A major sponsor of the American Ballet Theater has pulled its financial support, and transferred its fiscal loyalties to New York City Ballet, saying that mismanagement at ABT forced the move. The Movado Watch Company has sponsored ABT productions for nearly two decades, to the tune of more than $400,000 per year, but the company’s chairman said in a letter that he was taken aback by the ABT management’s unwillingness to listen to criticism from its board. The sponsorship loss is being seen as a potentially crippling blow to ABT, which has struggled mightily in recent years.
Tag: 11.12.03
Whitbread Shortlist Announced
“Booker Prize winner DBC Pierre and three other Booker nominees are on the UK’s Whitbread book prize shortlist. Pierre’s Vernon God Little is chosen in the first novel category, while Mark Haddon, Shena Mackay and Barbara Trapido compete in the novel category.”
Judge Halts Riopelle Auction
A Quebec judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking a planned auction of several dozen works by the late artist Jean-Paul Riopelle, which was to be held tonight. In making the ruling, the judge granted a major victory to Riopelle’s three children, who claim that the hastily organized auction of so many works at once will diminish the artist’s legacy unnecessarily. “Left in the lurch are art collectors who were said to be flying in from around the world for the sale at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel – and Riopelle’s estate, which says it urgently needs to hold the auction to pay off mounting debts.”
You Mean, American TV Isn’t Always Original?
No one can copyright a concept, which is why so many American TV shows can legally be nothing but mock-ups of already successful foreign programs. But a Canadian television network appears to think that CBS crossed the line this fall when it released Cold Case, a new cop show which bears several striking resemblances to a 6-year-old CTV program called Cold Squad. Both shows center around similar-looking female detectives who fight criminals and their own sexist co-workers in roughly equal measures as they attempt to uncover new leads in stalled cases. Oh, and the writer who came up with Cold Case did so right after attending a writing seminar in Canada.
All For One, One For All In Winnipeg
“Winnipeg artists are collectively playing the numbers game. In the past, the city established a reputation for producing individual artists of singular talent — Ivan Eyre, Don Reichert, Wanda Koop, William Eakin and Eleanor Bond are all painters and photographers whose careers have been solo affairs. But recently, with the meteoric success of the seven-member Royal Art Lodge as an example, Winnipeg artists have been banding together to form associations in which their collective identity is as important as their individual one.”
Yeah, Those Bong Close-Ups Are Always A Bad Sign
Film festival organizers may be as enthusiastic about film as a person can be, but they still have only 24 hours in their day, and that’s just not enough time to watch every minute of every movie that comes across their desks. So how do the honchos decide which films make the cut? It’s all about those first few minutes, says one festival organizer, and “if any video from the teetering stack in her living room begins with images of a gun, a bong, a pimp or a whore, she hits the eject button.”
$3 Million To Boston Ballet
Boston Ballet, which has been struggling both artistically and financially in recent years, got a major boost this week, when it was revealed that a so-far-unnamed donor had left the company a $3 million bequest. The gift will double the size of Boston Ballet’s endowment, and the company hopes that it will encourage other donors to be similarly generous.
A Productive Use For File-Sharing
While music fans and the recording industry continue to bicker and sue each other over the legality of file-swapping, America’s top non-classical music school is working to advance the idea that there is a place for the peer-to-peer network, and it doesn’t have to have anything to do with illegal downloads. “The Berklee Shares program at the Berklee College of Music offers 80 different online lessons for download — and sharing — on topics like writing music, producing, engineering, remixing and performing… Anyone can use and trade the material provided she or he agrees to the terms set by the school: Users may not alter or sell the material, and must credit the original source.”
A Whole New Way To Be Shallow
We’ve all heard about the way Apple’s iTunes music download service is revolutionizing the industry. But could it revolutionize our social interactions as well? “Thanks to the ability of Apple’s iTunes to share music collections over local networks, it is now possible to judge someone’s taste in music — or lack of it — in a way that previously required a certain level of intimacy. The ability to examine the music collections of co-workers, neighbors or fellow students is akin to peering into their souls: Someone who appears cool and interesting from the outside is revealed as a cultural nincompoop through the poor sap’s terrible taste in music.”
Disney – Half As Spectacular As Bilbao?
David Littlejohn is not very generous in his praise for Frank Gehry’s new Disney Hall. “The result is about half as spectacular as Mr. Gehry’s 1997 Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, with which it will inevitably be compared. Bilbao has a far more impressive location, equal excitement from all directions, and more dramatic interior spaces that visibly reflect its exterior.” Still, “it is one of the most agreeable modern concert halls I have been in (though one heard complaints about steep stairs and tight legroom), reminiscent of Alvar Aalto’s classic halls, and Mr. Gehry’s most humane interior space.”