No more trickle down operanomics

Plus, how art curators are saving marriages.

Hello, I am back. I am going to verbally commit to publishing this newsletter at least twice a week in September, so there is no going back from this promise. In any case, here is some news you can use—we’re talking about arts funding, union-busting, and a bit of drama in the chess world.

A Maid Asleep by Johannes Vermeer (1656-1657)

Union-busting is never cool. And someone needs to tell that to Dallas Black Dance Theatre, which fired its entire main company earlier this month after they established a union under the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). Of course, DBDT contends that it didn’t terminate its dancers because of their unionizing, but rather because of a video they posted on a non-company affiliated account showing them…having fun and looking cool? Seriously, there is nothing that the dancers are doing in this video that’s any different from the hijinks that you might see on, say, American Ballet Theatre’s TikTok. 

Dallas Black Dance Theatre spokesperson James Fuller told the Dallas Observer: “So the things that happened in the video…you may not see it as a big deal. But when you look at the role that the dance company here is trying to play, especially recognizing that this is an African American community, we have to hold ourselves to a higher level of standards because we really want these dancers to be seen as just as good, just as professional, just as prepared, and just as good of a role model as any other person out there, no matter what their color.”

There is a lot to unpack there. But that is done most succinctly by terminated dancer Elijah W. Lancaster, who told the Observer: “So [we] have to look a certain way, because they're trying to appeal to the more conservative white donors and sponsors.”

There is no doubt that Black dancers—and Black professionals in any field—are held to a different standard than their white counterparts. But it is worth examining how organizations that are designed, ostensibly, to uplift Black dancers can actually support them, especially in the face of white supremacy and institutionalized racism, instead of doing…this. It doesn’t seem like the extreme policing of how dancers act on social media—in a way that is no different at all from the way that similar professionals conduct themselves, especially to appeal to a broader audience who may not necessarily find themselves connected to the dance world—is a just solution at all.

Since then, the Dallas City Council has started an investigation into what has happened here because the city pays the rent and utilities for the company—friend of the newsletter Cynthia Dragoni has been covering this matter over on Instagram since the news of the dancers’ termination broke. You can also keep up to date with the terminated dancers on their Instagram account, support them via GoFundMe, and send a letter in support of the dancers to Dallas Black Dance Theatre leadership.

Philadelphians: Go to the opera! Here is some encouraging news. Opera Philadelphia has launched a pay-what-you-want model for its entire 2024-2025 season, with all tickets for performances starting at $11, the New York Times reported. “Our goal is to bring opera to more people and bring more people to the opera,” general director and president Anthony Roth Costanzo, told the NYT.

Good idea! We have previously talked about how opera companies and orchestras are diversifying their programs to appeal to new and broader audiences, but lowering the financial barrier to entry is one of the most obvious ways to actually achieve that goal (a combination of the two is even better). Seriously—it pains me when I go to the opera or the ballet and I see tons of empty seats, especially up in the family circle. At a certain point, it would surely benefit arts organizations to cut their losses where they can and expand their definition of a “rush” to make sure there are more people in seats, even if they’re paying substantially less than the average patron.

There’s also the fact that if we want to sustain these arts, they need to become more accessible because there are so many rich people who would rather pay for the most useless technocrat garbage or pour millions into making themselves biologically two years younger than they would spend money on opera tickets. 

Trickle-down economics does not work anywhere, much less in the arts. Building a societal appreciation for art starts with access from the ground up. I will be very eager to see the results of Opera Philadelphia’s new offering.

The real reason I’m single is that my aesthetic sensibility is far too thoroughly realized in my Brooklyn apartment for me to ever imagine stylistically compromising with a man. But should I marry rich, the solution may lie in hiring an art consultant—who, as Town and Country reports, are helping art-collecting couples make compromises that even their marriage counselors can’t mediate. One such solution: Hanging a painting a husband loved and a wife hated upside down and in their bathroom. Honestly? Maybe I could even be convinced.

No one is doing it like the chess players. Like Amina Abakarova, who is now suspended by the Russian Chess Federation and facing up to three years in jail after allegedly poisoning her opponent Umayganat Osmanova. Ok! Abakarova confessed to wanting to “knock her opponent out of the tournament,” and I guess that is one way to go about it. Luckily, Osmanova recovered and continued playing, ultimately coming in second place in the tournament.

Why do so many museums show the same things? Traveling exhibits have gained in popularity because the companies that put them on make a compelling offer: They’ll handle curating, sourcing, shipping—the works, essentially—as long as museums pay a flat fee. That’s an attractive offer for budget and headcount-stretched institutions, but it doesn’t always work out, as evidenced by the De Pere Cultural Foundation’s recent lawsuit against Exhibits Development Group, which alleges the company did not “live up to its promises” with its traveling exhibitions, ArtNews reported. This is a complicated matter, and ArtNews’s story is worth the full read if you’re interested.

There are certainly cases for traveling exhibitions—especially when it comes to strong, thematic shows and hype-worthy artifacts. But I do think this highlights, above all, a singular issue: A lack of adequate funding for the educational institutions that has led, perhaps, to an overreliance on outsourcing and—god help us—a proclivity for traveling art shows that are simply the work of high-tech light projectors.

Shocking: Funding artists allows them to produce good work. That is a key—and compelling—takeaway from The Guardian’s story examining how Ireland became such a literary powerhouse. There are some pertinent acknowledgments, like the fact that the country’s literary prowess didn’t boom overnight (ever hear of someone named James Joyce???) and that Irish people ostensibly love to spin a good yarn. But more elucidative is that the country itself supports writers.

What a concept! The Arts Council Ireland (An Chomhairle Ealaíon) is the country’s agency for funding and developing the arts. It has a budget of €2 million in bursary awards for writers to get no-strings-attached funding so they can focus on their work; not to mention, the country has a tax exemption on artists’ income up to €50,000 and is piloting a €325 weekly universal basic income program for 2,000 artists. The Guardian does note that to attribute all Irish literary success to these kinds of funding programs would be to ignore the talent coming out of Northern Ireland, which doesn’t have such resources. A culture of well-funded libraries and a robust literary magazine scene also goes a long way.

By the way, did you know that the U.S. government doesn’t even fund the poet laureate? The title—which you must admit sounds pretty state-official—is actually given a $60,000 stipend from the endowment of Archer M. Huntington. In the U.K., the poet laureate receives a £6,000 stipend from the crown and 72 bottles of sherry a year for their 10-year tenure. ▲