We don’t have airs, we don’t have pretenses. We’re not Europe, we’re not New York. It’s the Wild West, and we like it like that. What we do have, in spades, is space.

Yes, space. Room to move, grow, think, and innovate. And in our big barn of a Shrine Auditorium, with its hefty square footage, 6,300 seats, and decades of Los Angeles cultural history (here Rudi and Margot pirouetted and pranced, then panted), on Saturday night, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Pasadena Children’s Choir, and a passel of community choirs team up for a massive classical-music stampede. 

And in the ultimate cowboy showdown, Gustavo [Dudamel] meets Gustav [Mahler]. May the best wrangler rope that huge herd of cattle.

Enjoy!
The photo above, courtesy Los Angeles Philharmonic, is clickable.
Cast list here:

Symphony of a Thousand, Gustav Mahler Eighth | Shrine Auditorium | Saturday, Feb 4

Like this? Read more:

• Pierre Boulez conducts”Sur Incises” at Disney Hall
• Herb & Lani serve up Latin -infused jazz at Disney Hall
• Chatting with Alan Gilbert, conductor of the New York Philharmonic

Sounds good to me.

The Welcome Inn Time Machine — series of free micro concerts in motel rooms that explore the history of local experimental music is part of the Pacific Standard Time region-wide examination of post-War art in SoCal.

The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound transforms Eagle Rock’s Welcome Inn into a venue for live performances creating a six-hour event featuring experimental music originating in Southern California from 1949 to 1977.

The micro concerts will take place in individual rooms allowing key moments in sound and music history to be experienced simultaneously and sequentially in a single location.

Repeat that the event, a happening!~ is free.

Welcome Inn Eagle Rock | 1840 West Colorado Boulevard |  Jan 29, 4 – 10 pm

“Vienna Waltzes” had its premiere at New York City Ballet on June 23, 1977. Original cast: Karin von Aroldingen, Sean Lavery, Patricia McBride, Helgi Tomasson, Sara Leland, Bart Cook, Kay Mazzo, Peter Martins, Suzanne Farrell, Jorge Donn.

Yowsa. Nice cast.

Seen below are Balanchine-favorite von Aroldingen, born in East Germany, paired with Martins, a native of Denmark. The two dance to the Russian maestro‘s choreography set to music by a Hungarian. It’s all European.

The duet marks the encounter of a man and woman; it charts their growing intimacy. 

Franz Lehar wrote the “Gold and Silver” waltz in the good old days, in 1902, as a commission for Princess Metternich-Sandor’s “Guld-und-Silber” ball. The music is the sound of Europe before it splintered.   

An absolutely divine sequence begins at 6:50, when the dancers engage in a entwined, backward waltz step. It’s so private and deeply romantic … it’s almost erotic and yet, … all that decorum. Balanchine was such a genius.

Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjY9v9p5dlA

_{Thank you, Marcus Galante, for directing us to the year-end pleasure.}

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• Strauss waltzes ring in 2011 at Disney Hall

Entering super-publicist Caroline Graham’s holiday party in Santa Monica last night was akin to navigating the human traffic-jam Blake Edwards conjured for Holly Golightly in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” It took a full forty minutes to cross Caroline’s cozy living room to greet a friend, and just as long in the other direction to reach the bar. Charles Windisch-Graetz, Caroline’s partner at C4 Global Communications, watched it all in wonder.

 L.A. creatives in attendance bustled with year-end news. They included:

• Jacqueline Bisset, actress, fresh off a London flight, having just finished work on writer/director Stephen Poliakoff’s latest drama for the BBC, “Dancing on the Edge.”

• Norman Pfeiffer, architect, a purveyor of award-winning theaters, chatting about his new performing arts center he’s designed for Chapman University in Orange County.

• Rona Sebastian, executive director of the Herb Alpert Foundation, describing how the arts-loving Alperts have increased their contribution, by $1.13 million, for a total of $2.37 million in scholarship aid at California State Summer School for the Arts.  

• Hunter-Drohojowska-Philp, author, Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Arts Scene and the 1960s rushing her hubby, the musician, David Philp, lead singer for the Automatics, off to a Burbank band gig.

• Also clustered and carousing in Caroline’s cottage-like home were Martin Summers, art dealer, his wife, Ann Summers and daughter, the television  star Tara Summers of “Boston Legal” and “Ringer”; Jean Moore, widow of Irish author Brian Moore; John Walsh, ex-director of the Getty Museum and his wife, Jill Walsh; Lindsey Kozberg communications director of the RAND Corporation, and RAND Africa expert, Ed O’Connell. 

