The rest of us could learn a lot about selling ourselves from the way ideas for new shows are pitched in Hollywood. “People believe if they have a good idea it will sell itself. It won’t. The person on the receiving end tends to gauge the pitcher’s creativity as well as the proposal itself.”
Tag: 08.19.03
Ballet’s Hot Young Thing
Christopher Wheeldon is the most acclaimed choreographer of his generation. “Now 30, Wheeldon has 12 works in New York City Ballet’s repertory, and is besieged by commissions from elsewhere. Over the next couple of months, new pieces by him are being performed in London by the George Piper Dances and the Royal Ballet. And next week, at the specific request of the Edinburgh festival, San Francisco Ballet is devoting an entire programme to his work. This is an extraordinary coup for such a young choreographer.”
Should Art Criticism Pay Any Attention To Personalities?
Criticism in the popular media “is very different from academic criticism, since the latter takes as given that the work in question is of value, proceeding from there into a study of where its value resides. Papers, conversely, return to first principles – is this any good? If not, why not? Artists of all stamps, naturally, would prefer to be judged by academics, and make the mistake of thinking that this is because academia is de facto more sophisticated than the media. This isn’t true, they just serve different functions.”
NY City Opera For WTC – It Makes Sense
Developers of the proposed World Trade Center project are trying to decide which arts company ought to anchor its performing arts center. “The developers would be wise to court a major institution with a strong identity, one that would bring credibility and potentially a devoted audience base to the new complex. That institution is the New York City Opera, dubbed the ‘people’s opera’ by Fiorello La Guardia, one of its founders.”
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Grand Plan For Baghdad
In 1957, the King of Iraq asked architect Frank Lloyd Wright to come up with a grand master plan for Baghdad. “Now, half a century and a ‘war of liberation’ later, some Islamic scholars think it’s time for Iraq to take another look at the American architect’s vision for the narrow, sun-bleached streets of low-rise 1950s Baghdad. If built, his plans, which included an opera house, university campus and post and telegraph building, could, they say, do much to disabuse Iraqis of the view that Uncle Sam is intent on erasing Islamic culture.”