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Tuesday Morning Roundup


by Stephen Becker 11 Oct 2011 7:37 AM

Today in the roundup: Words with an emerging FW filmmaker, the arts funding imbalance and a singer that won’t be pigeonholed.

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FROM FARM TO FILM: When Fort Worth filmmaker Cameron Bruce Nelson graduated from the University of Texas, he moved to an organic farm in Virginia. He spent his days working on the farm and his nights playing music and making videos. And after three years, he was ready to give filmmaking more of a serious go. “The videos became a way of combining music and images. And when I moved to Fort Worth [in 2007], I completely changed my M.O.,” he tells fwweekly.com. “I wanted to try narrative films.” And try he has – two of his shorts played at VideoFest a few weeks back. And he’s got his fingers crossed that one of them will make it into next month’s Lone Star International Film Festival.

THE FUNDING IMBALANCE: A disproportionate amount of arts funding goes to serving white, wealthy audiences while far less money is invested in emerging, diverse arts groups. That’s according to a new study released yesterday by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog group. “It is a problem because it means that – in the arts – philanthropy is using its tax-exempt status primarily to benefit wealthier, more privileged institutions and populations,” says one of the study’s authors. Groups with budgets of $5 million and up receive 55 percent of foundation funding while just 10 percent goes to underserved populations.

QUOTABLE: “It just reflects how I am as a listener. I don’t listen in terms of category or genre, I listen to how something translates to me as a performer. If I’m feeling country, I do country. To limit yourself, to me that’s like being a cook and limiting yourself to one palette of spices.”

– Singer K.D. Lang, discussing the wide variety of music she performs, in an interview with dallasnews.com. Catch her tonight at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

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