Ka-thunk. That’s the sound of television pablum landing on my undefended prepubescent brain. And I became the pleasured slave of the half-hour segments about a twin set of tweens — Cathy who adores the minuet, the Ballets Russes and crepes suzette, and Patty who likes to rock ‘n roll, a hot dog makes her lose control.

Yes, the Patty Duke Show theme song forever emblazoned in my memory banks. What a waste of space.

By the time Tania, er … Patricia Hearst and the SLA blew through the insane wind tunnel that characterized the unwinding of the 1960s, I was still unaware, in suburban Pittsburgh, that faraway California was fomenting all this cultural chaos and disseminating it by television. 

The peculiarly American phenomenon — the relentless commoditization of the individual and promoting it in a culture driven by celebrity (exemplars: the two Patties) –  is Kennelly’s concern in “Patty the Revival.” The auteur and his many collaborators have fashioned a smart new musical that expresses ambivalence about the forces that shape our lives. 

“Patty” depicts a journey toward person hood. A large cast of characters cohabits the stage: shrews, nags, and friends. Three women share the lead role, viz, there are three Patties, plus a fourth, a shadow Patty, who haunts our girl. This trifurcation cleverly reflects Patty Duke’s twindom and Patty Hearst’s me or Tanya dilemma. Where, and who, is the real person?

Calling his “Patty” a “revival, Kennelly draws on the language and imagery of religiosity, the pentecostal. But it’s actually a new wave opera, a looney underground musical careening on uppers. To prove it, the best song of the evening, “Colors,” is inspired by Duke’s outré turn as Neely in the film, “Valley of the Dolls.” “Purple, pink, red, yellow and blue” moans the refrain.

I loved seeing”Patty”‘s all-girl cast crammed into Pilar Macchione’s Wonder Woman costumes, teetering on perilous platform shoes, in this garage-rock setting. The venerable performance space has been reconfigured into a new arrangement with a cool thrust stage designed by Lianne Arnold and wired by dedicated tech guy Ed Cha. By producing the whizz-bang “Patty,” Highways’ longtime artistic director Leo Garcia aims to draw the next gen into his shop.   

Wonderful performances with full-throttled song delivery (music by Jonathan Snipes with Kristin Erickson, many worked on the lyrics) and constrained but shapely choreography by Marina Magalhaes mark this show. Less successful were wobbly video wall projections that kept the viewer in a state of perpetual visual motion. I’m not sure where “Patty” takes us or how it resolves (despite a shocking kicker) and the show needs cutting. But its sharp mocking of the cult of celebrity, and the pleasure of watching the all-woman pack interact in funny, believable, yet girlish ways makes “Patty” worthwhile. We were waiting for the man in this paean to American girlhood, but he never showed up. It was all about Patty, rather the Patties. Or the Patty in us all.

_{photo credits: Highways Performance Space, Marina Osthoff Magalhães}

The din of art talk filled the Foundation’s sunlit third-floor loft. So did the industrious output of Herb Alpert creativity. No, not the trumpeter’s music nor his music producing, but rather his colorful paintings and outsized sculptures that decorate the space.

Chatting with choreographer Nora Chipaumire (on left in the photo) about her $75,000 Alpert Award stipend, the Zimbabwean expatriate (now Brooklyn-based) said with charming eloquence: “It’s a jump start on everything. It’s a rosy garden.”

Her flashing smile was equally rosy. The award is huge prestigious honor.

“It’s a promise, but it’s also scary … how to best move forward.”

Chipaumire, whose challenging solo dance-theater is charged with global and sexual politics, said: “I intend to wage relentless propaganda. And I’m not ashamed to use the cold war language.

“I come from the third world, so I’m willing to do more with less. But I’ve always been in want of a safety net. We work without a safety net — we’ve made an art of it.

“I’ve got no time to experiment — with what money? I say what I mean. I’m here to mess up peoples’ perceptions about African women.”

Winner slideshow here …

Herb Alpert speaking at his Foundation

2012 Alpert Award winner for dance Nora Chipaumire

2012 Alpert Award winner for music Myra Melford

2012 Alpert Award winner for theatre Eisa Davis

2012 Alpert Award winner for visual arts Michael Smith

2012 Alpert Award winner for film & video Kevin Everson

Chipaumire & Davis

arts·meme & the awardees

CalArts President Steven Lavine

Director, Alpert Award in the Arts, Irene Borger

Alpert Award honorees in dance constitute an interesting bunch. Over the years they have included

Like this? Read more:

• Herb Alpert, local hero
• Herb & Lani at Disney Hall [concert review]
• Back to school with Herb & Lani
• Rennie Harris discusses his Alpert Award in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

_{Photo credit: Scott Groller, CalArts, also Caroline Graham, C4 Global Communications}

The Herb Alpert Foundation and California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) have awarded the 18th annual Alpert Award in the Arts to five exceptional mid–career artists. The award, a prize of $75,000, recognizes past performance and future promise to artists working in Dance, Film/Video, Music, Theatre and Visual Arts. Herb Alpert, the legendary musician and artist who created the Herb Alpert Foundation with his wife Lani Hall and gave the first Alpert Award in the Arts in 1995, says, “All of this year’s winners represent the essence of the Alpert Award. They take aesthetic, intellectual and political risks, and challenge worn-out conventions. They’re unafraid of the unknown.”

The 2012 Alpert Awardees are: Kevin Everson, Film/Video; Nora Chipaumire, Dance; Myra Melford, Music; Eisa Davis, Theatre; Michael Smith, Visual Arts

A conversation with dance awardee Nora Chipaumire — straight outta Brooklyn — to follow!

