A new chapter for CalArts dance dean Stephan Koplowitz

Dance
After a decade in the position, Stephan Koplowitz has stepped down as dean of dance at California Institute of the Arts, aka CalArts. As an internationally known artist, and a Herb Alpert Awardee, it comes as little surprise that after years devoted to dance education, Steve wishes to spend more time mining his own creativity. ...

Kyle Abraham’s “Kollide” in world premiere by BODYTRAFFIC

Dance
It’s not possible — without being extremely personal — to describe what took place when the handsome and effervescent local dance troupe BODYTRAFFIC took to Santa Monica’s Broad Stage last night. Because this happening company isn’t just a triumph for itself—of course, it’s that too—but for an entire community that has waited for lightening to ...

REVIEW: The Los Angeles Philharmonic dances! 2

Dance · Music · Reviews
A big week for dance in Los Angeles: first came the premiere of L.A. Dance Project under the direction of Benjamin Millepied. Then followed Thursday’s symphony gala celebrating what Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel called, in pre-concert remarks, “a union of the arts.” Dance shared the stage, rather marvelously, with our symphony orchestra. Grand ...

Review: BodyTraffic at the Gindi 1

Dance · Reviews
Did you feel the earthquake that rocked the top of the 405 Freeway near Mulholland Drive Thursday night? Oh, you missed it? It was the tremor of excitement when BodyTraffic, Los Angeles’s newest and best entry into the contemporary dance universe, shook the stage of the University of Judaism’s Gindi Auditorium. The ten-member troupe, co-directed ...

Traffic getting heavy near Mulholland Drive. BodyTraffic on board!

Dance
In flagrant disregard of its own name, BODYTRAFFIC, the Los Angeles contemporary dance company, is racing ahead. So we wrote in the Los Angeles Times about Southern California’s sleek repertory dance ensemble. Indeed our local dance troupe BODYTRAFFIC will transfer a slate of cool contemporary choreography across the country to the Joyce Theater — the ...

Barak Marshall’s MONGER danced in mameloshen 1

Dance · Reviews
mameloshen: (yiddish) the mother tongue It’s been a Barak Marshall festival in Los Angeles lately and that’s the way it should be. Because this guy, a nervous bundle of Harvard-educated brains topped by a black-corkscrew hairdo, is the closest thing L.A. offers to a worldly — and if he continues on track — a world-class ...

Barak Marshall’s “Rooster” cock of the walk 3

Dance
BREAKING NEWS, JAN 16, 2011: “Rooster” garners first prize in the Los Angeles “A.W.A.R.D.” show for Barak Marshall and BODYTRAFFIC. Read more in the Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog. Meanwhile, here’s a prior review from December… *  *  * *  * “Black Swan” got you down? Then check out Barak Marshall’s “ROOSTER” — a ...

BODYTRAFFIC & Barak Marshall fete Israel’s 62nd 1

Dance · Music · Reviews
Haim Saban, the expatriate Israeli entrepreneur who made a bundle in the 1990s manufacturing Power Rangers, threw an amazing and generous party for L.A.’s Jewish community to celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaoot, Israel Independence Day, at his newly refurbished Saban (formerly the Wilshire) Theater. Everything nifty about Israeli culture — its youth, high energy, optimism, talent to ...