Sarah Kaufman says that, because U.S. companies are so utterly dependent on income from their annual Nutcracker runs, ballet in this country "suffers from a serious lack of confidence that is only growing more and more paralyzing. … Has ballet become so entwined with its Nutcracker image, so fearfully wedded to unthreatening offerings, that it has forgotten how eye-opening and ultimately nourishing creative destruction can be?"...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
"Rita Marcalo is an artist doing what artists are supposed to do: creating work that is surprising, challenging, transgressive and exciting. … [She] is drawing attention to the fact that on YouTube (and elsewhere) it's easy to find mobile-phone footage of people having fits - mostly taken without their consent. Curious, isn't it, that controversy should arise when a person with epilepsy consents to being filmed?"...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
Mark Lawson: "[L]ast week, for the first time ever, I was tempted to leave a theatre in mid-performance, not through tedium or sciatica … but from moral anger." The reason: a female character - written by a male playwright - speaking about experiencing pleasure while being raped. Lawson and commenters consider the ethics of the situation....
ArtsJournal
mclennan
"IBM announced this week that it has a computer system that can simulate the thinking power of a cat's brain with 1 billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses. At just 4.5 percent of a human brain, the computer can sense, perceive, act, interact and process ideas without consuming a lot [of] energy."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
"The Los Angeles County Museum of Art saw its investment portfolio lose nearly a quarter of its value during its 2008-09 fiscal year." In the same period, contributions to the museum fell by $100 million - nearly 80 percent - from the year before....
ArtsJournal
mclennan
18-year-old participant Lauren Lovette: "[Peter Martins] was looking at me as I was sitting there, and I was like: Are you expecting me to say something? Are you reading my mind right now? Stop staring at me. O.K., fine! I really wanted six [dancers to work with]. I'm so happy he gave that to me."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
Media psychologist Stuart Fischoff, "says Winfrey is a master of impression management. … People seek leaders who will guide their decisions, according to Fischoff, and he says Winfrey exhibits the very qualities people look for in leaders - authenticity and trust. … Plus, he adds, Winfrey is smart and unguarded with her faults, which shows her humanity."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
Admired for her radiant voice, keen dramatic instincts and cheerful disposition, the Swedish soprano was, among her many accomplishments, a key figure in the ongoing revival of Leos Janácek's operas....
ArtsJournal
mclennan
With dozens of animators pitching in through a specially built Facebook application, the slick clip from the crowdsourcing specialists at Mass Animation is a rare "art by committee" success story....
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Digital downloading and distribution, illegally or otherwise, has had a greater effect on the recording industry than anything in its history. As the legal variety grows rapidly, driven most significantly by iTunes, so those old-school players are having to adopt radical new business plans to compete in the brave new world of music."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
Some "60 exhibitors from last year's Art Basel Miami Beach are not returning, including Berlin's Arndt & Partner, London galleries Waddington and Maureen Paley, and New York's Per Skarstedt. Fair organiser have added 65 new exhibitors, including some who had previously been turned away. The 2009 edition now boasts 266 dealers from 33 countries. Another big change is the fair's physical appearance..."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"According to an online petition entitled "When the Night Quietly Dies," which was organized by a group from the techno and electronic music scene, the City of Lights is in danger of becoming the "European Capital of Sleep." Among the complaints listed in the petition are the closure of leading bars, strict rules on noise and smoking regulations."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
Forbes has made a list based on studios' return on investment....
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
The titles will make it possible for deaf users to read videos. "The machine-generated captions will initially be generated in English. At first they will only be found on 13 channels."...
ArtsJournal
http://www.artsjournal.com/diacritical
"Ambassador Theatre Group's £90 million purchase of Live Nation's UK theatres is being investigated by the [government's] Office of Fair Trading, in a move that will prevent the two businesses being fully integrated until early 2010."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
Director Francesca Zambello recounts the story (in both senses) of Cherevichki (a/k/a "The Tsarina's Slippers"), Tchaikovsky's only comic opera, which is based on a madcap Christmas Eve story by Nikolai Gogol. (Zambello is directing a new staging of the work at Covent Garden.)...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
John Tierney: "Does religion have a future? Who looks more like an evolutionary dead end: the religious American or the agnostic European? Or will both give way to some sort of compromise? … One possibility that occurs to me is a version of environmentalism, but with better music and with rituals that are more elegant than sorting garbage."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
"Most of the top-grossing and critically praised documentaries of the year [are not on the list], including Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Chris Rock's Good Hair, the struggling rock band chronicle Anvil! The Story of Anvil and R.J. Cutler's inside peek at Vogue magazine, The September Issue. (The Michael Jackson doc This Is It was released too late to be eligible.)...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
Patrick Goldstein: "Let's be honest. Is there really anyone who is up in arms over Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story being left off the Academy's 15-title short list for the best feature documentary? In fact, I would argue that when it comes to a snub of a much-ballyhooed film, the Academy has never managed to make more people happier."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan
Brian Colburn, managing director of the Intiman Theatre, tells the paper: "There's probably as much theater here as in the city of Los Angeles, but the population is one-sixth the size. You can walk from theater to theater here, meet friends or colleagues at a cafe."...
ArtsJournal
mclennan