Like this? Read more:

• Herb Alpert, local hero
• Herb & Lani at Disney Hall [concert review]
• Herb & Lani at Vibrato [performance review]
• Back to school with Herb & Lani

_{Photo credit: Scott Groller, CalArts}

The 80-minute dance-drama, an adaptation of a Russian short story by Ivan Bunin, opened Wednesday night in Santa Monica.

It is touching to see this great stage artist in a vehicle that suits him so well. His silken physical presence lends weight to a play in search of some — steeped though it is in a dark, sombre setting of Europe of the 1930s. A somewhat flimsy, primarily visual vignette, “In Paris” ‘s tone poem revolves around a love story, more of a fantasy encounter. An absurd atmosphere prevails as Platonovich banters in a gentle voice with the excellent actress Anna Sinyakina, who plays the waitress Olga. Charming wordplay bobbles between the server and her client; for example, concerning the older gentleman’s soup selection — pickled cucumber, borscht, or cabbage.

One of the evening’s many striking tableaux had the Russian planted far downstage on the tilted, rotating plate of a stage. Preparing for his rendezvous with Olga (a movie date, how perfect), Nickolai lathers shaving cream on to his gaunt cheekbones, then performs a punctilious toilette. The famed Baryshnikov legs get good exposure, but more so, as he dresses, we’re privy to a highly personal ritual — a tightly wound gentleman fastening the myriad buttons that hold him together. For, in the play, Misha plays a repressed military man, a characterization he admits was inspired by the memory of his real-life father.

At evening’s end, I caught a broadcast of PBS talk-show host Tavis Smiley in conversation with Misha, in which the former ballet dancer remembers his father, and his Latvian childhood. Since most Americans only know Baryshnikov as a perfect prince who virtually floated into our midst, this inkling of his real story fascinates.

A wonderful capper to “In Paris.”

_{Photo credit Angela Weiss/Getty Images}

Watch Dancer-actor Mikhail Baryshnikov, Part 2 on PBS. See more from Tavis Smiley.

•  Moon for the Misbegotten, Eugene O’Neill, initiated by Richard Herd, directed by Don Eitner, Sunday, Mar 18, Monday, Mar 19 @ 7 pm

• The Crucible, Arthur Miller, initiated by Ann Noble & Bo Foxworth, directed by Armin Shimerman, Sunday, March 25 and Monday, March 26 @ 7 pm

• Our Country’s Good, Timberlake Wertenbaker, initiated and directed by Elizabeth Swain, Sunday, Apr 1 @ 7 pm

• The Skin of Our Teeth, Thornton Wilder, initiated by Blythe Auffarth, directed by Robert Egan, Sunday, April 8 and Monday, Apr 9 @ 7 pm

• The Liar, Carlo Goldoni, initiated by Danielle Jones, directed by Frank Dwyer. Sunday, April 15 and Monday, Apr 16 @ 7 pm

• Oedipus: Parts I & II , Sophocles, initiated by Rhonda Aldrich and Tony Amendola, directed by Casey Stangl, Sunday, Apr 22 @ 7 pm

The sessions are free (donation requested) and there’s free parking. So go.

ClassicsFest 2012 | The Antaeus Company | Mar 18 – Apr 22

We didn’t make it through all of Ovo, Cirque du Soleil’s sweet-spirited show now infesting the Santa Monica beach — in a good way! After awhile, the insect parade started to bug us out. Exiting early, a tad weary, we left behind 1,998 others still cavorting in the colorful carnival.

Opening night in the big tent, which is now spawning its own civilization next to the Santa Monica Pier, was a party. The Cirque-ites broke down our resistance by cramming us, not unlike foraging bugs, with hors d’ouevres, cupcakes, and champagne.

Stuffed to satiation, we ourselves were then crammed into the big tent. So much fun to sit with that many people oohing and ahhing at the dazzling display — clowning, acrobatics, and flying trapeze.  

My favorite number, a relatively simple one, the  red lady bugs with heads budding stamen, lying flat on their backs while juggling slices of kiwi with their paddling feet. Don’t ask. It works. So adorable, fun, such sweet energy, and a feast for the eyes.

[[Show as slideshow]]

Cirque du Soleil | OVO | Santa Monica Pier | thru March 20

It was a wild & crazy cruise. Robert Osborne, usually a pretty tamped-down guy, skipped the light fantastic through the casino with Eva Maria Saint in tow. In this amazing shot by TCM photog, Ted Pio Roda, Ms. Saint, one of the silver screen’s most enduring method actors, looks not one day older than when she co-starred with Brando in “On the Waterfront.”

Read my story about the folks who made TCM Classic Cruise happen — and those who signed on for it. Read it on The Huffington Post.

[The photo demonstrates why some photographers have a great eye. Click on it for detail.]

_{Photo credit: Ted Pio Roda/TCM}

http://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~!]

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

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• Enjoy arts·meme‘s entire “West Side Story” thread

We’re attending the Pacific Symphony performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, considered one of his greatest works, a sweeping musical exposition of the composer’s innermost conflicts — a profound, lifelong fear of death and a deep yearning for the joys of life. Mahler never heard it performed, he died instead, leaving behind a tormented work which finally resolves in life affirmation.

Preceding the 8 pm curtain at  Segerstrom Concert Hall, a special pre-concert “playlet” conceived and written by our friend and teacher, Joseph Horowitz. The Gustav and Alma Show rolls out at 7 pm.

“I Beg You to Be Truthful!” — The Marriage of Gustav and Alma Mahler: A Self-Portrait in Letters
Written by Joseph Horowitz, featuring actors Nick Ullett and Jenny O’Hara. Based on: Gustav Mahler: Letters to his Wife, edited by Henry-Louis de La Grange and Günther Weiss in collaboration with Knud Martner. Cornell University Press.

We look forward to listening with ears, hearts, and minds to what Mahler, and Joe, want to tell us. 

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• Love Among the Geniuses