Nickell’s Bag

"On Aug. 18, the Groupon online 'deal of the day' offered discounted subscriptions to the upcoming season of the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago. Within 24 hours, 2,338 people had taken the bait, the Joffrey announced the following day in a press release."... […]

"There will always be choreographers who care about steps, music and classical forms. But for many experimental artists, the word "dance" alone can't begin to hold it all in. So what are we talking about when we talk about dance these days?"... […]

In this piece, "Balanchine made a dance that would become the Rosetta Stone for a new kind of dancer, the American classical dancer. He brought a kind of democracy into the hierarchical land of ballet classicism, lifting it from its dusty 19th-century splendor, and created, simultaneously, an aristocracy for American dancers who had none."... […]

"The point is to honor and educate. … We're honoring Judith Jamison, who has been a leader for decades. We are bringing in students from around the country to give them a day in the White House and share with them some of the great performers."... […]

"The casually lettered sign on the sidewalk in front of Dance Theater Workshop says 'Live Drawing Tonight 5-9 p.m'." Inside, visual and movement artist Tony Orrico, an alumnus of Trisha Brown's and Shen Wei's companies, is spending four-hour stretches drawing on DTW's gallery wall as an audience looks on.... […]

"The 75-year-old Japanese conductor opened the Saito Kinen Festival in his homeland on Sunday. He is the festival's founder and art [sic] director. Ozawa conducted the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings, using a chair for support."... […]

The maligned old squeezebox and its nearest relatives are indispensable to countless types of music, from Mexico to Ireland to Argentina to Louisiana to France to South Africa - not to forget polka, of course. Why does the accordion get no respect? Pauline Oliveros, doyenne of experimental composers and possibly the world's first avant-garde accordionis […]

"For lots of musicians, synthesizers are so last decade. In their place, laptops -- especially MacBooks, with their glowing white Apples -- have displaced them as cornucopias of timbre and texture."... […]

"Google Inc., which is developing a digital music service, is finding a warm welcome at record companies that are hoping the technology company can loosen Apple Inc.'s grip on the digital music market with its iTunes music store."... […]

What is it about music that gets true believers so hot and bothered? "Music is almost as dangerous as gunpowder; and it may be requires looking after no less than the press, or the mint."... […]

"Director Max Stafford-Clark and actor/playwright Stephanie Street debate South African writer Athol Fugard's claim that today's theatre does not engage properly with political issues."... […]

"The annual performing arts awards, encompassing theatre, musical theatre, dance, opera, classical and contemporary music, comedy and cabaret, were once better known for their anomalies than for the talents they sought to acknowledge." But now, a decade after they were created, the honors have become a major event.... […]

Jersey Boys may have won best musical honors, but Avenue Q ruled nearly every other musical theatre category at the ceremony in the Sydney Opera House. The "boldly seductive" vaudeville/cabaret revue Smoke & Mirrors was named best new Australian work and took two other prizes as well. Melbourne Theatre Co.'s Richard III dominated the drama […]

"As the first play penned by a woman opens at Shakespeare's Globe today - breaking a 411-year tradition - top theatre directors report a surge in prominent female playwrights, with a wave of talented women coming to the fore in Britain's male-dominated theatres."... […]

"Theatre has a responsibility to hold a mirror up to our society and necessarily that is to reflect our political activity. I think that over the last five years the vigour, pertinence and virility of political theatre in this country has been unmatched."... […]

Just made public are charges "that no fewer than 15 works produced over the years by the self-styled enfant terrible have been allegedly 'inspired' by others."... […]

"History has yet to settle the verdict on this brilliant photographer whose work laid the foundation for motion pictures. Even in this belated moment of triumph, Eadweard Muybridge's authorship is yet again being called into question for the third time since his series of landmark achievements."... […]

"They were confined in March and April to Ulster Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison 94 miles north of Sotheby's York Avenue salesroom in New York. Doyle, now 53, had pleaded guilty to grand larceny related to the sale of a bronze Degas sculpture. Haggerty, 55, was convicted of vehicular assault, after a drunk-driving incident that caus […]

"SAM estimates the loss of its lease with Washington Mutual on the downtown tower that adjoins the art museum will cost it about $25 million -- a sum that includes the loss of rental revenue while the property is vacant."... […]

"There will be cuts to the arts and museums. They will not be singled out as easy to cut, but neither will they be overly protected. They will take their share of the pain."... […]