“With the news of Merce Cunningham’s death has come a blizzard of wonderful photographic portraits of the dancer in action. He was a great camera subject, often caught in mid-flight, lyrical yet hyperbolic, arrestingly individualistic. To this extraordinary photographic record … I would like to add a small trove of images of Cunningham from around 1946, which unlike so much of what we have been seeing are not products of the photographer’s eye.”
Tag: 08.06.09
L.A. County Arts Funding Takes Only A Small Hit
“The Los Angeles County Arts Commission will distribute $4.42 million in county-funded grants to nonprofit cultural organizations – a 2% belt-tightening from last year’s total.”
MoCA China Founder Spent, Opened, And Fled
“The founder of the short-lived Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) China in Hong Kong left the country soon after the museum opened last autumn, leaving behind massive debts, several sources confirm. Jeffrey du Vallier d’Aragon Aranita, a realist painter, registered the non-profit in 2007 and announced plans to establish a network of non-profit MoCAs throughout China that would share collections and programming.”
Edinburgh Fringe Advance Sales Up 40 Percent Over ’08
“Advance ticket sales for the Edinburgh Festival’s 2009 season have soared by up to 40 per cent, leaving Fringe bosses baffled but delighted. Recession-wary ‘staycationers’, the weak pound, or punters taking no chances after last year’s box office fiasco have all been credited with helping the dramatic sales boost in the midst of a downturn. … The Fringe is desperate for a strong year after last year’s annus horribilis.”
Official: Vetting Scheme For Authors, Others Needs Rethink
“The man whose inquiry led to new vetting procedures for adults working with children today calls on the Government to rethink parts of its controversial anti-paedophile register.” Some prominent authors have said they will stop visiting schools rather than join the registry. “Sir Michael [Bichard] said the idea that people like actors, authors or entertainers, who only occasionally visit a school, should register with the scheme should be reconsidered.”
Mourning An E-Reader’s Premature Demise
“Please tell me it isn’t dead. In the search for the perfect e-book (and I am always on the hunt), the Readius was an intriguing contender. But several recent reports say the company developing it, Netherlands-based Polymer Vision, has run into financing difficulties and put the device on hold. That would be a shame, because the Readius is unlike any other e-reader I’ve come across.”
In Drabinsky Sentencing, The Would-Be Drama That Wasn’t
“Granted, it took a decade to arrive at this point and, granted, the world looks askance on this country’s lack of zeal in prosecuting white-collar crime. But still, the moment seemed such muted theatre, so dissonant for the Ziegfeld-like producer of Phantom of the Opera and Showboat and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
Merce Cunningham Foundation Names Trustees
“The tenders of Merce Cunningham’s flame are now known. The dance foundation devoted to the choreographer, who died at 90 on July 26, named on Wednesday the four individuals Mr. Cunningham had selected as trustees of his life’s work.”
Novelist And Screenwriter Budd Schulberg Dies At 95
He “wrote the award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront and created a classic American archetype of naked ambition, Sammy Glick, in his novel What Makes Sammy Run? … Mr. Schulberg also wrote journalism, short stories, novels and biographies. He collaborated with F. Scott Fitzgerald, arrested the Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl and named names before a Communist-hunting Congressional committee.”