December 06, 2005

BBC Dumps Dance Film Academy

The BBC has announced that the follow up to the Dance Film Academy that aired on BBC4 earlier this year has been cancelled. An announcement that should have surprised absolutely no one was met with great sadness by the hacks at Londondance.com.

Although we reported in April that the show had received less than 100,000 viewers, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Board (BARB), the dance community at large seemed a little surprised, when informed at a gathering in London entitled, without a hint of irony, "Dance Film Day", that the show was not being ordered for another year.

LD.com adopting their typically "disconnected from reality" mode said; "The project had planned to build on the success of last years Dance Film Academy". It is not clear how they are quantifying the programmes "success" when it received so few viewers and no publicity from the BBC to even admit the shows existence. The fact that the show has been cancelled will not make the newspapers and it is unlikely that dance makers will lament its passing.

Just to give you some form of comparison the drama show "Lost" which airs on US commercial network ABC attracts a steady audience of 19.9 million. The X-Factor on UK commercial network ITV attracts 7-8 million per week and more people watch the Pottery Channel™ (which we may have made up) than ever saw the Dance Film Academy!

November 27, 2005

Dance Awards You Decide

Awards are often criticised for being one bunch of old, out of touch cronies giving lumps of metal to lot's of other out of touch old cronies. Let's face it, how else would the BBC win anything?

The National Dance Awards are trying to be a little bit different and are giving you, the general public, as unworthy and unwashed as you are the chance to vote for your favourite dance company using the wizardry that is mobile phone technology.

All you have to do is text the name of the dance company that you think deserves the accolade of best company of 2005 to 07946 702 700 with just the name of the company you want to win.

The cost of the message is at your standard rate and you may only vote once from each mobile number you have access to.

We would recommend Jasmin Vardimon Company, Motionhouse or Charlotte Vincent for this year but you can pick who you want. Just remember, a vote for Random is a vote for the dark side and casting your ballot for the Ballet Boyz is just plain silly.

[ Awards Website ]

November 16, 2005

Right Wing Super Hero

In perhaps the most ridiculous editorial ever written, Brian C. Anderson in the Los Angeles Times is under the impression that the best way to get people into see your new movie is to extol, what he describes as, right wing values.

Hollywood has been going through a bit of a slump lately with box office receipts down by 11% , results that have film execs. looking for a better way to make a dollar.

Mr Anderson points in the direction of Spider Man 2 and The Incredibles as examples of box office success based around conservative values.

In one particularly bizarre sentence he states; "A worried Violet, the teenage sister, suspecting (wrongly) that her middle-aged father might be having an affair, tells brother Dash, "Mom and Dad's lives could be in danger. Or worse — their marriage."

Marriage is of particular concern to conservatives. It must be because they seem to spend a lot of time and energy telling you should be married, should stay married and have children who behave similarly.

Anderson seems to be wholly unaware that, in the case of the Incredibles at least, the film is made by Pixar who's CEO is Steve Jobs of Apple Computer fame, probably the most left wing capitalist in the world and the line from the Incredibles was a joke! Also, Spider Man is about a particularly dense kid who has the abilities of a spider! It's entertaining, but profound it most certainly is not!

Hollywood needs to make less films like Aliens vs Predator and more like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, that's how you make money. Mr anderson could not be contacted to be ridiculed!

[ Anderson Rant ] (may require free subscription)

October 31, 2005

Taxing Times for Orchestras

This is one of those stories that really makes you question whether or not the people running this country are, in fact, up to the job and should we seriously consider replacing the whole lot of them with the cast of the Simpsons and be done with it?

The Guardian is reporting today that almost all of the country's orchestras are under threat of imminent closure after it was discovered changes in the law designed to help actors may well mean a huge tax bill for the country's tune-smiths.

Alterations to National Insurance payments that were intended to help pay for benefits for out of work actors may well apply to musicians. If Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (yes they really are called that!), the UK's tax body, determines this is the case then the estimated bill, including back taxes, is put at £33 million. Such a payment would, almost certainly, lead to the closure of most of the country's ensemble's

At this juncture we would like to point out to our overseas readers that almost all arts activity in the UK is funded by the Government or to put it another way, tax payers! The irony of this particular situation would be amazingly funny were it not so ridiculous.

Arts Council England (ACE) appears confident that this situation can be resolved without throwing large numbers of people out onto the street and selling their instruments for scrap metal and fire wood. The information brought to light in the article was actually leaked to the BBC and reported by the Guardian, meaning nobody was supposed to know about it.

Anyone wishing the come and live in this unintentionally hilarious country should make there application to the Home Office on the back of a used $50 bill (the euro isn't worth much these days!)

It may or may not be true that dance companies are soon to be expected to shell out additional taxes to cover the cost of subsidies to farmers so they can afford to eat. No one from the Department of Perpetual Idiocy could be contacted for comment.

[ The Guardian Piece ]