For a year, a young opera entrepreneur has been trying to set up a small company in Winston-Salem, hoping it would become the nation’s “premier African-American opera-training company.” But a series of missed commitments, broken promises and misunderstandings suggest the fledgling enterprise might never get off the ground…
Tag: 08.29.04
Former BBC Chairman Blasts Blair
Greg Dyke speaks out about Tony Blair’s campaign to influence the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq war. “In an explosive autobiography which returns the corrosive issue of Iraq to the heart of political debate, Dyke reveals that Tony Blair wrote an unprecedented letter to him and Gavyn Davies, the former BBC chairman, trying to force the corporation to change the tone of its coverage.”
How Tabloids Took Over Pop Culture
TV news, reality shows, pop magazines – they’re full of stuff that was formerly the domain of the supermarket tabloid. “Our world has been tabloidized. Where once tabloids occupied a fantastic fringe of pop culture, they now are at the center of pop culture.”
Mozart In Lead Weights
Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart tries some theatrical takes on the composer – in this case, Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker. “The dance language of de Keersmaeker’s piece, which is severely limited, ranges from shards of classical ballet that appear warped in their execution—inadvertently, I believe, for lack of expertise in that department—to motions suggesting jungle animals, as if to imply that human passions, even when sung about with infinite delicacy and sophistication as they are in Mozart, have to do with the primal and the wild.”
Treaty Would Give Broadcasters Control Of Signals
“An international treaty to give broadcasters the right to control who may record, transmit, or distribute their signals is reaching a crucial stage of negotiation by the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva.”
The ‘Ol Bump ‘n Grind Makes A Comeback
“You thought burlesque was a thing of the past? It ain’t so. That old bump-and-grind — tasseled pasties, unsubtle comedy and all — has made a comeback in the past few years. A growing number of restaurants and bars in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn regularly feature late-night performers reviving and reinventing the genre, which had its heyday in the 1930s and ’40s. A new generation of audiences, from 20- something singles to couples marking their two-digit anniversaries, are discovering its comic and risque appeal.”
Political Charge – Chicago Theatre Gets Active
Chicago stages are filling up with political commentary. “Not since the Vietnam War has the local artistic community been able to galvanize its forces to produce such a wide array of politically charged programming. In the decades that followed Vietnam, much of the local theater community was slow in creating memorable responses to current events. Now it seems things have reached a political boiling point once again, with playwrights and theaters intent on sending a message.”
Comcast Joins The Digital Recorder Revolution
American cable-TV giant Comcast is offering a new digital video recorder. “About 5 percent of US households now own digital video recording systems, a figure that is expected to rise to 22 percent by 2008. Even though the numbers are small, industry executives expect growing DVR usage to roil the $58 billion US television advertising market, as increasing numbers of consumers, particularly the most affluent who are most likely to rent the devices, get the power to program their own television viewing, and ignore the traditional 30-second television spot.”
The World’s A Clown
Slava Polunin is one of the world’s busiest clowns, although, he protests, ‘There are no competitors among clowns’.”
Stereo-Type
Once, designing new typefaces was a difficult proposition. But “computer programs like FontLab and Fontographer have allowed neophytes, as well as veterans, to create a new generation of digital type. During the ensuing digital typographic revolution of the 90’s, a slew of designers and illustrators who had never designed an alphabet before flooded Internet sites with bizarrely named, peculiarly styled and sometimes illegible faces. Typeface design became something of an expressive art.”