My recent rant about opera crowds being more respectful of a performance than dance-goers is featured in the Westside Independent, an online magazine about all things Upper West Side.

For those who missed it last night (as I did; was out watching this excellent albeit very disturbing film), here is a clip of Anna Wintour’s David Letterman appearance last night. I love how he gets her to talk about Devil Wears Prada and how real the character is who’s allegedly based on her, when it’s so obvious she really doesn’t want to go there. Hehe, go Dave. No seriously, Ms. Wintour was spotted several times at ABT during the recent Met season so we like her for that reason alone. Plus, DWP is fiction…

She does seem a lot more nervous than I’d expect, and a lot younger.

There’s currently a debate raging in London over Sadler’s Wells (the most important venue there for contemporary dance) and its new season lineup showcasing the work almost entirely of male choreographers. Thanks to Pinballpeople for pointing me to it!

See Guardian posts by dance and culture writers Judith Mackrell and Charlotte Higgins here, here, and here (and read the comments section in that last link; some are by choreographers and are very astute.)

Alistair Spalding, the artistic director of Sadler’s Wells, has apparently responded that he realizes there’s an imbalance but can’t do anything about it; he has to choose the works he thinks best. Spalding posits one reason for the lack of female choreographers as being that women are perhaps not as “assertive” as men, but it’s unclear to me what exactly he means.

Continue reading ‘ARE THE ‘BUZZIEST’ CHOREOGRAPHERS MALE IN THE US AS WELL AS UK? AND DO CRITICS IN THE UK HAVE MORE POWER?’

If you haven’t yet heard, Facebook has modified its terms of service to say that they now own all content posted or uploaded to the site and can use it in any way they wish without compensating you. This is of particular interest to the dance community because there are a great many of us using Facebook and uploading all kinds of pictures, videos, dance reviews, blog posts, etc. Not only can they now use without your permission anything that you upload, but, if you have a Facebook widget on your site inviting readers to post a link from your site to Facebook, it’s treated the same as an upload — you’ve automatically consented to giving full rights over that material to Facebook.

I’m not an IP lawyer but this looks on its face like unenforceable dumbassery — look at this NYTimes review for example: according to Facebook’s new TOS, they own not only Sir Alastair’s words, but the photos and slide show of Evidence as well because of the Facebook widget that pops up when you click the “share” button. So under these new terms it seems that they could sell the photos for use in a commercial or advertisement without any compensation to the dance company or newspaper. Obviously, ludicrously far-reaching consequences.

But since this has a lot of smart people up in arms, I think everyone would do best to reconsider what they upload to Facebook, at least until it’s all sorted out. For more information on this issue, go here, here, and here.

Update: Here’s the latest, kind of summarizing the whole thing.