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Paloma Patterson Named Executive Director of Malashock Dance
Malashock Dance is proud to announce the appointment of their very own Paloma Patterson as the new Executive Director, effective immediately. After vigorous months of highly competitive interviews conducted during a national search, it became clear to the Board of Directors that Patterson’s credentials, leadership skills, vast knowledge and passion for Malashock Dance made her the perfect candidate. The hiring of an Executive Director has being made possible by funding from the James Irvine Foundation, the Parker Foundation and Danah Fayman.
"I am honored to welcome Paloma in her new role as the Executive Director for Malashock Dance,” says John Malashock. “She knows this organization inside out and shares, with me, the vision and potential of Malashock Dance. We are fortunate to have her in this capacity and I know she is going to be incredibly effective at ushering in the next great phase for both the Company and The School.”
Foundation for Contemporary Arts Announces 2009 Grants to Organizations
Congratulations to our Dance/USA members who received grants!
Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA), a non-profit arts organization dedicated to supporting contemporary visual and performing arts, is pleased to announce its annual awards to 39 arts organizations, totaling $41,000. Through Grants to Organizations, FCA supports contemporary arts organizations which provide visual and performing artists with opportunities to present imaginative work to the public or offer artists crucial professional services.
Is Your Nonprofit Complying with State Charity Regulations?
by Allyson Kapin
August 5, 2009
frogloop.com
Does your nonprofit raise money online? If you answered yes, then your organization maybe surprised to learn that it must comply with state charity registration laws and register with most of the states your donors are based. Currently 40 States have statutory requirements relating to the registration of charities that intend to solicit funds. “The states interpret those provisions to include online solicitations even though most of the statutes were adopted in the early 90s prior to the expansion/explosion of internet use by all of us,” says attorney Janice L. Anderson and former Charities Regulator in Pennsylvania.
The state regulations of charitable fundraising have been increasing since the early 1980s, says Mal Warwick of Mal Warwick Associates. “While it may have been prompted originally by demands for consumer protection from (alleged) charitable fraud, it wasn’t long before the principal motivation on the part of the state legislators who passed the regulatory bills became raising revenue.”
In the past, enforcement of fundraising regulations has varied from state to state. In most states though, nonprofits just had to file forms and pay a small fee. But now the IRS is stepping in to ensure those regulations are enforced. According to OnPhilanthropy.com the new IRS Form 990 will contain a few hundred new questions and new schedules that might just shock and confuse many nonprofits since each of the 40 states has their own regulations. For example, if you send donors in California or Utah an online fundraising appeal and encourage them to donate money online you need to register your nonprofit in those two states. If you encourage online donations to supporters who live in Texas through direct mail or phone, you guessed it, your nonprofit is required to register in Texas.
NSO to Try Beethoven's Tweet Suite
Maestro Taps Twitter For a Mobile 'Pastoral'
by Anne Midgette
July 30, 2009
The Washington Post
The National Symphony Orchestra is trying an experiment. It's tweeting Beethoven's "Pastoral" Symphony, Thursday night at Wolf Trap.
For a healthy portion of the classical music audience, Internet-related words such as "tweet" or "Twitter" cause parts of the brain to shut down. Deep breaths. Here's what will happen: The orchestra will use the micro-blogging site Twitter to send text messages of 140 characters or fewer from conductor Emil de Cou during the performance. (Example: "In my score Beethoven has printed Nightingale = flute Quail = oboe Cuckoo = clarinet -- a mini concerto for woodwind/birds.")
Ah, Tweet Mysteries of Life With the NSO at Wolf Trap
by Rebecca J. Ritzel
July 31, 2009
The Washington Post
Way back in 1808, Beethoven wrote a symphony featuring the sounds of three birds: the quail, the nightingale and the cuckoo.
There was no Twitter Bird.
Thursday night at Wolf Trap, the National Symphony Orchestra turned that feathered trio into a 21st-century quartet, becoming the first American orchestra to Twitter program notes during a concert.
"Where are you Twitter people? I know you're out there," conductor Emil de Cou hollered from the podium out to the crowd lounging on the lawn.
A Modern Master's Dances, Stepping Into the Shadows?
by Sarah Kaufman
July 28, 2009
The Washington Post
As of exactly two weeks ago, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company could still drive audiences to a near-revolt, with a performance at Wolf Trap leading to cheering, a few boos and a shouting match between two men with incompatible reactions.
If you can't appreciate it, just leave! bellowed one to the other.
But with the death of the 90-year-old Cunningham on Sunday, his work -- as revolutionary and provocative as it is -- may be swiftly reduced to a memory.
Why the arts matter and deserve support -- especially in bleak times
by Jordan Levin
July 26, 2009
Miami Herald
Two South Florida dance companies closed recently. West Palm Beach's lively, lovely Ballet Florida filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago, and Miami-Dade's gallant Ballet Gamonet, after months of financial struggle, suspended performances in March and seems unlikely to return.
Meanwhile, American Idol host Ryan Seacrest will get $45 million to stay with the show for another three years, and Goldman Sachs made $4.3 billion in profits from April to June. Presumably, both Goldman execs and Seacrest feel like dancing, though it's doubtful the rest of us would want to watch.
by Daniel J. Wakin
July 22, 2009
The New York Times
As a sulfurous smell from the nearby mineral springs drifted past, a half-dozen dancers looked into the waning light of a cool Saturday night here recently and took their final bows as members of the New York City Ballet.
They were among 11 members of the company’s corps de ballet, some barely in their 20s, who have joined the swelling ranks of laid-off workers nationwide struggling to find new ways in the recession. They were told in February, shortly before the deadline for new contracts to be issued, that their employment would not be renewed, mainly for economic reasons. Some left soon after. Others gave their final performances the week ending July 18, as the company closed its summer season at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
For New Leader of the Arts Endowment, Lessons From a Shaky Past
by Robin Pogrebin and Jo Craven McGinty
July 22, 2009
The New York Times
Although it may be hard to remember now, there was a time when the National Endowment for the Arts seemed to be on solid footing, both financially and politically, and could spend its days quietly financing artists and arts groups at its discretion.
Then came the controversies — Robert Mapplethorpe’s homoerotic photographs, Karen Finley’s chocolate-smeared performance pieces, Andres Serrano’s urine-immersed crucifix and others — and from the late 1980s onward, the endowment seemed to be constantly under siege.
After the Republican sweep of Congress in 1994, it was only a matter of time — just about a year — before the N.E.A.’s overall budget was cut by 40 percent, to $99.5 million for 1996, from $162.3 million, and its ability to finance potentially divisive artists (with the exception of some literary writers) was eliminated. For a while there, it seemed as if the agency might not survive.
