would see their eligible funding increase each year. Those that fell short of the Hit Factor would see their dollar amount decrease.”
Tipping Point? Musicians Find Life Better Away From Major Recording Labels
“Acts with large audiences and established brands like Radiohead, Madonna and the Eagles no longer need the labels’ star-making clout. They have calculated that they can do better, and have more options, outside the old system.”
A Way To Make Shakespeare Profitable
“The limited run on Broadway wasn’t a preordained hit. About 20,000 people saw the show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before the transfer. Laced with video imagery, Soviet-style military costumes and blood, it originated at the Chichester Festival Theatre in West Sussex, south of London. The cast was almost entirely British, and the move to Broadway required a waiver from Actors’ Equity.”
Dance – Taking It To The Streets (And TV, And…)
“It seems as if every channel worth its programming salt, from broadcast networks to TLC, Lifetime and Bravo, has trotted out a dance-based reality show. As an unexpected side effect, street dance is now being popularized through television and on the shows’ Web sites, and newer moves are being documented and codified in a way not seen before.”