Just two weeks following the resignation of Jane Danzo, Chair of BC Arts Council, the Government reorganized its funding to provide an additional $7 million to the BC Arts Council, increasing the council’s budget to just over $16 million for this fiscal year.
Following BCs devestating series of arts cuts, Danzo felt it was necessary to resign from her position “in order to have a voice,” and it appears she was heard.
“In my opinion, the work of the BC Arts Council Board, has not been supported by government on a number of different levels,” expressed Danzo in her resignation letter.
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Taking part in one of Berlin’s most popular cultural events, A Long Night of Museums, the Chilean arts collective Los Casagrande dropped 100,000 poems from the sky onto the Lustgarten to celebrate poetry and condemn acts of war.
The unusual ‘Poetry Rain’ project was launched in 2001 by the group with the aim to make poetry more accessible to the public and to protest acts of war. Since its launch, Casagrande has ‘bombed’ Santiago de Chile (2001), Dubrovnik (2002), Guernica (2004) and Warsaw (2009) — all cities that have suffered aerial strikes in the past.
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A group of Israeli actors, directors and playwrights have signed a letter to the management of six Israeli theatres announcing their refusal to participate in stage productions in a new performing arts centre in a West Bank settlement. The signatories have asked theatre managers to restrict their activity to stages within the internationally accepted 1967 borders.
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Return to El Salvador is an intimate documentary that tells—mainly through candid interview—the story of the individuals and communities effected by El Salvador’s brutal civil war that ended nearly two decades ago. While a little heavy-handed on narration (which isn’t to say Martin Sheen’s usual talented presentation of context isn’t well-executed, but that there is too much explaining/describing as we see things on the screen) the film is beautifully shot and a commitment and compassion shines through in every scene.
The film picks through the complicated layers of geo-politics, resistance, and torn communities to piece together an important (and overlooked in the West) story from America’s so-called “back yard.” Art Threat had a chance to chat with director Jamie Moffett during the usual juggling act that occurs after an indy doc is completed and its makers seek out an audience.
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In the wake of the recent racist attack on a Muslim cab driver in NYC, I’m particularly interested in the public reaction to the latest project by Tehran-born, Big Apple-based artist Amir Baradaran. For one week beginning September 9, Baradaran will debut Transient, a series of 40-second video installations infiltrating New York’s taxicabs.
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Glenn Beck helped cement his reputation as a misinformed art critic today during his massive right-wing “Restoring Honour” rally, which was disturbingly organized on the anniversary — and in the exact location — of Martin Luther King’s historic “Dream” speech.
Perched in front of 300,000 monochromatic faces, Beck gave an architecture lesson concerning the design of the Washington Monument. The story is retold beautifully by L.A. Times art critic Christopher Knight, who goes on to explain the ironic hilarity of Beck’s latest folly.
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Stephen Harper said last week that he was “concerned” about Homegrown, a play running at this year’s Summerworks theatre festival in Toronto. Homegrown apparently takes a sympathetic view on one of the ‘Toronto 18’ would-be terrorists who were foiled by Canadian authorities in 2006.
Summerworks, like many artistic endeavors across Canada, receives federal funding. This year, Ottawa gave the festival $35,000. There are over 40 performances at this year’s festival, which means that Homegrown probably received somewhere in the range of $875 from the federal government.
Granted, the concern is probably not just about the money; it’s a principles thing, I guess. Why, one might ask, would Canadian taxpayers support a play that asks us to sympathize with a man who was apparently going to try to blow up federal buildings and kill Canadians?
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