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March 17, 2010

Merce Cunningham's Final Bow
by Cathy Yan
March 8, 2010
The Wall Street Journal

On a recent Friday afternoon at the Merce Cunningham studio in New York City, dancers were rehearsing "Roaratorio," a work last performed by the modern dance company in 1997. A lean, young man shuffled and picked up his feet in a series of pas de chats in front of Robert Swinston, assistant to the choreographer, and Patricia Lent, a former dancer who had performed the original version of the dance. They both shook their heads.

"I interpreted that as this step," Ms. Lent, 50, said as she demonstrated the move. "But I don't know. Maybe. Maybe."

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San Francisco Ballet Names Center for Chris Hellman
by David Wiegand
March 3, 2010
The San Francisco Chronicle

There always seemed to be something missing on Franklin Street, ever since the San Francisco Ballet built its modestly sleek headquarters there in 1983. Given the Ballet's rich history, the fact that it is the nation's oldest company and often ranked among the best of the best, it seemed only fitting that its building should carry the name of someone who helped make the company what it is now.

As of today, the Ballet headquarters loses its anonymity and will be known as the San Francisco Ballet, Chris Hellman Center for Dance. Look for that shingle to go up on the facade next month.

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NEA Chairman Landesman Encounters the Arts on Skid Row
by Mike Boehm
March 15, 2010
The Los Angeles Times

A few weeks ago, Rocco Landesman, the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was in the East Room of the White House as President Obama conferred this year's National Medal of Arts on Jessye Norman, Rita Moreno, Maya Lin and Michael Tilson Thomas, among others.

On Monday, the cowboy-booted country music fan and self-described "recovering producer" who made his name on Broadway spent about 90 minutes in a very different neighborhood.

"We're in an area of 44 blocks. It's called Skid Row," Cynthia Harnisch, president of Inner-City Arts, told Landesman, his wife, Debby, and the small entourage that had arrived with them in a white chartered van through the automatic gate that secures the placid, palm-treed campus from the tough streets outside.

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NEA Chairman Gets an Earful on City Tour
by James Hebert
March 14, 2010
The San Diego Union-Tribune

On the latest leg of a national fact-finding tour, National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman put boots on the ground in San Diego yesterday.

Gold-colored caiman-skin boots, to be exact. (They’re the favored footwear of the no-nonsense former theater producer, partly because “you don’t have to tie any laces.”)

Whether or not those boots were made for walking, Landesman and his team did plenty of it, as they checked out cultural landmarks in locations from downtown to Balboa Park to the NTC Promenade before joining in a public Q&A with local arts leaders at La Jolla Playhouse.

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Celebrate the Life of Monica Moseley
January 16, 1942 - January 6, 2010

Monday, April 5, 2010
11:00am to 12:30pm

Bruno Walter Auditorium
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center

Enter at 111 Amsterdam Avenue between 64th and 65th Streets

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Colorado Ballet Scales Back on its 50th Anniversary
by Kyle MacMillan
March 15, 2010
The Denver Post

Artistic director Gil Boggs doesn't try to sugarcoat the Colorado Ballet's just-announced lineup for its 50th-anniversary season in 2010-11: It's nothing like what he originally intended.

As part of $1.5 million to $2 million in potential budget cuts, the schedule will have four instead of the usual five productions, and several of the offerings will be less- costly revivals, such as "Dracula" and "The Nutcracker."

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American Repertory Ballet Cancels Remainder of Season
by Peggy McGlone
March 08, 2010
New Jersey Star Ledger

Faced with a slumping economy and dwindling revenue, arts organizations in New Jersey have trimmed the number of performances they’re offering, substituted large productions with smaller ones and reduced staff and marketing expenses.

Now, having exhausted all cost-cutting measures, some are shutting their doors.

The American Repertory Ballet in New Brunswick announced today it has canceled the remainder of its season, opting to not perform in order not to make an already six-figure shortfall even worse.

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Ben Cameron on Why the Arts Still Matter
Source: bnetTV.com

Ben Cameron, Program Director for Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, spoke at the TEDxYYC conference and gave a rousing talk on why the arts are important.

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Pepsi Refresh Project Providing Funds for Arts and Culture Programs

The Pepsi Refresh Project is giving away $1.3 million every month through January 2011 to individuals and organizations that develop innovative programs which have a positive impact on their communities. Pepsi accepts grants in six categories (Arts and Culture, Health, Food and Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods, Education) and awards several in each category at the end of each month, based on the number of votes submitted for each application by members of the public.

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Bridge Over the Visa Moat for Musicians Trying to Enter the U.S.
by Ben Sisario
March 16, 2010
The New York Times

Of the 2,000 bands at the annual South by Southwest Music and Media Conference this week in Austin, Tex., more than 500 are from outside the United States. And to help make their way through the byzantine process of obtaining an American visa, about 200 of them have sent their paperwork, their prayers and $600 to one tiny office on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

The office, three flights up in a tenement building with no buzzer, is the headquarters of Tamizdat, a nonprofit group with an official mission of promoting international cultural exchange, and a docket each year of hundreds of visa applications that need I’s precisely dotted and T’s precisely crossed. Its clients include classical, ethnic and pop musicians from around the world, but come March, the Tamizdat office is a bottleneck for bands on their way to Austin.

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