“As director of the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo,” René Blum “tried to rebuild the Ballets Russes of his friend Diaghilev after he died in 1929. Blum poured his energy and money into the company, renamed it the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo, but was plagued at every step by power battles.”
Tag: 07.15.11
London Cultural Olympiad Chairman Talks Up His Shindig
Tony Hall, writing in The Telegraph: “The Cultural Olympiad is a four-year project to encourage people (especially the young) to become involved in arts and culture. It also aims to enable community-led projects to take place that wouldn’t have happened without the spur of the Games. … You may not live in London, sport may or may not be your thing, but this is a way you still get a chance to enjoy the celebrations.”
Pilobolus Dances With Robots
The company’s summer season in New York includes a new work, created with MIT students, for one human dancer and two remote-controlled, T-shaped flying robots with helicopter blades.
Joffrey Ballet Ends Lockout, Reaches Agreement With Dancers
“The dancers of the Joffrey Ballet and the company’s management have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. The dancers are expected to officially ratify the new deal next week, and the company’s fall season … will be presented at the Auditorium Theatre in October as planned.”
Let The Machines Remember (Gives Us More Time To Think)
“I know that in my parents’ time, memorization of huge lists of facts and figures and Shakespearean sonnets was standard, because that was the criteria by which knowledge was judged. But what difference does it really make if I can’t remember when the War of 1812 was?”
UK Drama Schools Pledge To Cap Tuition At £9,000
“England’s leading drama schools are to charge £9,000 as the standard annual fee for UK and EU students for their higher education courses from 2012.”
Budget Challenges Present Arts Institutions With Opportunities For Rethinking Collaboration
“These changes present the cultural sector with the opportunity to think beyond the artificial barriers that have been thrown up in the past between the arts, museums and libraries, and to take a fresh look at the role these institutions play in people’s lives.”
Is Hollywood’s Star System Collapsing?
“Despite the invention of TV, video and the internet, the cinema as an entertainment model has been relatively robust; in fact, the act of going to the cinema as a ”live” experience, like a music concert, is arguably surviving because it cannot be illegally downloaded; and stars are seen as a vital component of this experience. But things are changing.”
Why Universities Have To Change The Ways They Teach (The Students Have Changed)
“This new generation comes home and they turn on their computer and they’re in three different windows and they’ve got three magazines open and they’re listening to iTunes and they’re texting with their friends, and they’re doing their homework.”
Schools Are Replacing Cursive With Keyboarding (And This Is Dangerous)
“It bears mentioning that a child who never learns to write cursive will also never learn to read cursive. The neglected art has already created a generation of schoolchildren, from third graders on up through high schoolers, to whom cursive is a foreign alphabet.”