Lincoln Center has become an elder statesman of New York. At least, that’s the conclusion I reached after coming back from the opening celebration that just concluded yesterday morning at Alice Tully Hall—the kickoff event of “Lincoln Center 50 Years.” The event felt the way I imagine the annual Al Smith Dinner feels. That is, you put a bunch of power players in the same room and give each of them the floor for about five minutes. Big applause after each one finishes.
Here, attention was paid to important people like David Rockefeller—brother of the late John D. Rockefeller III, who spearheaded the campaign to create Lincoln Center—who acknowledged applause from his seat in the audience. Among those in Tully Hall were members of Lincoln Center’s twelve resident organizations and students from the inaugural graduating class of local High School for Arts, Imagination, and Inquiry (founded by the Lincoln Center Institute), who cheered loudly when their school was mentioned. Architect Liz Diller of Diller Scofidio + Renfro (co-architects of Tully Hall with FXFOWLE Architects) was seen flitting about the room, smiling and chatting.
The morning started with Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” performed by the definitely uncommon brass players and percussionists from the New York Philharmonic. Emcee for the event—which was streamed live—was journalist Tom Brokaw, himself an elder statesman. read more
On this past Tuesday, the curtain went up for the first time at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, WNYC’s new street-level set-up at the corner of Varick and Charlton streets. Or rather, the indoor space went from dark to light as the shades went up on windows looking out on both streets—at 7 p.m., it was still light outside.
In case you had missed the news, the Greene space for broadcasts and live performances is finally open, after years of planning. This small room looking out on two streets has all the technological bells and whistles, a curvy wooden backdrop to its small stage, a Fazioli piano from Italy, a soundproof broadcast booth in the corner, and several high-definition video screens. It can broadcast radio or television and live to the internet. WNYC is celebrating its opening with a ten-day festival ending on May 8 that will include broadcasts of the Brian Lehrer and Leonard Lopate shows; the launch of “The Next New York Conversation Series” with Dr. Eddie Glaude and Dr. Cornel West; and a Cinco de Mayo celebration with food, music, and dancing. read more
Last week, the Metropolitan Opera announced that it was facing a budget crunch. Wow, like, that’s a surprise? Some staff members have already taken pay cuts, salaries will be discussed with unions. And of course the crisis will impact programming: Costly revivals of Ghosts of Versailles, Benvenuto Cellini, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Die Frau Ohne Schatten have been scrapped; some won’t be replaced, others will be switched for less pricey productions. But the Met is not really representative because there’s no such thing as a really cheap show there: Your choices are expensive and very expensive. What I fear is that we’re really going to start missing out on very large, very outlandish, very ambitious productions all over town, not just at the Met. read more
Fall for Dance is a wildly successful annual festival at New York City Center featuring $10 tickets and an amazing range of dance companies, 28 total. Now in its fifth year, the festival – produced by Ellen Dennis – spanned ten nights, with six different programs. All three programs I saw offered intriguing variety and samples of outstanding companies from around the world.
In a way, the wide range within each program works perfectly for the contemporary short attention span, when whole thoughts have to be reduced to 75-character text messages. It is a bit like channel surfing on TV, going from Les Ballets Jazz de Montreal in a charming work by Aszure Barton, to Oregon Ballet Theatre doing a Chris Wheeldon duet, to a traditional Indian dance by Madhavi Mudgal, an invocation to Shiva. read more
There’s a lot of talk about public art these days. The term now seems to commonly refer to free projects that take over part of a city—and sometimes a large part, if you remember the CowParade that started in Chicago in 1999, invaded New York’s sidewalks in 2000, and has since traveled to cities as diverse as Las Vegas, Manchester, Stockholm, Istanbul and, er, West Hartford. Many other projects aim for higher artistic worth (sorry to drag such elitist concepts in this discussion): For several years, the Creative Time organization set up wildly diverse music and art shows in the Brooklyn Bridge’s Anchorage, until post-9/11 security measures closed off the space; New Yorkers also remember Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Gates (2005) in Central Park.
In New York, the Public Art Fund is responsible for this summer’s headline-grabbing installation, Olafur Eliasson’s Waterfalls, in which four gigantic man-made waterfalls will dot the East River; meanwhile, the aforementioned Creative Time is bringing a project helmed by David Byrne, Playing the Building, in which visitors will be able to “play” the Battery Maritime Building via a jerry rigged organ.
But the bottom line for most such endeavors is just that: the displays may be free, but public art now means big revenues for the participating cities (sorry to drag such crass concepts in this discussion). Canny mayors are finally catching up to the fact that healthy cultural scenes are often linked to healthy economic returns. (The fact that this blog is hosted by a publicly funded entity is not coincidental either; after all, you could argue that aspects of PBS are a form of public art.) read more
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