Arts

For years, school systems across the nation dropped classes in the fine arts to concentrate on getting students to pass tests in reading and mathematics. Now, a growing body of brain research suggests that teaching the arts may be good for students across all disciplines. Scientists are looking at, for instance, whether students at an arts high school who study music or drawing have brains that allow them to focus more intensely or do better in the classroom.

California-based multimedia artist Mike Rogers was finishing his photographs for an exhibition in Mexico City when he got an urgent e-mail from the curator: The show had been called off. The capital's contemporary art museums were broke and shutting down. The message was exaggerated. Museums are not closing -- yet. But across Mexico City's eclectic art world, museum directors, curators, artists and performers are bracing for a round of recession-triggered budget cuts that could prove devastating.

By the time Josh Brandy graduated from La Canada High School in 2002, he was staying out all night and experimenting with drugs. He grew estranged from his family and started stealing to feed his habit. By the beginning of 2008, Brandy was locked up in jail, facing 14 years in state prison. Less than a year later, the 26-year-old is sober, studying full time at Los Angeles City College and working part time building computers for the music industry.

The width of an average laptop computer screen is close to 12 inches. The Metropolitan Opera's stage is 57 feet wide. The difference is huge, but the people behind Classicaltv.com are betting $10 million that audiences won't mind downsizing their performing arts experience in exchange for the convenience of instant access. Classical TV is a for-profit website that seeks to make vast libraries of filmed opera, dance and classical concerts available on your computer -- sort of a Hulu.

In an airy studio lined with mirrors, little girls in pink leotards and boys in black shorts and white T-shirts pull themselves up as straight as they can and push their toes out into first position. Their teacher, Ghada Taiyi, walks between them, straightening a pair of knobby knees and adjusting the curve of an arm. She switches on a cassette player, and the strains of a grand piano fill the room. "You wouldn't think we are in Iraq," she says with a smile.

SRINAGAR, India -- At times it was enough just to stay alive, or to keep from breaking down when friends were dying and soldiers came knocking. Ugliness replaced beauty, and the finer things -- art, music, poetry -- seemed unbearable luxuries, like a rich dessert on an empty stomach.

Sisyphus had it easy. Or so it often seemed to the individuals who spent the last decade bringing to fruition Santa Monica College's new performing arts center. The king of Corinth was merely doomed to forever push a boulder up a mountain, only to have it roll back down each time he reached the summit. He didn't also have to deal with fundraising amid a topsy-turvy economy and soaring prices for concrete and steel.

If history is any guide, we can say one thing for certain about the 2008 presidential debates, which are expected to get underway tonight in a televised performance at the University of Mississippi. There will be no discussion -- none at all -- of U.S. cultural policy. Questions during the three planned debates will likely include the crashing economy, the Iraq occupation, taxes and healthcare.

Unprecedented spending is the Bush administration's plan to avoid the worst or something like it in the American economy. But many arts organizations can quip that they were way ahead in the rush to embrace Mother Necessity in hopes of begetting Invention. What many of them called "the perfect storm" hit in 2001.

Artists, always a vocal bunch, have had a lot to say about this year's presidential campaign. They've incorporated references to Barack Obama and John McCain into songs, online videos and even street art. But what do the nominees have to say about the arts?