Jump to content
This Site Uses Cookies. If You Want to Disable Cookies, Please See Your Browser Documentation. ×

Recommended Posts

This year's honorees are announced. No dancers on the list.

Notably, this year’s slate of honorees includes two artists of Hispanic descent, a historic selection for the Kennedy Center, which was criticized last year by some Hispanic advocacy groups for the lack of Latino artists chosen for the Honors. Prior to this year, only two of the 186 honorees since 1978 were of Hispanic origin.

Controversy erupted after a fiery exchange between Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser and Felix Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, in which Kaiser used profane language

Link to comment

Interesting that the article does comment on the lack of dance

Although diversity of race and heritage is historic among this list, there’s less diversity among artistic disciplines. MacLaine’s selection marks the only theater or film actor among a slate of musicians. Dance was ignored in this year’s crop — although MacLaine spent her childhood and early career in the ballet.

Stevens compared the mix of disciplines to the 2011 honorees, when Meryl Streep was the only actor among a group of musicians.

“The criteria says that there will be diversity among disciplines, but each one cannot be recognized every year,” he said.

But I didn't realize that the KC uses this event to raise money

The Honors also is the Kennedy Center’s largest fundraiser of the year, meaning Stevens and the selection committee must strike a delicate balance between choosing marquee names and deserving artists who will satisfy ratings, patrons, advocacy groups and the criteria of excellence.

Stevens denies that these factors affect the selection or that music tributes are easier to stage for the broadcast.

“We will be honoring [theater and dance] in the future, as we have in the past,” he said.

That adds yet another element to the mix.

Link to comment

I think we can consider MacLaine a lapsed or hoorary dancer. Remember, she got her break going on as an understudy for the lead dancer (Carol Hainy [sp?]) in a Fosse Broadway show, Pajama Game, when a talent scout from Hollywood was in the audience.

I think we got half a glass (dancer ;) this year.

Link to comment

Good point, lmspear, with the note that MacLaine may have gone on for Haney but she was a chorus dancer. Not in Haney's league dancewise, as viewers of the movie version of Sweet Charity may observe. It was Hal Wallis, the producer, who was in the audience that fateful night.

Stevens denies that these factors affect the selection or that music tributes are easier to stage for the broadcast.

Yeah, sure. Not that I don't understand. They want to attract a wide audience to the broadcast, it's not PBS.

Link to comment

They want to attract a wide audience to the broadcast, it's not PBS.

Yes. I'll probably enjoy the Santana, though not the Billy Joel, tribute, but I'm always a little disappointed to see pop stars honored at a place where they very rarely perform. They get enough attention already, IMO.

Link to comment

They do get more money and media attention generally, but I don’t have a problem in principle with popular musical artists receiving the quasi-official recognition that the Kennedy Center Honors represent. Without them the program might not be viable for network broadcast. This way the show reaches as many people as possible. The downside is that they tend to be overrepresented (at least, I'm assuming they're overrepresented; haven't crunched any numbers).

Link to comment
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...