Girlz n the hood hang out with Misty Copeland
It was a real girl’s night out — a few righteous gents joined in — as Dance Camera West and The American Cinematheque joined forces, Tuesday evening, to host a sneak preview screening at the Aero Theatre of “A Ballerina’s Tale,” the new documentary about our first African-American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre, Misty ...
Musical happenings in Hanoi
Oct
21
2015
An exotic and fascinating announcement came across the transom: the inaugural concert of the Hanoi New Music Ensemble, which will focus on three generations of Vietnamese composers. The program will include works by Vietnamese composers Kim Ngoc Tran, Nguyen Minh Nhat, Dang Huu Phuc, Dang Hong Anh, Tay Nguyen, and Vu Nhat Tan. Dates and ...
Where they live: SoCal artists draw at Liz’s 2
Sixth and La Brea is populated with vintage clothing stores, trendy furniture outlets and hip boutique concerns. Liz’s Antique Hardware, at 453 South, isn’t much to look at from the outside. Inside it’s not much better. The store is filled with ancient doors, old light fixtures, bins of tarnished doorknobs, decorative heating grates. Liz Gordon ...
Thank you, Gene Allen
Saddened to learn today that the great Hollywood art director Gene Allen, the man who converted director George Cukor’s vision to rich mise-en-scene, died October 7 of natural causes in Newport Beach. Allen, who lived a long life, perished at 97. Yes, Gene Allen, the much hallowed Academy Award-winning art director of MY FAIR LADY ...
Sit down and clap! 4
Oct
18
2015
Is polite, even fervent, audience applause from a seated position a bygone social custom? This nicety has not completely disappeared; last month at the conclusion of “Raymonda,” at Segerstrom Hall, it was a joy to regard the massive Mariinsky Ballet’s elegant bows in full view. The audience, perhaps still enthralled by the enormity of the ...
Los Angeles talent highlighted in “A Ballerina’s Tale”
Misty Copeland grew up in Los Angeles. So did Robyn Gardenhire. Both are beautiful black ballerinas, Misty, of course, is the first African-American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre. And in the 1990s, Robyn danced in the company’s corps de ballet. Robyn, a very active, admired and even beloved member of the Los Angeles dance ...
Great movies meet great graphic design: Saul Bass
An illustrated lecture by Jan-Christopher Horak, director, UCLA Film & Television Archive, presents a selection of film titles, shorts and commercials by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Saul Bass (1920–1996). Best known as the designer behind the iconic, era-defining title sequences for such films as The Man with the Golden Arm (dir. Otto Preminger, 1955), Vertigo (dir. ...
Rick Prelinger’s visual anthropology @ REDCAT
Oct
13
2015
Rick Prelinger draws on his vast archive to offer a cultural history of greater Los Angeles in pictures. The archivist, writer, filmmaker and UC Santa Cruz professor combines excerpts from long-dated “ephemeral” sources — home movies, newsreels, educational, industrial and amateur films, even studio “process plates” — into a detailed socio-topographical study of L.A.’s bygone ...
Still in time for October dance month @ Brand Library & Art Center
Oct
13
2015
I’m often asked for names of interesting dance companies in Los Angeles. An intriguing locally produced series, Brand Associates’ Dance Series, offers a good selection in its two remaining showcases on a four-company roster on subsequent Saturday afternoons. The performances take place at the Skylight Gallery of Glendale’s fun Brand Library & Art Center. The four ...
Alex Hubbard’s massive ‘canvases’ stud new Maccarone Gallery
Oct
12
2015
The British aren’t coming; they’re already here, in a pub, in Santa Monica. But the New Yorkers are piling in, the latest and best evidence is Maccarone’s tricked-out art gallery, surely a bellwether for the new, gentrifying Boyle Heights. The 6,000 square-foot SoHo-style space, the Los Angeles outpost of a West Village parent gallery, occupies ...