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• Party on, Faye McKenzie!
• Jacqueline Bisset meets Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hE-2JSwKvgs

Chatting recently with the great Tony Award-winning choreographer Donald McKayle (Raisin, Sophisticated Ladies, Dr. Jazz), a professor emeritus at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine, McKayle let drop that he had worked with Michael Jackson on two occasions. And he remembered one funny detail.

“He taught himself to dance,” said McKayle. “He could spin only to the right.”

This got a chuckle out of McKayle. Trained dancers, of course, in their classes, have to practice combinations and steps on both the left and right sides. But the autodidact Jackson was spared this discipline! 

“I worked with him and his brothers on the Ed Sullivan show. I worked [for Sullivan] filling in choreography if the acts showed up without their own,”

Pausing, then again laughing, McKayle added, “I did a lot in my career.”

“I also did a piece for [Michael Jackson] when he was 14. It was a song for a [television] special with Roberta Flack, Free to be You & Me. They were in the window seat of an old brown stone; we had a trampoline in there where they could bounce around. It was very sweet.”

UC Irvine is planning an homage to Donald McKayle next March 8, 2012 to celebrate the establishment of the Donald McKayle Endowment Fund for Modern Dance.

Keep posted for more on that. Such a great guy and a giant of dance.

[nb., we ran into trouble on this post, McKayle told me MJ spun to the right, but on the videos I see him spinning left~! Doing our best here! Cheers, enjoy~!]

Like this? Read more:

• A dance critic’s manifesto on Michael Jackson
• A dancer’s shoes

Suddenly, into the theater and up an aisle rushed an entourage. Burly body guards surrounded a familiar figure. It was the matriarch, Katherine Jackson, appearing only days after the sentencing in the murder trial of her fifth son, Michael. Her third son, Jermaine, 56, hastened by her side as the group of about eight filed into the theater’s only empty row. The house lights dimmed and the stage came alive.

Janet Jackson, 45, had held the show for her mother’s arrival. In a welter of mixed feelings for this beleaguered American show-biz family, the performance began.

Jackson, a hearty trouper, plunged in, delivering a nearly two-hour concert sans intermission. Warbling in her soft but steady voice that occasionally fluttered to the top of her range, she led a stageful of performers — seven dancers, a six-piece band and three back-up singers — through a tightly packaged evening of her hit songs primarily from the 1990s. Out they poured, one after the other, Pleasure Principle, Control, What Have You Done For Me Lately, Miss You Much, Nasty, Escapade, When I Think Of You, That’s The Way Love Goes, Scream, Rhythm Nation. The five-time Grammy award winner, literally dressed in battle gear, anchored herself on this impressive bedrock of pop music.

It was wonderful to see Jackson looking healthy and well after the haunting vision of her brother’s decline. In the intimate 1,127-seat McCallum we got a good glimpse of her. Her widespread Kohl-lined eyes dotting her sweet diamond face, she shook her headful of Shirley Temple curls (only, jet black), sometimes scrunching it with her hand. All of this bobbed prettily atop her fulsome figure. The Jackson family’s remaining scion carts the baggage of a myriad body looks — from anorectic to plump. While she was not an ounce overweight, on Thursday she arrived fully loaded. It was fun to watch — her padded hips, shapely butt, long haunches, and lovely feminine torso.

But would someone please take “control” and dress this beautiful woman for the stage? Jackson’s costumer presented her in tight grey jeans, a white jeans jacket and laced combat boots, which, despite expressing the earthy side of her character, looked dated. It was fine as a specialty look, but not over the long haul of the evening. Not one thread in it moved, for one problem.

Janet Jackson is not her brother. You notice this. Hey, only one genius per family. Both in voice and in movement, she lacks MJ’s crystalline brilliance, his quicksilver quirkiness. She’s more studied, earthy, solid. But as one audience member, Steven, 49, of Los Angeles, noted after the show, “It was genuine. She worked her butt off.”

“Phenomenal,” said his friend Audie, also in his forties, from Palm Springs. “For 45 years old — the energy, the effort. You can see she loves her fans.”

A lovely interlude had Jackson seated on a stool with a hand mike, crooning ballads, Come Back to Me and Let’s Wait Awhile, with its romantic urging for a couple to be patient. Here her voice shone through, breathy and vulnerable. She needs coaching on hand movements however. 

Christopher, 31, of Palm Desert said, “What a show. She had great energy. She got the crowd going.” He added, emphatically, “She’s sweet.”

“I loved how she showed respect to her family,” said Paul, 60. “She was gracious.”

