Under the plan, Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to hold august institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Carnegie Hall accountable for hiring more members of historically marginalized and underrepresented groups and for making their boards of directors and other leadership ranks more inclusive. But the Department of Cultural Affairs did not set numerical goals for what constituted progress, nor did it require that institutions provide baseline demographic statistics about their staffs. – The New York Times
Tag: 06.26.20
$550 Million In Losses And Expenses, Finds Report On COVID-19’s Effect On New York City’s Nonprofit Arts Sector
Among the major data points: “Ninety-five percent of organizations canceled programs, 88% modified delivery of their programs, and as of May 8th, 11% were not providing products or services to their communities. Small organizations with budgets under $250,000 have been hardest hit. … 11% of organizations indicated that they do not think they will survive the COVID-19 crisis.” – SMU Data Arts
Silicon Valley Gets A New Professional Dance Company
“San Jose Dance Theatre [has] announced that it [is] launching a professional ballet company, as well as a trainee program and a new pre-professional training division. This is good news for San Jose, which saw Silicon Valley Ballet shut down in 2016.” – Pointe Magazine
Canada’s Internet Use Has Surged 50 Percent Since COVID
Since physical distancing measures were put in place across the country, internet usage on Shaw’s wireline network has increased by as much as 50 percent overall, and peak usage periods have climbed to twelve hours a day, every day of the week, instead of the usual three or four hours in the evening. – The Walrus
Cheap Food Is Good, Right? Well Maybe We’re Not Adding Up The Cost…
In a capitalist society, viewed from the point of view of consumers, cheap food looks like an unequivocal democratic good, because it enables people to feed themselves, even on relatively low incomes… The missing part of the picture, however, is that cheap food is also one of the factors pushing large swathes of the workforce into exploitation and poverty. – Times Literary Supplement
How Can A Full Orchestra Place Itself Onstage Safely While COVID’s Still Here? Tokyo Scientists And Musicians Have Been Figuring That Out
Conductor Kazushi Ono and the players of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra spent two days at the Bunka Kaikan concert hall in mid-June with researchers from a university and medical school in the Japanese capital. They experimented with various seating schemes, measuring aerosol spray from the musicians’ faces and working out how to balance hearing each other with keeping each other safe. Ono writes about the results. – Maestro Arts
Kirill Serebrennikov Gets Three-Year Suspended Sentence In Controversial Embezzlement Case
“[The decision is] a surprise legal victory in a fraud case his supporters say was politically motivated and a test of artistic freedom in Russia. Suspended sentences are widely seen as the lightest punishment in Russia’s legal system, which rarely issues not-guilty verdicts. The sentencing was met with applause by the hundreds of supporters gathered outside.” – The Moscow Times
Bolsonaro Names A Soap Opera Star (The Second In A Row) Brazil’s Culture Secretary
“Mário Frias … is the fifth person to hold the role in the 17 months since president Jair Bolsonaro was elected and, like most of his predecessors, Frias has no political experience. … Last month, [Frias] participated in an anti-fascist protest in São Paulo and said that demonstrators were taking part in ‘organised crimes’ and should be considered terrorists.” – The Art Newspaper
How To Save American Theatre: Bring It To TV
No, not like the National Theatre Live performances – more like the 1950s style playhouses. “What I’d like to see is both more modest and more ambitious: a TV series that brings together leading nonprofit theatres to stage new plays appropriate to production in studios without audiences. This may discourage broad comedies and musicals, which thrive on laughter and applause, but it would still allow for a wide range of potential material. Protocols are now being established in Hollywood and New York for studio work designed to protect the safety of cast and crew, and these would make production on this scale possible.” – American Theatre
Reconsidering The Art And Life Of Valerie Solanas
Solanas is most famous for having shot Andy Warhol, of course, but she had an artistic life long before that moment. In the beginning, the writer and Warhol Factory superstar Ultra Violet wrote, “beyond her overheated rhetoric, she had a truly revolutionary vision of a better world run by and for the benefit of women.” – The New York Times