Jack Cole’s pinnacle, “Ladies in Waiting” 3
Mitzi Gaynor, at right above, in a sotto voce-hiss to Kay Kendall in Jack Cole‘s brilliant “Ladies in Waiting” dance sequence from LES GIRLS (MGM, 1957), delivers bad news. Their friend, Angele (Taina Elg) will soon be exposed to her fiancé and his proper family as a tawdry chorus girl. The number, full of drama ...
The subtle art of the New Yorker cartoon in an HBO documentary
Whether they leave readers amused, inspired or baffled, the iconic single-panel cartoons in The New Yorker magazine have been a cultural touchstone over the past 90 years. They power not on a laugh out loud, but on a brain-tickling smile. VERY SEMI-SERIOUS, a film directed by Leah Wolchok that glimpses the process behind publishing the ...
Buffalo Bill Cody, Maurice Chevalier, The Police played Bataclan
The charming and playful website for the Bataclan Concert Hall lists bookings for rock acts through May 2016. The Chinoiserie-style building dates from 1864, ironically, right when European powers were having imperial adventures in the Far East. Located at the sage address of 50 Boulevard Voltaire, The Bataclan ports a noble history as a cafe ...
Pick your Sugar Plum Fairy NOW!
Hey, you Sugar Plums and Snowflakes! Stop dancing in our heads, and start whirling ’round the Segerstrom Hall stage. This will occur sooner than you can shake a candy cane. In a real first, Segerstrom Center of the Arts is presenting a big-city-style, lengthy run of American Ballet Theatre’s “The Nutcracker” at the esteemed Orange ...
Peggy’s place
Art of This Century, view of the Abstract Gallery, New York, ca. 1943. Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Left to right (paintings): Vasily Kandinsky, Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, 1913; Kazimir Malevich, Untitled, ca. 1916; Francis Picabia, Very Rare Picture on Earth, 1915; Albert Gleizes, Woman with Animals (Madame Raymond Duchamp-Villon), 1914 (partially visible ...
Historic Jack Cole film retrospective to MoMA
ALL THAT JACK (COLE) celebrating a great Hollywood choreographer 18-film retrospective/interviews/talks coming to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Jan 20 – Feb 4 2016 save the dates – film listings in december
Chita Rivera tells it like it is prior to her PBS “Great Performances”
A very fun exercise on Thursday’s Facebook had Chita Rivera — Broadway doyenne, empress and icon, a queen of the art of song-and-dance — chattering on line in a PBS-hosted forum with (among others) Grover Dale of Answers4Dancers with whom she performed in the original production of West Side Story. Chita’s words strike me as ...
On Veteran’s Day, Hollywood legend Norman Lloyd to introduce “The Great Dictator” 1
Nov
5
2015
photo credit: Valerie Macon/Getty Images For November’s edition of “Evening @ the Barn,” the fun monthly presentation series of Hollywood Heritage, a fitting event will truly let freedom ring, American-style. Charles Chaplin‘s political satire, “The Great Dictator” (1940, starring Chaplin, Jack Oakie, Billy Gilbert and Paulette Goddard) will have a special Veteran’s Day screening at the ...
Happy 100th, Frank! Love, The Wallis
For many he remains forever young, but the truth is Frank Sinatra would turn 100 on Dec. 12, 2015. Honing in on just one aspect of his performance career — his movie-making — The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts is rolling out a screening event of three of Sinatra’s best known films. From ...
De Keersmaeker soon revealed in CAP UCLA retrospective
New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff once described Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker as “a cross between Lucinda Childs and Pina Bausch … a choreographer who makes you think and feel at the same time.” That was in 1986, the year that “Rosas danst Rosas” caused a sensation at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next ...