Prior the performance, Carl, a Palm Springs city worker said, “She’s on my bucket list, you know when you get older there are those you want to see. I’ve followed her since the good times. And this is an excellent venue. I would not go [see her] in a huge stadium.”

Local residents were thrilled that Jackson chose to perform at a small venue in their community. “It’s huge,” said Earl, 41, of Palm Springs, attending in a group of 15 family members, “She sells out stadiums.”

Karina, 29, of Rancho Mirage said, “I thought it was amazing. It was a dream. I grew up watching her on “Good Times.” I loved her since I was nine. We’re so honored that she came here.”

Jackson said in a statement, “So many communities are facing cutbacks in the arts and this beautiful place continues to grow and offer programs to the people who live in the Coachella Valley. That speaks to my heart, especially because of their outreach to young people.”

Adding to the evening’s wonderful vibe, Jackson’s presence helped raise $1 million for the McCallum, a result, according to a spokesman, that the theater has not garnered since 2008.

Read this story in The Huffington Post.

_{Photo credit: Marc Glassman for McCallum Theatre}

An amazing experience awaits us; we’re seeing Janet Jackson perform in a very small and intimate space, the McCallum Theatre of Palm Desert.

Stay tuned to The Huffington Post where we will review the concert. [UPDATE, 12-2-11: our review here.]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P4A1K4lXDo

This one is for my brother Mark.

In fact, we’ve got a juggernaut of the arts going on, and it’s bursting out of Los Angeles County in all directions. A fabulous weekend program coming up~!

Saturday December 3 is Orange County day for Pacific Standard Time. Orange County museums collaborate to offer a day of free or discounted admission, curatorial tours and other special events.

Guggenheim Museum at Chapman University
Free admission Dec 3.
10:30 am | Curatorial tour of Everyman’s Infinite Art by Harold Gregor.

Laguna Art Museum
Half price admission Dec 3.
12 pm, 2 pm, 4 pm | Behind-the-scenes tours with Grace Kook-Anderson, curator of the exhibition Best Kept Secret: UCI and the Development of Contemporary Art in Southern California, 1964-1971.

Orange County Museum of Art
Half-priced admission Dec 3.
In conjunction with State of Mind: New California Art Circa 1970, family activities will be held throughout the day. Additional programs include:
12 pm | Curatorial tour, State of Mind
1 pm | Artist talk, Ilene Segalove
2:30 pm | Artist performance, Susan Mogul
3 pm | Curatorial tour, Two Schools of Cool 
4 pm | Screening, Susan Mogul’s Woman’s Building and Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Women/Art/Revolution.

University Art Gallery at University of California, Irvine
Free admission on December 3.
3 pm | Curatorial tour, The Radicalization of a ‘50s Housewife, revisiting Barbara T. Smith’s transgressive artwork Birthdaze. The performance symbolized Smith’s journey away from 50s society life towards 60s feminism, avant-garde culture and beyond.Now, wake up Sunday, December 4, and go to Long Beach.

Start with the Long Beach Museum of Art, where I had a recent first visit — and it’s marvelous. 

Long Beach Museum of Art
Free admission.
11 , 11:30 am, 2:15 pm | Curatorial tours of Exchange and Evolution: World Wide Video Long Beach, 1974-1999.
All day | Screening of Joan Jonas’ I Want to Live in the Country (and Other Romances) in the Lane Oceanview Gallery.

Museum of Latin American Art
Free admission.
11 am, 2 pm, 4:15 pm | Curatorial tours of MEX/LA: “Mexican” Modernism(s) in Los Angeles, 1930-1985.
2:00 – 3:30 pm | Josh Kun, Little Willie G discussion and performance presented by GRAMMY Museum. To reserve seats, rsvp@molaa.org.
3:15 – 4:30pm | Concert, Rubén Guevara and the Eastside Luvers followed by tour, MEX/LA. Legendary East LA Chicano vocalist, composer and producer Rubén “Funkahuatl” Guevara (Ruben & the Jets, Frank Zappa, Con Safos) and his new band perform songs from their new CD The Tao of Funkahuatl. Click here for more event information.

University Art Museum at California State University Long Beach
Free admission.
2 , 3:45 , 5 pm | Curatorial tours, Peace Press Graphics, 1967-1987: Art in the Pursuit of Social Change.
4 – 7 pm | Zachary Ginder Duo live jazz
5 – 6 pm | Lou Reed event ticket drawing. Bring business card for free tickets to see Lou Reed and Bob Ezrin in Conversation on January 27 at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center. 
6 – 7 pm | Closing reception, Peace Press Graphics with wine, refreshments and cocktail snacks. Free to public. Exhibition closes Dec 11.