Ballet BC isn’t the only Vancouver arts organization in serious financial trouble. “Last week, the 11-member Pacific Baroque Orchestra sent out a letter to supporters asking for help in combating a potential C$80,000 deficit on its C$300,000 annual budget this year. The group has been hit with a series of blows: in 2007, both its artistic director, Marc Destrubé, and its general manager, Tom Durrie, resigned.”
Tag: 12.23.08
Yankees In The Gulag
During the 1930s, tens of thousands of Americans emigrated to the USSR, driven by the Depression and promises of plentiful jobs. As Stalin’s purges became more severe and sweeping, many of those Americans were sent to starve and freeze in labor camps. And among the Westerners who abetted this situation were Roosevelt’s Ambassador to Moscow and his heiress wife.
No Spring Tour For Ballet BC
While the Vancouver dance company has managed to avoid bankruptcy and is trying to save its local spring season, it has cancelled an April tour of its ballet version of A Streetcar Named Desire to Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon and Thunder Bay. “‘We just can’t afford it,’ said Ballet BC president Graeme Barrit.”
An Opportunity For Producers Of Music And Movies?
“As more people shift away from their laptops as a primary device and toward their mobile devices, they will want to access content directly through such devices. This presents the content industry with a business opportunity. Before sharing music, movie and television files illegally among cellular phones becomes commonplace, as it has on wired and wireless computer networks, the industry should offer cellular subscribers the opportunity to access content on-demand for an add-on fee to their cell phone plan.”
LA’s Museum Of Contemporary Art Charts A Future
“Under the rescue plan, the museum said it would also begin a $75 million fund-raising campaign, hire ‘reputable investment advisers’ to manage the endowment, and exhibit its seldom-seen permanent collection ‘widely, consistent with customary museum practices’.”
Arts TV Viewers Choose Favorite Nutcracker
“The Hard Nut” won with 42 percent of the vote. “Nutcracker: The Motion Picture,” based on the Pacific Northwest Ballet production, came in second, with 27 percent. Maurice Béjart’s version claimed 16 percent, and the Bolshoi Ballet garnered 11 percent, while Matthew Bourne’s “Nutcracker!” and George Balanchine’s classic, now having its annual run at New York City Ballet, each picked up a measly 2 percent.
Beijing To Get Its Own “Broadway”
Beijing will build a complex of 32 theatres dedicated to putting on musicals, state media said on Tuesday, calling it the country’s answer to Broadway.
The Post-Video, Post-Radio Musician
“With radio listeners tuning out and music videos becoming increasingly irrelevant, musicians are selling their songs for use on TV shows, movies, video games and commercials. Increasingly musicians are seeking out – and being sought out for – licensing deals to get their music heard in different ways.”
Grey Gardens Goes Meta (In A Way)
“Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway is a documentary about a Broadway musical that is based on a documentary. If that has a certain snake-eating-tail improbability to it, well, the Grey Gardens story of two eccentric former socialites is, in any medium, all about improbability.”
Hollywood Director Robert Mulligan, 83
Mulligan, who died on Dec. 20 of heart disease, was best known for the movies To Kill a Mockingbird, Up the Down Staircase, Inside Daisy Clover and Summer of ’42.